Another excellent entry into the Forza series.

Forza Motorsport 4 is the newest race sim from the developers at Turn 10 and published once again by Microsoft. Like the previous entries, this is an exclusive title for the Xbox brand of consoles, and marks a few changes from the previous Forza title that released in 2009. The changes are somewhat slight, and might make you wonder if this entry is worth the upgrade. But while the changes aren't particularly significant, the shift in interest from the online player base, which provides a huge amount of content for the game online, will end up making it worth the switch alone.

Like the previous games, Forza 4 showcases a number of real life cars taken from a large variety of manufacturers. If you have a favorite, whether it's Ferrari, Aston Martin, Honda, Jaguar or even more exotic models, you're probably going to find it here. There's a pretty large variety of vehicles amongst all manufacturers, and they're doled out to the player through a leveling up system that's akin to Forza 3. The change here is that you can now select amongst a handful of vehicles every time you level up, giving you a bit more variety in your garage.

All of these cars look absolutely gorgeous, both in game and in the new Autovista mode. Autovista allows you to check out a car inside and out while it's parked inside a virtual garage. This also makes use of the Kinect, in that you can walk around your playing space to move the camera around the outside of the car. Certain features can be interacted with, like opening up car doors, popping the hood or trunk, and even sitting down inside the car to check out the interior. There are other points of interest you can either click with the controller or select with your hand. These usually include audio clips that point out specific features, or provide commentary about the vehicle from Top Gear's popular host, Jeremy Clarkson.

My only complaint stemming from Autovista mode when using Kinect is that it seems to be overly touchy. When trying to navigate around the vehicle, I'd swear that the camera would move even when I'm standing still, and trying to hover my hand over the points of interest was an exercise in and of itself. It ended up being more frustrating than fun, and no amount of calibrating seemed to fix this.

One other Kinect feature allows you to actually drive vehicles, albeit not in the career mode. You can take on challenges from the Autovista mode, or race in split screen challenges locally, or partake in trial laps. For the controls, braking and acceleration are automatically done, and you simply put your two hands out in front to control steering. What is nice about this mode is that you can do so either standing or sitting. Not a lot of Kinect games seem to work well when sitting, but Forza 4 does pick up on your movements here quite well. It's not particularly fun for me, having acceleration and braking on autopilot kind of takes the excitement out of it, but it's more of a showcase kind of thing than anything significant to the gameplay.

The last Kinect feature worth mentioning comes from the optional head tracking. This is probably the best feature dealing with the Kinect in the game, in that it actually works quite well. If you're in cockpit mode (which also looks stunning by the way), you can literally pivot your head to peer into turns and so on. I'm not a big fan of cockpit view in general, I'm more of a front bumper kind of guy, but this was almost enough to make me switch. With a little more practice I'd probably enjoy it quite a bit, and it's definitely a feature worth checking out.

Besides the Kinect enhancements, there are not a huge number of differences in gameplay between Forza 4 and Forza 3. As I mentioned earlier, when leveling up you can now select between different vehicles, even if it's only usually three or so. You can transfer save information from Forza 3 into the game, allowing you to bring over earned credits and gifted vehicles. Sadly my last Xbox 360 held my Forza 3 save file, and it's long since entered the electronic Valhalla of RROD, so I didn't try this out. Online functionality has seen an improvement as well, allowing up to 16 racers on one track. I haven't quite decided if this is good or bad, as pretty much every full game I've played online has been a bit like a very expensive bumper car display. It gets a little hectic and crowded, but I'm sure that will thin out over time.

Besides that, everything you've grown to love about Forza so far is pretty much present here. The racing feels great, and there are so many options to tweak that you can make this as sim like as you want, while the game can still remain incredibly accessible for newcomers. There are a ridiculous number of events to partake in, and the career mode is almost entirely optional if you prefer to just race online with buddies, as experience for driver and affinity levels can be earned both ways. Online match-ups work extremely well, and are easy to find. The controls feel great, and once again are tempting me to pick up a wheel when I know I don't really have the space for it. Also, the sound design is downright godly, as each car sounds remarkably distinctive and realistic.

My only minor complaint on the presentation side, and this in light of GT5 being out, is that some tracks seem to have some less than fantastic work done on their background environments. The game runs remarkably smooth, but I do wonder how much graphical prowess is being sacrificed nowadays to keep that 60 frames per second up. You'll notice this mostly in the trees and crowd, both of which look kind of flat. It's not awful by any means, but this is one area that I think Gran Turismo 5 really got right.

Regardless of graphical quibbles, Forza 4 is a fantastic racing experience. There's a ridiculous amount of content here, both online and off, and a huge community that pours a massive amount of support into the game via car clubs, liveries, tuning, auctions and so on. You can spend dozens of hours in this one game without even realizing it, and that's a surefire sign of a well-made video game. If you're any kind of racing enthusiast, there's a good chance you've already picked this up. For everyone else, Forza 4 is worth a go too. It's super accessible even if you don't know jack about racing games, or racing as a sport, and it's a great introduction to this particular genre. I highly recommend picking it up.