Forza Motorsport 6 Review: The King Has Returned

Forza Motorsport 6 has beautiful visuals, a lot of gameplay options, and real-world weather and night effects. Could this be the ultimate driving experience? Our review.

9

It’s been nearly two years since the last Forza Motorsport, which was a launch title for the Xbox One. As is the case for the majority of launch titles, they’re great for showcasing a new console’s advancements over the previous generation, but they don’t exactly showcase its full ability, nor the full ability of the studio working on it. With almost two years under its belt since Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10 Studios is releasing Forza Motorsport 6 next week. And after playing countless hours, I can say this isn't just the game to showcase Turn 10's capabilities. It's the best driving game I've ever played.

Kitchen Sink Included

While Forza Motorsport 6 doesn’t have the open-world vibe of the Forza Horizon series, I never felt like I was constrained with what I could do while playing. From the moment I started the game, I was given the opportunity to access a large amount of game modes: a campaign spanning across five volumes telling the story of motorsport; a free-play mode that allows me to drive any of the over 450 vehicles available in the game with the option of split-screen play; and a multiplayer mode that has several match options including an “All in Tag” match with players infecting each other with a virus, and several others. All the while earning credits, driver experience and affinity experience depending on what car manufacturer I’m using.

If I want to take a break from putting the pedal to the metal, I could spend my time gawking at the vehicles in my garage through a new ForzaVista mode. The ForzaVista mode is one of those things that doesn’t sound that exciting in text, but experiencing it firsthand is completely different. I can view nearly every inch of each vehicle and learn more about it and the manufacturer's history through visual cues. I can get inside of the car and view its dashboard, seats, stick shift, and other areas. And it’s all in beautiful 1080p running at 60fps, just like the rest of the game.

Pleasing To The Eye

Variety is the spice of life, and I could get bored with the look and feel of a vehicle. But the inclusion of both modes to customize and tune my ride keeps things feeling fresh. Nearly everything on my vehicles can be be changed to fit my personal driving style, or I could let the game do the work for me by automatically tuning my vehicle to meet the demands of future races. While I don’t consider myself a gearhead, I can certainly appreciate the option to give players the power over nearly every aspect of their vehicles that could help improve performance.

The customization doesn’t end there as Forza Motorsport 6 introduces modifications that can be introduced prior to the start of a race. While in the pit stop, I can purchase mod packs that will offer random mods depending on what kind of pack is purchased. Each pack varies in pricing, but the more I spend, the more likely I’ll receive a Super Rare mod. The inclusion of mod packs opens a whole new way to play Forza as I found myself constantly checking to see if using a certain range of mods could help me gain an edge over my competition. 

Hit The Ground Running

Once I hit the road, I was impressed by the amount of work Turn 10 Studios put into each track that’s based on world-famous locales. I got to experience the thrill of racing on the Daytona International Speedway, driving through the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro, and gained access to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after its extensive track renovations were completed in 2014.

The most surprising experience I came across was how well weather effects and night driving was portrayed in Forza 6. The water droplet effects were incredible to witness, and for the first time in my experience, puddles on the track have a noticeable effect and can impede how my car performs. As for night driving, I was either in nearly complete darkness if I was driving on a track that was far from spectators, or the track had a fluorescent hue to it due to the shine from lights illuminating the track. The visuals of each track wasn’t the only difference in night driving as the cooler temperatures affected driving as my tires wouldn’t stick to the road as well, causing me to drift more than I would during the day.

The sense of speed is also impressive in Forza 6. I worked my way through the game’s campaign, which gave me access to more powerful machines to drive. But I decided to jump from a Category D vehicle, which is quite low, to a Category X, which is insanely fast, just to see the speed difference. I learned a valuable lesson that I should never think about driving a Formula One car at Daytona. The amount of casualties from my joy ride would easily reach the thousands.

Checkered Flag

Forza Motorsport 6 is what I always wanted a next-gen driving game to be. It offers beautiful visuals, a wide variety of options, and uses real-world physics to dictate how vehicles perform. I could easily see myself playing Forza 6 for several months, or even years. I've never experienced a driving game with this level of polish, and it's unlikely anything will unseat it in the near future.

Senior Editor
Review for
Forza Motorsport 6
9
Pros
  • Beautiful visuals
  • Lots of gameplay options
  • Visual customization and tweaking
  • Weather and night effects
Cons
From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 8, 2015 12:01 AM

    Daniel Perez posted a new article, Forza Motorsport 6 Review: The King Has Returned

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 2:17 AM

      Wow.

      That's one hell of a game.

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 5:03 AM

      Goddamn, I'm trying to avoid buying this, but the will to resist diminishes with every waking hour.

      • reply
        September 8, 2015 7:01 AM

        I know right? every review is gushing with praise.

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 7:05 AM

      Man, I could go for a new racing game, but I don't have an Xbone....

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 10:08 AM

      Looks like fun:

      https://youtu.be/rVWyHtbp6c0

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 10:09 AM

      Thanks for the review, those screenshots look amazing, FM6 is looking great with lots of content and no micropayments, wish they could have included dynamic weather and day/night like FH2 and other titles have (pCARS, GT5), hopefully they will add that somewhere down the road.

      Can't wait for my Ultimate Edition to unlock on Thu!

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 10:10 AM

      this may be my xbox one purchase maker

      • reply
        September 8, 2015 11:28 AM

        Seriously. I was thinking the same thing.

      • reply
        September 8, 2015 1:37 PM

        Get that Forza special edition one. Looks so nice

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 12:24 PM

      So what kept it from being a 10? Don't really see anything negative in the article and no negatives listed.

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 1:01 PM

      Very cool, nice write up, sounds good. Am a huge Horizon 2 fan may have to dip in this as well.

      Cool.

    • reply
      September 8, 2015 2:13 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      September 13, 2015 9:48 AM

      The one thing I hated most about Forza 5 was the Drivatar system. I think they knew it was a problem because you "won" the race as long as you were in the top three. Does anyone know if they did anything different this time with Drivatars?

      • reply
        September 13, 2015 12:19 PM

        I just played the demo and the Drivatar system hasn't changed. So I'll sit this one out. Maybe Forza 4 will get backwards compatibility, that was the last Forza that I truly enjoyed.

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