Forza Motorsport Behind-Closed-Doors Impressions: If You Build it, They Will Race

ign.com:

There isn't much in Forza Motorsport that hasn't been ripped out, re-thought, and revamped. Graphics, physics, multiplayer, player scoring, and car building have all been re-architected in the next-gen reboot of Turn 10's long-running racing sim. But it's that last one, car building, that seems to be the piece that the development team is focusing on most.

"You don't buy your car so much as you build it," said game director Chris Esaki. So what does he mean by that? For starters, Car Points (CP) are the currency by which you purchase cars and parts, but when you spend them, they don't vanish; instead, the parts hold their value. In other words, Turn 10 is encouraging repeated tinkering and modifying so you can tailor your car to a particular race or track by allowing you to recoup your CP when you remove a part. So you won't be constantly grinding through races just to continually earn CP in order to get the next upgrade on your wishlist.

I really like the new ways you can earn CP, too. Winning races certainly helps, of course, but you can now choose your position on the starting grid. The further back in the field you put yourself, the more CP you'll earn by making the podium at the end of the race. Turn 10 has also rethought how they treat your clean driving, too. "Think of corners like monsters or enemies" in a non-racing game, Esaki said. Meaning, you'll now be scored on a per-corner basis, so when you come out of each corner, the upper right corner of the UI will tell you how close to the limit you got, so that you know how much improvement you have left to make in that spot on the next lap.

The Open Practice mode lets you take your builds out onto the track to test them out before you enter a real race. Running