It’s a miracle! There we were, innocently eating a bag of Skips; less a potato snack, more of a corn snack, though we’ve titled this thusly just so everyone knows what we’re talking about. Anyway, there we were, when we pulled one out that looked like this:

If you look closely, you can even see nose and eyes. Freaky, huh? Do you have any potato-related products that look exactly like end-game bosses from popular Xbox 360-exclusive franchises? Perhaps you have a Real McCoy that looks like Saren, or a hand-cooked Kettle Chip that looks like Hitler’s arms?

If you do, we want to hear from you. Phone this number now: 7

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain!

Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

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We especially love the way these guys are talking about their game as if it’s not the shittest thing ever to take place on a television screen. Kudos, guys… kudos.

9. Great Battles: Medieval

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The battles look like a medieval leper has swallowed some toy soldiers and sicked them up onto a fungal snooker table. Check 14:33 for some equally shocking close-up action.

8. Halo 3: ODST

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Check from 1:11 onwards. There’s enough jaggies, Trials HD’s developers went on to base many of their more challenging courses on the various bits and bobs in this cockpit. Halo 3: ODST remains the only game ever at whose review event, we stopped playing and asked a technician to check for us if the Xbox 360 was set to HD.

7. Tron: Evolution

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Your game’s so ugly, it couldn’t be worse if the whole thing were voiced in a creepy form of German. Oh, wait…

6. Two Worlds

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When you’re not being chased to the ends of the earth by rampantly aggressive wildlife, the visuals of Two Worlds were hauntingly shit.

5. The First Templar

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At about 0:45 you can witness the startling-looking combat, but let’s be honest, close your eyes and pick a spot on this video. Then keep them closed. It’s for your own good.

4. Way Of The Samurai 3

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Skip straight to 6:57 for a demonstration of not only how terrible this game looks, but also what type of person the guy demoing it is.

3. Destroy All Humans: Path Of The Furon

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Oh, dear god. Make it stop.

2.  Risen

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How much more awful could this look? None. None more awful. Skip to 0:49 for some particularly piquant awfulness.

1. X-Men Destiny

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Skip to 13:30 when it finally comes out of barely-acceptable cut-scenes and into the shocking last-gen environments.

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain!

Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

Merry Christmas one and all, and good joy to you fellow persons. Sing songs of merriment and deck our hall-tubes with jingleberries. It’s over. The games for this year are over, as evidenced our last issue of this year in which our biggest review was probably – *looks through reviews* – well, it’s probably none of them, to be fair. Lord Of The Rings, maybe?

Before we played it, we couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for War In The North. Here is a game set in a traditional fantasy setting, in the northern part of its world (remind you of anything?). It matters not its association with a world-famous IP. Though we’re inclined to believe there are plenty of people who will buy it for that sole reason, to those familiar with the history of games with Lord Of The Rings on the cover, all it was going to achieve was to ensure our wallets stay in our pockets.

It’s not very good. It would be nice if, just from time to time, something did surprise us. Apart from the dearth of reviews, you may also note that we have doubled the resolution of our scoring system as we move into the new year. We’ve always tried to be as accurate as possible when it comes to scoring, and a ten-point scale allows us to be doubly so. It’s also a little more in keeping with how people talk about review scores out there in the wild. And that’s all the news.

Anyhoo, I digress. The team is scattering to the four corners of the country to be with their families, but we shall return come the new year. Until then, thanks to everyone from making 2011 one of our best ever.

Dan Howdle

Deputy Editor

7. Hitman: Blood Money

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6. Portal 2

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5. Assassin’s Creed

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4. Gear Of War 3

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3. Call Of Duty 2

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2. Mass Effect 2

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1. Crysis 2

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If you liked this, you may also like:

The Ten Worst Game Trailers Of All Time

Half-Life 3: Top Five Things To Expect

The Ten Best Side Quests Ever

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain! Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

Nevertheless, we’d heartily recommend you check it out, if only to feel all warm and fuzzy over moments such as launching the cow in Earthworm Jim, finding Yoshi atop Princess Peach’s castle, and escaping from a giant worm during Gears Of War 2. Or perhaps that should be warm, wet and sticky in place of fuzzy? We digress.

