Forza Motorsport is back with it’s seventh title, with Project CARS 2 & GT Sport out it now faces stern competition to be the best racing simulator on the market, can it race ahead or will it blowout? Read on to find out more.

Forza Motorsport 7 quickly fell foul of criticism of its handling over the VIP recently, which Turn 10 quickly addressed and apologised for. Putting that aside they have made another brilliant racing title that looks simply incredible.

As with previous Forza games you get a small insight into driving the game’s Cover Car, this year the Porsche GT2 Sport. It’s bloody awesome, but of course you won’t get that car again until you have enough credits to do so.

Forza fans will feel at ease instantly with the game. The career sets you off on a journey, giving you the chance to race against a myriad of different vehicles across the world. Unlike Project CARS to you don’t have as much freedom to define how your career moves go, but there is enough flexibility within each completion for you not to really notice. As you gain more experience different cups unlock before you can compete for the Forza Drivers Cup.

Forza is all about your car collection and nothing has changed in 7. With over 700 cars to collect you’ll spend plenty of time looking through the cars you have bought or earned through rewards. The more cars you collect the higher you collection level goes, initially this unlocks further tiers or more exotic cars and when you reach the fifth tier you’ll earn rewards such as new driver uniforms, free cars or credits to add to your account.

Having played both titles this year, Forza 7 feels slightly more accessible than Project CARS 2, I’m never going to be a good enough driver to play without assists, but Forza makes me feel like an awesome driver despite having some on.

Out on the track all the cars feel very individual, as you corner each cars rolls slightly differently, you can feel how some stick to the track better than others, it’s a brilliant experience. I love driving from the cockpit, it’s where you get the best sense from the car, the views and sounds really make you feel like you are there.

This is of course helped by the incredible presentation. The game is stunning to look at, even on a 9 year old TV – driving on a bright sunny day looks great, but it’s when the sky starts to change colour, then the drops of rain begin to hit your windscreen that you start to notice how fantastic things look. The lightning is incredible and when the track really starts to get wet you can see so much detail, I really can’t wait to play this on the Xbox One X and a new TV.

All the of the game’s sounds are fantastic, especially the Porsche’s, thanks to the deal between Turn 10 and Porsche. The only disappointing noise is when cars collide,they just seem to thud. If you allow the game to, the AI are really aggressive drivers and it makes for some fantastic racing, especially on some of the tighter tracks in the game. It doesn’t always direct affect you but it’s great watching cars fight in front of you causes some great smashes.

I’ve spent my time reviewing the game playing with the Thrustmaster Sparco steering wheel (enter here to win one!) and using a controller, which ever route you decide to go down will see a comfortable experience either way. The force feedback on the steering wheel is excellent meaning you can feel every bump in the road, while the controller also reacts well thanks to the vibrations. I noticed a slight delay in the reaction of the driver hands compared to mine in cockpit view but otherwise it all worked really well.

Before each race takes place you are able to add mods in order to earn more XP and credits. These mods will change things such as forcing you to drive with stability assists turned off, or having to drive in cockpit view. They are set you challenges such as asking you to make set number of good passes in a race.

These mods are earned by opening Driver Crates, which compared to last year have changed in the sense that they are no longer unlimited, you’ll get 5 uses out of some and then you’ll need to earn them again. Of course with the current discussions about loot boxes some Forza Fans are not happy about this mechanic – I’m frustrated that some of the cars are locked behind the crates, but for the rest of the ‘prizes’ I don’t really see the issue.

Forza 7 makes some great improvements on 6, presentation wise especially, it’s great to see Turn 10 get so much out of the Xbox and there is little doubt that it’s going to be one good looking game on the Xbox One X – the driving experience is excellent and there is plenty of racing to be done. It’s sad to see that cars are being locked behind the loot crate system but the way things are going we may see that change. Otherwise Forza Motorsport 7 is a must buy.

Thanks to Xbox for supporting TiX