I liked a recent Later Levels post taking a look at cosy games. It pointed out that outside of the aesthetic the phrase is usually used to evoke, very different games could produce the emotional effect. When I read it, I was playing Forza Motorsport 4, 2011’s update on a series which I had no history with at all prior to this project, and which conjures no personal nostalgia and no familiarity beyond its established similarities to Gran Turismo games. I realised right away that, despite that, Forza 4 is one of the cosiest gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
The racing is as involved and polished as its predecessors, with some great attention to detail on things like paint being scraped off as you make contact with other cars. The system of variable difficulty is even better refined, rewarding the removal of driving assists with extra experience points but also with the fact that flinging around fast cars is a lot more fun when they’re less on rails. You can make it harder along different axes though – I left a bit of help with indicating braking points but took away the safety net of rewinds. If you ever take it too far, it’s just a case of putting it back the other way for the next race.
Thinking about things race-to-race is also where the biggest structural innovation comes in. The previous Forza game gave you a lot of options to join different championships, but Forza 4’s World Tour mode refines that even more. Each race you get an intro to a track somewhere in the world, and a choice of three events on it. Rather than choose your car in response to those, though, it goes the other way round. Choose a car and the selection of events available changes to match.
Together with the sheer number of new cars the game gifts you for progress (with each one presented as a choice from a few similar models), the result is an experience which bends itself to your preferences each race. Want to try a new car out? Want to perfect the one you’re really enjoying, maybe with less assistance turned on? Want something more experimental? You can pick, and if it doesn’t work out it’s no big setback to progress. You can make all sorts of choices, but never have to think too hard about any of it, the better to focus on the driving experience. As a driving game veteran, nothing has ever made it feel easier to zone out and just enjoy. At a stressful time, it was welcome.
That cosiness is a product in part of my own experiences, a game that aligns to familiar easy pleasures. That need for alignment becomes even more apparent in the one moment when I definitely did not find Forza Motorsport 4 cosy, which is its intro sequence. Moving away from the aesthetic frumpiness of previous versions, it doesn’t just take on the Top Gear Test Track from Gran Turismo 5 but adds to it a spoken intro from Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson.
“We are an endangered species, you and me” Clarkson starts, immediately putting me on edge. He goes on to bemoan the spread of “hybrid this and lentil-matic that”, showing off a mile-wide persecution complex at the idea that the environmental implications to fast petrol cars might be worth thinking of. And they set him loose to do this exhausting shtick within a game which is by nature one of the least environmentally harmful ways to experience the sport! It was easy to skip past, at least, but in a game which makes its smartly set-up choices seem so easy, it’s still a reminder that cosiness is easily lost.
Top of the charts for week ending 15 October 2011:
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