This feature is epic in every sense, featuring video of the moments and in many cases the people behind them offering their insight on what went into creating them.

With this in mind, head over to NowGamer’s 50 Greatest Gaming Moments portal to see what other Xbox titles made the cut.

5. Source Engine 2.0

The Source engine is long in the tooth. “Ah, yes 360 Magazine, this one is indeed obvious,” you say, “but what can an engine really do beyond make things look better?” Peter Molyneux said recently, “the next next-generation of consoles will enable us to create virtual world that are indistinguishable from the real world.” To us, this seems like a pretty obvious piece of conjecture, but more importantly it’s not photorealistic graphics that excite us about next-generational potential, it’s advanced behaviours.

Ultimately, you can tart up the graphics as much as you like, but if the physical world isn’t behaving as it should, it’s little more than a shiny plastic demi-reality – a cheap knock-off moulded in some East Asian sweatshop.

With Half-Life 2, Valve adopted Havok physics to take care of water, smoke, explosive, compressive and gravitational behaviours, and while in some instances this appeared to do a fairly decent job, take a look at what Havok physics are capable of now and just bear in mind that all that’s holding this technology back is the small problem of not having a platform with the necessary power to run it commercially – something that will no longer be the case come the next console generation. Enjoy.

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4. Xbox 720, PS4

This, to us, seems pretty obvious too. With the best evidence pointing to an announcement of Half-Life 3 at E3 2012 and the best evidence we have of a new Xbox being announced at precisely the same time, one only has to put two and two together to make four. This will not preclude a scaled-back version arriving for Xbox 360 and PS3. To cut off your game from over a hundred million installed users is not a decision even Valve would dare to make.

Those with long memories may remember Half-Life 2 appearing for the original Xbox back in late 2005. The game, believe it or not, hit the console just one week before the launch of the Xbox 360, a console that then had to wait another two years before it would receive its own version of the game. When looking at what a developer/publisher is likely to do in the future, you really only need look to the past. Here, since we suspect Half-Life 3 to be primarily a next-gen offering, the timeline would be: PC version to launch alongside the Half-Life 3 equivalent of the chuggy old Xbox version of Half-Life 2 (for 360, PS3), followed by a wait for the official next-gen console version, which will then shat all over the PC version sometime towards the end of 2013. It’s Valve’s thing. It’s what it does.

3. Portal

The closing moments of Half-Life 2 – in which we witness Freeman’s next mission objective (a massive Aperture Laboratories shipping vessel) – made one thing abundantly clear: Portal exists in the same universe as Half-Life and the two franchises are about to collide. So what could this mean in terms of Half-Life’s classic gameplay?

Well, what happens when you mix next-generation physically modelled water (as opposed to the current generation’s surface effect), with portals? Fire a portal at the bottom of a lake and another into a room full of guards and you have but one permutation. We expect water and portals to be a big deal in Half-Life 3.

But more than that, apart from the odd sentry bot we really haven’t explored what combat-plus-portal can really accomplish. Sniper on the far balcony? Shoot a portal behind him then crowbar the back of his head while he watches you disappear into some mysterious wibbly-wobbly hole some way distant. Enemies coming up the stairwell? Portal the floor, other end on the outside of the top floor of the nearest skyscraper… done. The possibilities are endless. Expect creative, emergent gameplay that combines the best of both worlds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. G-Man

He’ll be in, running about in the unshootable, unportalable parts of the background with his friends Deep Throat and Smoking Man. They all hang out together you know? Uni buddies, we heard; attained B.A. (Hons) in ‘mysteriousness’.

1. Ezio Auditore Da Firenze

Soul Calibur V, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Assassin’s Creed. Ezio is everywhere, so we fully expect to see him appear in Half-Life 3. Of course, he and his universe would have to be linked somehow to the Half-Life and Portal universes, but we’re willing to bet that someone, somewhere has already found a way. Perhaps a third party could sponsor said appearance and wrangle a celebrity in to promote it.

This’ll do: a portal in Ezio’s face leading to a place where Roger Daltry bathes in Heinz baked beans. Mad? Yes, but quite frankly no less mad than the plot of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Yeah, people’ll buy that. They’ll buy anything.

