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While trying not to sound too pessimistic, great success always has its pitfalls especially when achieved within gaming. The nature of our sequel driven industry often results in the inevitable follow up that doesn’t completely capitalise on the success of the predecessor. Rarely does a team receive total acclaim from critics and then please absolutely everyone next time around. It’s a massive task to undertake and it’s one that Turn 10 knowingly signed up for when they started work on the follow up to the largely well-received Forza Motorsport 2.

Anyone who played the 2007 release will fit into Forza 3 like that old coat on the first day of winter. You’ll instantly know of the overwhelming challenge ahead of you, but any sense of dread is wiped as soon as you get behind the wheel, suddenly dread is turned into relish.

Any veterans of the series will find Forza 3 like that old coat on the first day of winter

This year Forza 3 let’s you play out the years of your career within the Season Mode, which is a calendar to you and me. You’ll enter random competitions during the week while competing in the world championships of a specific class at weekends, just ‘another’ week for a Motorsport Driver.

If this guided experience doesn’t sound like your cup of tea you can always peer into the overwhelming abyss that is the Event List. Here you are treated to a massive back-end-esque grid view of what Forza Motorsport 3 is really made up off; endurance races, speedway events and limited entry competitions. You could easily spend hours upon hours tuning cars, buying new ones and most importantly racing for experience.

Experience that is both mental and physical as not only will the singleplayer allow you to practise for the online but you’ll also be given experience points for each race. Both you and your car will level up the more you play, which will give you access to more events and cheaper car parts, respectively. Which although incredibly forced is like dangling that extra reward in front of you, like Forza wasn’t addictive already.

If you aren’t addicted to the singleplayer than the online will more than suffice and despite having traditional wheel to wheel racing, that’s not what’s important to Forza’s online community. A big part of Forza 2’s appeal was the ability to make any design possible within the games robust vinyl designer and then sell it online for in-game credits. Although there are no standout alterations, the whole process has been streamlined with zippier menus and smoother navigation.

Overly shiny and detailed car models traverse over comparatively mundane looking circuits

Which is probably something integral to the games refreshing feel, despite the fact that Forza 3 largely features minor tweaks and improvements. The menus just look terrific and make everything a blast to navigate. It’s all about ease of use, something that is reflected with some of the other minor tweaks seen in the game.

The slightly controversial rewind feature, that has been half inched from Codemaster’s equally excellent Racedriver GRID, is easily the most important one. This allows you to undo as much on-track action as you want, at any point, with unlimited trips. The hardcore might have a hard time when it comes to this feature but as I’ve previously noted in a DiRT 2 review, this feature is clearly for the casual but it’s inclusion is with the overall aim of converting them into the hardcore.

This is all played out to a backdrop of excellently mastered squealing tires and roaring engines. Which of course is accompanied by overly shiny and overly detailed car models that traverse over the comparatively mundane looking circuits. It’s quite stunning when you consider they fit this all onto two discs. Which, by the way, isn’t a problem at all as the 2nd disc is merely a short 1.7Gb install.

I guess you’re waiting for the all-important ‘but…’ well you won’t get one, Forza 3 is just that excellently developed. Turn 10 set out to improve the game in nearly every way imaginable and that’s a gigantic task to undertake, never mind succeed at.

So while Polphony are making a game solely for the hardcore, Turn 10 is making a game for everyone. This lofty ambition combined with fully fledged modes that could keep you content for hours on their own easily makes Forza Motorsport 3 the best realistic racer on the market and easily worth your time.