Arcade Demonstrations

I’m a big fan of the Forza series and I’m having extreme difficulty waiting for Forza 3 to hit the shelves. Whilst I’m not that big on arcade games or demos (with a few notable exceptions), Forza 3’s demo has shifted my perception of them entirely.

I seem to forget about demos. I’ll be explaining to someone that I’m awaiting a game’s release and they’ll tell me they’ve been playing the demo for the last week. I expect if I spent more time in the Xbox 360’s dashboard, I’d be better informed but I’m very much a power on and load disk man. Being a very selective game purchaser, a demo has to be something very special to affect my purchasing decision and so few of them are, I tend not to bother.

If you enjoy driving games as much as I do, download Forza 3’s demo – even at 1.3GB, it’s worth every bit. It’s bridged the gap between a demo and an arcade release because it keeps track of your performance, lap times and ghosts between games. It offers a time trial mode which is accessible by looking at the lap time boards and starting the game from there – I found it entirely by accident as it wasn’t advertised anywhere I saw. It’s here that the competition starts as the demo only offers a single, albeit beautifully rendered, track with four cars, none of which can be tuned – it brings everyone into the same playing field.

If you want game driving pleasure in spades, spend some time in the Ferrari trying to break 1:09 – it’s ferociously addictive. I’m sure you’ve experienced it before – when you start playing for an hour before you hit the sack and then find you’re still awake at 3am attempting to shave off another hundredth of a second. It’s those damn lap time boards that do it: I managed to break 1:10 when the demo first hit and caused a work colleague to play from when he got home to the wee hours of the morning with a single break to play his usual 5-a-side football just so he could beat my lap time.

It is at this point I have to remind myself that I’m not reviewing a game, I’m not even reviewing an arcade title; I’m talking about a demo. The idea of introducing ubiquitous competitive gameplay in a racing demo has meant I’m playing it daily, as are all the people in my friends list who are now sure to purchase the full title.

I’d like to congratulate those at Turn 10 who no doubt worked hard to produce this demo – I can see your refinements in every track twist and bump.