Got kids? Then check out our guide to the best Kinect kids games for this Christmas.

Looking for a gift for a gamer this Christmas? Check out our gifts for gamers guide.

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain! Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

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Worst game trailer? What is it? What does it mean? Truth be told, we don’t know. All we can be certain of is that the louder you turn up the music, the better – ahem! – we mean the worse (of course we mean worse) this becomes. Belt it out and dance along. In fact… don’t.

9. Ribbit King Plus – Frolf Dance

Worst game trailer? Well, can you do the Frolf Dance exactly as you see it on screen? Does anyone care? No, in both instances. This trailer is truly awful, but it is from one of the best games of all time, and by that we mean worst games of all time. Which means best.

8. Final Fantasy XIII – My Hands (Leona Lewis)

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Worst game trailer? Okay, look, Final Fantasy XIII wasn’t a bad game. In fact, we’d even go as far as to say that we loved it. But this isn’t about bad games, this is about bad trailers, and this saccharine anti-masterpiece makes us so sick, each time we watch it we puke our own skulls right out of our heads.

7. Operation Darkness

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Worst game trailer? We’re watching an anime character reminiscing the horrors of World War II. What a tragically perfect, beautiful and thought-provoking way to honour those who died in the conflict. But wait! We can throw fireballs and… some of these Nazis are werewolves, while others just have incomprehensibly enormous jugs. Man, those history book had it so wrong.

6. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Debut trailer)

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Worst game trailer? Controversial? To some, but no good list passes up on an opportunity to rip into the world’s biggest franchise. Why should it? It’s a big boy. It can take it. What we specifically hate about this trailer is the laziness. It seems all you have to do is stick a horn sound over something – one that rhythmically goes bleeeeeugh! – and then cut between bleeeeeugh! lots of shit blowing up bleeeeeugh! and people abseiling down the bleeeeeugh! side of a bleeeeeugh!

5. F.E.A.R. 3 (Point Man)

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Worst game trailer? You’re a brave developer/publisher if you ditch both your game engine and your company’s talent for CG in favour of live action. You no longer stand shoulder to shoulder with other CG game trailers, but face to pubic hair with the Hollywood film industry. Is your trailer as accomplished as that of the latest Bourne movie? If you only have the budget for a Jesus impersonator to run around a building site with a rubber gun, it was probably best to stick with the CG.

4. Champion Jockey G1 Jockey and Gallop Racer

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Worst game trailer? When his wife saw this, she left him; this is the exact same face he wore during you know what, and she suddenly realised that he wasn’t actually enjoying himself as she’d always thought. He was just pretending. This right here sums up beautifully why we think motion control is a big, fat waste of time.

3. Halo 4 (Debut Trailer)

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Worst game trailer? What? What’s this? An Xbox 360-only magazine moaning about the Halo 4 trailer? Damn right. This is the epitome of awful. When you first hit play, you’re thinking, ‘Hey, there’s 1:41 of this, must be good,” then there’s 11 seconds of age gate warnings, followed by another 39 seconds or so of an orange blobby thing that has nothing to do with anything.

Master Chief’s ship is on fire, so he rocket-pack’s his way to the blown-open part at the front. Then, seeing that whatever blew his ship’s nose off is clearly nowhere to be seen, he does what? That’s right; he readies his pistol. Of course. What else would you do when standing in space? But, by far the worst thing about this trailer for us is that people actually got excited about it. About what? No… really. About what? Nothing happened. If you believe something did happen in this trailer do let us know in the comments below, but to be honest, we’re convinced it’s a figment of everyone’s imagination.

2. Duke Nukem Trilogy

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Worst game trailer? Now, a lot of people think this trailer is a joke. A tongue-in-cheek masterpiece designed to make the knowing, noddin, intelligencia engage in a masterful round of onanism. Aren’t we clever, because we get it? We get the irony and look at all those fools out there who think this is awful. It’s genius!

Bzzzt! Wrong. This trailer was made to play on loop in the Duke Nukem booth at E3 2008. It has no irony. It may be funny because, hey, it’s bad, but tongues were very far from cheeks when this was made. Glad we have that one cleared up.

