I was looking around different sites and everyone seems to really like Forza Motorsport 2023. I’m not so sure these people are into racing games. If they had played some of the previous games they would not be saying the things they are.

I laugh when people claim I’m a so called pony because I say things they don’t like. I’ve gamed more than them, with at least 300 hours into each FM game. I’m really into racing sims and that is why I have issues with this game and the people praising it.

First, the physics on the road cars is bad. The cars understeer more than ever. If you go back to previous games and drive the same car you’ll see. For the race cars they feel more or less the same, but some really feel like you’re taming a beast. Plus Porsche GTs don’t understeer any more!!!!!

Graphically this is a mixed bag and stuff looks just off. The backgrounds and draw distance are better. However, the lighting is off, it looks like when they port a PC racing sim to console. It lacks FMs usual crispness but there’s still some good contrast. I think the pursuit of ray tracing in the game had them doing unnecessary stuff to allow them to use it. When I first saw the ground textures on the track or grass, I thought it was from FM3 or 4 and they just increased its resolution but not its quality. When you go off track it doesn’t seem the dirt you kick up is dynamic. Even you can look at some signage on the track and see it’s a lower res than before. I was racing into the sun and it looked washed out and almost like the sun in the 7th gen Ridge Racers. At night the game looks fairly decent, lights can pop and cars can look good. The weather effects are a downgrade, the rain doesn’t look as good as it used to. The fog is low res and looks like fog in early 2000s F1 games.

Car detail can look good on race cars. Some of the street cars can look a bit basic at times but, others can look good like the new ones. Apparently, some of the models were upscaled ones from older games. The car sounds are still really good in this. The engine, gearbox whine and exhaust notes are still great.

The racing itself in the multiplayer is good like it used to be. I wish they had increase the player count. The game crashes more but it’s fun. The new fuel and tire strategies can make for good racing. This is the first Forza with modeled pit stops and different tire compounds. I did some much running on the first day I played online, that I got the achievement for covering 100 laps. Only 0.25% of all people have gotten it.

The single player races in the builders cup had me bored. It looks like you have to do at least 3 laps of practice at each track, which is annoying. The AI didn’t seem better like T10 bragged about, it just had a way more powerful car. I had to wait for the AI to make a mistake or get caught up in lapped traffic to catch up.

Track-wise we’re missing a lot from older games. This is to keep people coming back since it’s a GaaS. Daytona, Sebring, Long Beach, COTA, Monday, Road Atlanta are missing. Abu Dhabi is coming next month with the full ‘Ring next year. There’s a few new tracks, Grand Oak is the best new fictional track. Hakone is a meh track made to show off the graphics. Then they get low effort with Eagle Rock Speedway, they took an oval and put a chicane randomly in the middle of it. For real world tracks, Mid Ohio and Kyalami are fun.

In terms of cars it’s good to have newer race cars in the game. My ranting on T10’s forums is partly why they got them in there. Several of these cars are from 2018 and in were meant to be in FM7. But one car is locked behind a month long event. To get the ARX-05, you have to do 4 sets of five races. A new set opens at the beginning of each week. Once you do all those, you unlock the event you have to do to unlock the car.

The new Forza is at the bottom of the tier list next to FM5. Low car count, old models, worse lighting, worse weather, worse handling street cars, and lower res environments. This is not a next gen game, I have played the alphas builds of this on Xbox One that looked better in places than this does. Those builds had some cars that aren’t in the game yet. If you’re big into league racing or FM fan, get it if you want. I suggest you still wait til it launches then get the VIP for $35 as that all its really worth. If your paying $70-$100 you’re getting robbed, the amount of content doesn’t justify it