forza 7

i N g a y p l N o w

Over 700 cars to collect, but we only have eyes for yesteryear’s boxy icons in Forza Motorsport 7 Phil iwaniuk

Publisher Microsoft/ DeveloPer turn 10 / format XboX one / release Date out now

Perhaps there’s something profound or insightful about the way millennials like myself fetishise the icons of ‘80s excess like the Ferrari Testarossa and the Lamborghini Countach. It’s probably an ironic response to an increasingly consumerist society, or something. All I know is that of all the many unusual, exciting, and legitimately iconic vehicles in Forza Motorsport 7, I’m only interested in collecting those produced between 1980 and, oooh, 1998-ish.

That’s the draw of a game like this, really. For as long as Turn 10 has been “I’m watching a 1981 Volkswagen repurposing and refining the Gran Turismo blueprint for Xbox pastures, Scirocco gently rotate with an the studio has fundamentally got the necessity for a massive car list: it’s a almost pornographic fascination” means of self-expression, and a way to subvert the usual laws of driving games. Buying the most expensive one (a 2017 Renault F1 car) isn’t cool – taking an unusual specimen or forgotten relic and upgrading it until it can cut it with the best is cool.

Naturally then, when FM7 offers to buy my first car for me depending on the racing series I pick first, I go with a 1987 Porsche 959. These things are worth close to a million pounds today, and Porsche’s historic what is it? unwillingness to license their vehicles to any Turn 10’s latest smorgasbord of racing, with a range of videogame franchises disciplines as diverse means that this is my first as its car list. chance to drive the virtual version. Its grey, deeply ‘80s interior is a treat to behold, and while its wild revving and spongy suspension aren’t a patch on the torque and stability of modern supercars – well, that’s kind of the point.

Old gold

Driving the 959 lights a touch paper in me. Soon I’m watching a 1981 Volkswagen Scirocco gently rotate in the showroom with an almost pornographic fascination, and opening and closing the doors of a 1992 Alfa Romeo 155 Q4 in a kind of stupor. And even though I bought one in Forza Horizon 3 only last year, I’m already lusting after that 1994 McLaren F1, which I remember adorning posters on the bedroom walls of several school friends at the time. Granted, taking such a specific approach to building a car collection has its drawbacks: I’m spending all my credits on vehicles that all fall under the same category, which isn’t expanding my options when it comes to the racing series I can actually compete in. Once you’ve won the Vintage Supercar Challenge, there’s only so much you can do with a garage full of decades-old vehicles. Formula E? Truck racing? IndyCar? Come off it mate, I’m still saving for the McLaren F1’s slightly more expensive GT variant. Ah well. There’s always multiplayer. No one judges you for owning vehicles you can’t get new parts for in multiplayer. They do, however, show a remarkable lack of respect for your 1998 Aston Martin V8 Vantage V600’s pristine racing green paintwork as they shove past in a Viper adorned in an offensive livery (naturally). The cold, sad truth about Forza’s modern supercars is that they just don’t have the character that their ‘80s and ‘90s forefathers had. What they gain in braking distances and tractional control systems, they lack in the sheer pupil-dilating terror of trying to wrestle 800hp around SpaFrancorchamps. And one day I’m going to buy that 1.5 million-credit F1 car. Really I am. And the racing trucks too, and the 2018 Porsche 911 GT2 RS, so modern it doesn’t exist in reality yet. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll finish assembling the great and good from my yellowing back issues of Auto Trader before I let go of the past and accept that the days of the Testarossa are over. n