1. Wolf Quest

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Worst game trailer? I smell Elk! Clearly, this is one of the worst games ever made. Sure, it looks like a fairly stupid simulation of wolf life, but dig beneath that stupid veneer and you’ll find a whole new level of stupid, untouched by the hands of those not stupid enough to appreciate it. And it’s boring. There’s literally not one activity here that looks the remotest bit fun, and if you look very carefully, you can see the subtle looks on the faces of the not-very-good child actors they’ve roped in to pretend to enjoy it; they’re holding back a geyser of vomit.

Got kids? Then check out our guide to the best Kinect kids games for this Christmas.

Looking for a gift for a gamer this Christmas? Check out our gifts for gamers guide.

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain! Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

There was a time when we all believed that there would be big, daddy adult games appearing for Kinect on a regular basis. Some might be a little disappointed that barely enough of those have appeared so as we might notice, but hang on.

Sit your average teenager down in front of Kinect Joyride and he’s likely going to projectile puke until someone turns it off and sticks on Call Of Duty – but young kids? That’s a different story. Kinect, ultimately, has been more about ‘Kinecting’ with both our children, and our own inner child than about proper gaming. But finding the right game for your kids is a minefield.

There’s a chasm of difference between the quality of the offerings out there and so here, we present to you, your very own guide to how to get the most out of your playtime with your kids this Christmas.

So let’s start young and work our way up:

Ages 0-2

Call Of Duty

No, we’re not suggesting you buy your baby Call Of Duty. But hopefully, he or she will be asleep and you’ll be playing this or Skyrim. If awake: feed fruity baby goo, burp, change, then get back to Skyrim or Call Of Duty.

Ages 2-6

1. Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster

There really is only one choice here. It’s not that there aren’t other games for this age group; there are plenty of other games for this age group, but ultimately, there’s a reason Henson’s educational puppets have remained foremost in the public psyche for the last three decades. They. Are. Awesome.

Put Once Upon A Monster in front of your kids and you can be certain enough they’ll be totally enthralled for the next five or six hours, you can nip down the pub for a few Sunday pints*.

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Fun: 9

Energy Required: 5

2. Kinectimals

It’s an oldie, but still a goody. Why? Because there are few other games out there that allow kids to pet their woogie wickle woogums, train him to leap around their imaginary garden and wash his wickle face with wibbly-wobbly woo. If your kid wants a puppy for Xmas, this is also a great testing ground for how likely they are to stay interested. If the Kinectimals disc is down the back of the sofa and covered in cranberry sauce by Boxing Day, at least you know buying them a Labrador was probably not a good idea. Oh, and Kinectimals is great fun.

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Fun: 7

Energy Required: 6

3. Kung Fu Panda 2

It’s funny, dead simple to play and offers quite substantial variety. Like all games in the low age bracket category, it also isn’t particularly demanding of skill. Kids can just jump about in front of it for a couple of hours, be told they’re doing well, wear themselves out, then fall asleep so you can play Skyrim. Because, come on, you really should be playing Skyrim.

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Fun: 6

Energy Required: 8

Ages 6-12

1. Kinect Sports & Kinect Sports Season 2

Not rocket science this; get the whole family together, jump up and down a little bit, get puffed out, watch kids play, eat turkey sandwich even though you’re already full, jump up and down some more, say ‘careful gran!’, sit down, feel sick, fall asleep for indeterminate amount of time, awake to find kids still going. Big families need Kinect Sports in their lives; it’s like having another parent.

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Fun: 7

Energy Required: 8

2. Kinect Joyride

It takes no skill whatsoever, but most kids don’t clock onto that. What’s great about Kinect joyride is it allows kids to beat adults with relative ease. The game’s always messing with the speed of the cars to keep things close, to keep things fun. No one can be ‘good’ at this, but by the same token, no one can be ‘bad’ at it either. Perfect for a family across a wide age group. Even the dog can play – it’s that easy.

