VS.

Since the Forza series started, it's been a chief rival of Sony's Gran Turismo, with a similar style and car collecting quality to it. The only thing is, that left the game feeling shallower that it really was. The races had no meaning other than to earn credits to buy or upgrade cars. After playing for awhile, it had a "why am I still playing this" feel to it. As sim as it was, it wasn't fun for me anymore, and I realized I spent more time decking out my car and shopping, than actually playing the game. Along comes Forza Horizon, which still shares many of the Forza series traits, but now is an arcade racer with a story and a world to explore. Everything you loved about Forza is still here, car buying, painting, adding on parts in the garage, etc, but there's more soul to it now. A world you can explore freely without even racing, social stats from speed cams and races, and a true story mode revolving around a music festival in Colorado. The Forza series has truly come full circle now.

Need for Speed Most Wanted on the other hand is a remake of sorts. It's really a blending of 2 games, one of EA's finest NFS games in Most Wanted and Criterion's Burnout Paradise. It's weird having a game of the same name "remade" 6 years later on the same system, but here we have it with Most Wanted. The original Most Wanted had a good story, using live action blended in with the game's graphics, a 15 man hit list of sort of racers you had to take down. The new one has a 10 car list, no names, just cars. The soul of the story has been ripped out of Most Wanted, in fact, there's no story at all, just beat each car on the list. Now the Burnout references are easy, the city feels like Burnout, signs to smash, gates to destroy, and accidents all over the place. Throw in some blood thirsty cops, and you have a good time blasting through the city looking for freedom.

Now on to which game is really the better racing game. Both have giant open worlds, Forza feels bigger, and feels like it has more to do. Most Wanted's world feels tighter, mainly because it's happening in the city's heart for most of it and not a wide open space like Forza is. Forza does not have any cops, so ripping down a street at 180MPH isn't going to get you in any trouble, nor does Forza have a true damage/accident model, cars get damaged, scraped up, spoilers fly off, but it is a quick fix back on the road. Most Wanted on the other hand, your car will get smashed up if you hit a wall at 80MPH, tires burst and suddenly you're racing away from the man on a sparking rim. The cops add a huge piece of gameplay to Most Wanted, nothing like doing a normal race and having cops hunting you down through it. Tire spikes, road blocks, even SWAT teams all trying to take you down. The bad with that, the cops are idiots. They are easy to avoid, easy to get away from and a road block is far easier than it should be to get through. This takes away some of the fun, I don't know where the middle ground should be, but the cops really need a boost somewhere.

Most Wanted suffers from what the previous Forza games did, a soul-less story. There's nothing here in Most Wanted compelling me to go forward other than getting car upgrades. What does being #1 on the list truly get me? I don't know, but since there's no one even speaking other than some girl on the radio, it doesn't strive me to keep going forward. Forza on the other hand has you wanting to rank up to become the top guy at the festival. There are rival cars with drivers that talk trash to you, there's the #1 guy at the circuit too, also making appearances here and there as well. It's a good system that makes me want to be #1 instead of just doing race after race with no incentive. Both games suffer from having ZERO pedestrians, would have been nice for these big open worlds to have humans walking around, especially in Most Wanted being in the heart of a city and all. One thing Most Wanted definitely has going for it is that you can just pick it up and toy around the city for a few hours, racing away from cops and causing a ruckus, that is a great way to blow off steam.

Online play is a blast in Forza, many different styles of races, easy to rank up, and can win cars to use offline just by ranking up. Most Wanted has some cool ideas, but it feels hollow. Playing with friends is probably a blast in Most Wanted, but random racers frankly suck. When you have a team challenge, say 8 racers need to jump for a combined total of 3500 yards, you'll have "teammates" trying to wreck you as you go for that big jump. You want to scream "Moron, we're working as a team here", but alas, no one really cares.

Another thing that is an odd design choice with Most Wanted is there's no real "quit" button in the single player, you basically just turn the game off. It's odd, and almost scary to turn it off especially if you've unlocked some great cars and are worried did it actually save or not. So far it always has, so I guess those worries can go away.

Both games have great social integration, you get updates when someone beats your time in Forza, or is faster than you at a speed trap. Most Wanted has similar stats, without the updates, but has who jumped the farthest, fastest race time, etc. Most Wanted allows you to import a real photo to put on a virtual driver's license that marks your territory on a win. Pretty cool integration that really adds to an overall nice social game.

Graphically, while Most Wanted has some great touches (water splashing over a break wall, amazing lighting with the sun, and car models) it feels very lacking to Forza, especially in motion. Forza looks so smooth, and it's landscape has so much depth that it's almost breathtaking. Forza also has a "see it, drive there" ability, that you can see the festival far off in the distance, or a mountain range that you can drive to. The world is yours to drive and own. The day/night transition is in both, while Forza handles it better, but I wish both would allow night to last longer. Forza is beautiful at night, the moon casting down and the lit up dash are mind blowing, while Most Wanted looks a little too bright at night. I believe the idea was to capture the street lights and glow of the city, but it looks kind of washed out in comparison. Both games give a great high rate of speed feel, Most Wanted has some issues with a frame rate hitch here and there which can be frustrating, but overall, both convey speed very well.

The sounds are fantastic for both titles, cars sound as they should and crunching metal of accidents also are a win in both. Soundtrack is easily to Forza though, the Most Wanted soundtrack is a typical EA fair of music strung together, while Forza has 3 stations, 3 DJ's, and 3 distinct music flavors going on at all times. The DJ's add so much to the experience when they are talking about the happenings of the festival, especially mentioning something like a bar find, where you find a beat up old car in a barn and then your garage restores it back to glory. Cool stuff.

Overall, Forza is the winner for me if you're only going to pick racer on the Xbox 360 this holiday season. I just feel it's the better package and has more to do and keep you busy. While I love the accidents and cop chases in Most Wanted, sometimes they can get frustrating, but that is part of the game. While on the other hand, I love pressing the Y button in Forza to rewind my mistakes. This isn't taking in account both games will get DLC, Forza has a rally pack coming, and Criterion has a history with Burnout Paradise of some fantastic DLC, we can only hope Most Wanted benefits from that.

I give Forza Horizon a solid 8.5 and Need for Speed Most Wanted a 7.5. Either way you go, it's a great time to be a racing fan.