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Fun: 8

Energy Required: 3

3. Kinect Disneyland Adventures

It’s got Disney in it and let’s be honest, no one’s too old for Disney. Kids will marvel at it, adults will be secretly uplifted by it. Variety is the game’s greatest strength as well as its excellent cinema-quality animation. Kids will feel like they’re in the movies they love, and come on; that’s amazing, right?

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Fun: 8

Energy Required: 6

Ages 12-16

The honest answer?

What they want to be playing at this age? Call Of Duty. It’s up to you as a parent whether you let them; we’re not passing any judgements here; much of the game is pretty tame to be fair and we think kids of this age are pretty great at knowing the difference between fantasy and reality. But that’s your call. However, sticking with the Kinect theme:

1. Dance Central & Dance Central 2

Here’s the first game in our line-up that actually requires some skill to play. Just as well, as teens want to know they’re doing well at something and compared to a five year-old aren’t as likely to cry when they’re told they’re not. Just remember to clear plenty of space for this, especially if going multiplayer.

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Fun: 9

Energy Required: 9

2. Child Of Eden

Beautiful, artsy-fartsy, uplifting. Mizuguchi’s Kinect masterpiece is weird, but it’s also fantastic fun, provided you’re not the type of person who’s prone to acid flashbacks. Shoot the pretty colours by pointing at them; it’s that simple.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fun: 8

Energy Required: 5

NB on that last video: Laser shit does not come out of your hands.

3. The Gunstringer

This is more of an honourable mention than anything else. Is it a good Kinect game? Yes, possibly the best. Is it going to keep a teenager busy? Yes, it most certainly will, but that’s the problem and why it finds itself in third place; it will keep a teenager busy. For everyone else, it’s a spectator sport.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Happy Christmas, and happy Kinecting!

*Do not nip down the pub for a few Sunday pints, you terrible, terrible parent, you.
If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good UK newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain!

Subs should have this already. As for shop-users, it should be there tomorrow/Wednesday.

Previews:
Anarchy Reigns
Dishonored
Soul Calibur V
Kingdoms Of Amalur
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Binary Domain
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Prototype 2
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Modern Warfare 3
Lord Of The Rings: War In The North
WWE ’12
NeverDead
Rayman Origins
Max Payne 3
Zone Of The Enders HD

Reviews:
Battlefield 3 (Multiplayer)
Dark Souls (Multiplayer)
Batman: Arkham City
Sonic Generations
X-Men: Destiny
NBA 2K12
PowerUp Heroes
Just Dance 3
Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster

Club 360 is of course on Fable III, then there’s a feature based on our studio visit to Radical Entertainment in Vancouver (Prototype 2) and 10 Years Of Xbox – a look back at the last decade. When you put it all down sequentially like that, it’s really quite jarring how much Microsoft’s approach has changed over the years. There are highs, but there are also definite lows (like last year’s Kinect-heavy E3).

And all the usual stuff.

Remember, you can now buy each issue from Apple Newsstand if so is your wish. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/360-maga … 60123?mt=8 If you haven’t already, please help us out by downloading the free app. Helps our visibility on iTunes.

Cheers all and thanks again for helping us make another stonking issue. We couldn’t do it without you.

Best

Dan & Team

We form opinion on hundreds of things each day. Is the weather agreeable? Does this sandwich taste like cat food? Reaching an informed opinion on all the stuff we’re exposed to is far too much like hard work. So rather than incrementally classify, we slap a big, fat label on it and file it away for future reference. To divide and label is an inexorably human mechanism; one we employ whether faced with an information overload or driven by pure gut instinct.

360 Magazine labels developers; we categorise them as either scavengers or hunters. The former takes whatever the latter leaves behind, consumes it, digests it, and shits it out having added its own unique flavour. We don’t wish to diminish what these developers do, because providing more of the same is of vital service to the industry. Without them games would be scarce, so we welcome the second-rate Call Of Dutys and counterfeit Half-Lifes – they fill time between greats.

Do these developers employ talent? Hard work? Knowledge and skill? Yes in all cases, but it takes more than the sum of these parts to make a game like this one. It takes a knowing of not just how, but why it’s doing what it’s doing. It takes the bravery not to merely happen upon the carrion left by other, fiercer predators, but to strike out on one’s own. And with Forza Motorsport 4, Turn 10 has returned from the hunt, dragging with it a mammoth carcass; a tusker bull. We’re done with that analogy for now, but we may bring it back in our closing remarks.

Forza Motorsport 4 is the first game we’ve played that’s enhanced by Kinect rather than encumbered by it. For us, Kinect is synonymous with two simple questions: Is it easier/better than using a controller? Is it more fun than using a controller? The answer to both is almost never yes.

Autovista, the much-touted mode that encourages those with Kinect to walk, fiddle, and muck around with a selection of the world’s most beautiful cars, feels like a natural extension to the drama out on the track. The car models are the most detailed ever to appear in a videogame – close enough to photorealistic to fool the casual eye (see above). Sure, we were able to find flaws, primarily in the game’s want of decent antialiasing (removal of jagged edges), which are all the more jarring when everything else appears as real as the room you’re sat in. But to criticise Forza Motorsport 4 on that basis would be the equivalent of returning a free bar of gold because it’s upside down.

Not every car in the game has an Autovista version. Quite the contrary; only about five per cent do. That number isn’t all that surprising when you think about it, firstly because rendering either the individual stitches on the interior upholstery of a Ferrari 458 or the machined aluminium dash of a Spyker C8 represents an astounding investment in man-hours. And secondly, because there isn’t a huge amount of interest in getting a look at what purrs beneath the hood of a Toyota Aygo or a Chevrolet Spark. Yet, the inclusion of these cars in Forza Motorsport 4’s various race modes is every bit as important as the giant on whose shoulders the game’s vast array of super, hyper and full-blooded race cars stand. They are needed both for contrast and for pure fun.

Dan Greenawalt, the game’s creative director, has stated publicly his belief that Forza Motorsport 4 is the best-looking game of this generation. We find ourselves in wholehearted agreement, but why this game, why now? What has spurred the birth of this glamorous automotive wunderkind? A need to show there’s life in the old box yet? A need to cause Sony’s efforts to appear pedestrian? Or perhaps it’s merely the result of a transcendent love for the subject matter? The truth is, it’s all of the above, but whatever the cause, the result is the same; that Turn 10 has produced visuals so surprising that the looks on the faces of those either playing or observing it for the first time are as if invisible anglers are straining to reel in their eyebrows.

As well as Autovista, there’s also photo mode, in which we can photograph any of the 500 cars in the game, irrespective of their Autovista inclusion. Because these are the very same models that appear during a race – when the engine also has a track and 15 other cars to render – we’d have expected them to be of a distinctly lower quality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Putting any of these cars into one of the game’s photographic environments (countryside, warehouses, the Top Gear studio and more) reveals that, if anything, they’re even more convincing than those in Autovista.

You can’t lift the bonnet, beep the horn, or admire the limited edition issue plate on the inside of the doorframe, but from the outside, these cars look closer to real than anything to appear in a videogame up to this point. With just five loaves and two fish, Turn 10 has rendered 16 of these, a track, and the best physics model we’ve ever seen at a constant 60 frames per second – a miracle on a par with anything in Jesus’s ‘Best of’ collection.

Finding grip. It’s a term you’ll hear frequently in professional motorsport. To enter a corner at precisely the right speed and attitude is to walk a tightrope. Too slow and there lies lost time and a momentary struggle to realign, too fast and our tyres might as well be made of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Rubber. Maintaining the limits of our car’s grip through a corner is not a case of simple guesswork. Like real life, it’s a cocktail of feedback, memory and feel. For the first time in a Forza Motorsport game, all three are necessary. Anyone watching one of Formula One’s in-car views will see the struggle to find grip in action; a jiggling of the steering wheel into each turn while at the limits of braking. This is not a struggle with the feedback, transmitted through the steering column, but a battle to find the point where the grip bites.

We play on a wheel, and appreciate that, though optimum for enjoyment, it’s a setup that won’t account for the majority. While we cannot vouch for any such grip-seeking wobbles being useful with a standard controller, the physics do remain constant. So let’s be clear: you do not need a wheel to enjoy this game, but there is a difference between ‘pleasure’ and ‘cargasm’, and for the latter you’ll need a wheel. After three straight days battling to find grip in a Ferrari F50, our arms droop limply over this keyboard like liquorice bootlaces. Painful? Yes. Worth it? Also yes.

The primary catalyst behind the improvement in vehicle handling is Pirelli’s involvement. There is no guesswork and no approximation. Pirelli tests the various compounds, then provides the data to Turn 10, which plugs it all right into the game. The difference between the handling model in Forza Motorsport 4 compared to its predecessor is like night and day – though we’ll admit that since we’ve never worked as professional racing drivers, until now we had no idea what day looked like.

Forza Motorsport 4’s career mode is called World Tour, and as much as it purports change over the career modes of the previous games in the series, the mechanics of it are all but identical. Race through several increasingly lengthy seasons in increasingly lively cars, each event presenting the player with a choice of three races specific to class, manufacturer, or model.

Every so often, Turn 10 throws in an event that isn’t straight-up circuit racing. These involve chasing a fast car through slow traffic, knocking bowling pins over, driving slalom through cone gates and so on. They do the job for which they’ve been designed; they add variety and prevent the majority circuit racing from dragging, even though a change of car every now and then pretty much accomplishes that on its own.

With up to 16 cars on the track at any one time, Turn 10 has had to implement some pretty hardcore AI to keep things from degenerating into the world’s most expensive bumper car simulator. Rather than choose how well we want the AI to race, their difficulty setting takes place entirely in the background; win races and they become tougher, lose races and watch as they barely make it around the track in one piece.

Background AI is preferable to setting the difficulty ourselves, because doing so always feels like answering awkward questions such as ‘How much do we want to win?’ and ‘Can our delicate egos really take on the crippling effects of the hardest difficulty setting?’ But age-old problems wouldn’t be age-old problems if they were easily solved, and this solution births some minor issues of its own.

Speaking for ourselves, we tend to win races more often than not due to a diligent and life-long fascination with both motorsport and the videogames that simulate it. But, it isn’t all that long winning races in World Tour before the AI cranks itself so high that doing so in untuned cars is next to impossible. Though driving faster and in better cars, it’s not the AI’s raw speed that scuppers us, but their aggression and their tendency either to swipe us off the track, rear-end us, or to drive five miles wide, blocking us completely and leaving us with little choice but to either barge them off the track at a hairpin, or admire their beautifully rendered backsides.

Since true joy can only be found in laps that are both fast and clean, the only way to avoid this fate is to sit on the starting grid for a couple of minutes, get in a few clean laps and accept last place until the AI cranks itself back down a little. Or, we can tune our car to a point beyond the means of the AI to catch us, which is precisely what we did with our Ferrari F50. Either way it feels like cheating.

In Rivals Mode, Turn 10 provides us a host of single-lap racing events; Top Gear track days, hot laps, drag and so on. Rather than enter a time and see how we do on the leaderboards, we can download the ghost of one of the performances further up the rankings than us and race it until we either beat it or give up, earning experience and credits for our efforts either way. Among strangers, this is more addictive than heroine roulette; among friends it would be the finest community innovation since party chat, but that accolade goes to Car Clubs.

We’ve already started our own and topped out the world leaderboards; something that’s helped immensely by the mere fifty people playing Forza Motorsport 4 at the time of writing. Start a club, give it a name, invite your friends. Joining provides them with a clan-style three or four letter abbreviation before their name, all members have access to every car owned by the entire collective, and there are Car Club leaderboards in every category: circuit, rival, drift, drag and so on.

Sadly, with limited column inches, many aspects of the game must go unexplored in this review, though we can assure you, not in real life. There is so much here to play with, to enjoy, to grit our teeth at, to hope we don’t fall from the grip high-wire, to push that little bit further. Forza Motorsport 4 is beautiful, immersive and represents a giant step forward for console racing.

Turn 10 has our deepest respect and our most sincere admiration for what is not merely the finest racer of this generation, but the finest of all time. It’s a game that gives so much and yet will continue to do so long into the future as pockets of Turn 10 staff add cars, tracks, challenges and other content.

The lion’s share of the studio, however, already has the next big game in its sights. Told you we’d bring that analogy back.

5/5