WHERE DREAMS ARE DRIVEN

It is the slogan for one of the most anticipated racing games to come out in a long time. The Forza series is the premiere racing game for the Xbox 360 and is constantly in the discussion for best racing game available, period. Two years since their last installment, the folks at Turn 10 and Microsoft have kicked this franchise into another gear now (pun admittedly intended) with Forza Motorsport 3.

With now well over 400 cars featured in the game from over 50 different manufactures, you would think "options" is what Forza means (it really stands for "power" in Italian and that makes more sense, I think). Each and every car is also completely customizable from interior designs and colors to rims to the air pressure in your tires.

You think it's great to drive a lot of cars? Well, how about driving them on 100 different race tracks from all over the world from Sebring to Nürburgring and even the Circuit de la Sarthe, which is used for the world-famous Le Mans 24 hour race. Yeah...options.

So far, I've thrown out a lot of numbers. Impressive numbers, but still, just numbers. Let's talk about looks. The cars are built with 10 times the amount of polygons from the last installation of Forza and that has allowed for more finely detailed visible damage to your car from scratched paint all the way to tire wear over the course of a race. You can almost see the flies splatter across your windshield this game looks so good.

Speaking of damage, how about the fact that a brand new physics engine now might make you think twice about trying to smack an opponent out of your way as you might just flip your own car over and take yourself out of the race (I know, I've done it. It is fun for like three seconds until you realize you've definitely lost the race now).

Of course, a severely improved A.I. could make contact all but impossible as your opponents react to your actions like real drivers now. Some cars might try to floor it to put some distance between you if you act aggressive while others might just let you pass in the hopes your righteous fury will just glide by them (I only know how to drive aggressive so I've only seen the A.I. act to my anger fueled actions). The A.I. might try to pull the same tricks on you, though, if you're not careful, by bumping you in turns or veering back and forth to prevent you from cleanly passing.

Along with the classic racing game modes like vs., time trials, and online vs., there is also the inclusion of a brand new single-player season mode that insures that no player will have the same racing experience as you play through six years in the life of a driver as you try to win races with a plethora of cars in various classes. From one-on-one heats, to drift events, to drag, to circuit races, each calendar has more than 200 events on it and will test every aspect of your skills as a driver.

This sounds like a gearhead's dream for sure. But what if you are a more casual racing gamer? What if you don't know how to tune your car or when to brake going into a turn? The fine folks at Turn 10 took that into consideration. There are a bevy of options that can be tuned to your liking depending on your ability and even an automatic "Quick Upgrade" feature that will tune your car to its maximum ability without you having to look through valves and fuses trying to figure out which ones will be the best for your car. You can ease up the opponent's A.I., you can lessen the wear and tear on your car during a race, and you can even turn on the one-button auto-brake assists or you can paint a line on the track telling you where to turn and how fast you should be going. All of these are great for beginning racing gamers as you attempt to not only learn the tracks, but improve your skills over time.

The ultimate assist though is probably the best. Similar to the "flashback" feature from Grid, Forza Motorsport 3 has no limits to the amount of times it's "rewind" feature can be used in a single-player race as it allows you to stop play and go back in time instantaneously to re-do a poor turn or maybe getting spun out by an opponent's car. The "rewind" feature is so extensive, that the opponent might even rethink how they go into a turn.

While playing, I specifically remember two cars colliding on a hairpin turn that caused a pileup that ended up taking me and several other cars out. I rewound the accident and, on the very next try, the cars avoided each other and the race continued. I didn't have to worry about restarting the entire race or trying to comeback from a ridiculous deficit because of a mistake the computer made and that makes playing this game so much more enjoyable.

With all the compliments I am paying the game, mind you, there are flaws. Firstly, the soundtrack is beyond limited and you might just turn the music off after a while because by the second year of your single-player career, every song has been played to death.

Another problem is that once you have a solid lead in a race, even on the hardest difficulty level, the A.I., although great in many other aspects, has trouble making a play back on your position if it falls too far behind. This means that a lot of races that might be five or six laps, could be over by the third or fourth a lot of times if you can make the right moves. Also, since in many series you'll face the same cars, the cars do not make adjustments between races like you can and you'll often be competing with the same two or three cars while the other four or five will simply fall out of contention. The A.I. is very good, but it still has its drawbacks.

These small complaints aside, this is still probably the best racing game out there because hands-down it is the most fun to play. It has successfully removed all the frustrations for those rookie racers out there while having enough options to keep the hardcore of the hardcore more than happy. Forza Motorsport 3 is available for the Xbox 360 on October 27th, 2009.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 9.5: From skid marks staying new and fresh throughout the entire race to bumpers flying off in high speed collisions, this game looks gorgeous. Maybe if rims and side-mirrors started flying off in collisions, too, it would be completely perfect looking.

Audio 8.0: The soundtrack gets tired quickly and is really the only audio complaint I could find. The hum of the engines and how they vary from tune-up to tune-up is impressive.

Plot/Plot Development: N/A: It's a simulation and therefore really doesn't have a plot...

Gameplay: 8.5: The A.I. is light years ahead of the competition in many aspects, but does seem simple if you can pull out to a big lead.

Replay Value: 8.5: With 200 events per single-player calendar and online and offline vs. and time-trial modes and the Forza community will be happy for a long time with this installment. The only problem is that the single-player campaign can become repetitive after a while with only so many tracks and opponent strategies, making for a more simple racing experience.

Overall (not an average): 9.0: Easily the most fun racing game I've ever played, it still isn't quite perfect. More audio tracks would be nice and the A.I. has lapses at times, but this is still probably the best racing game out there. Now, we just have to wait for all the track and car DLC that is sure to be coming.

-Ray Carsillo

WHY AC/DC MATTERS

Anthony Bozza is a 4-time NY Times Bestselling Author and a former writer/editor for Rolling Stone magazine. So when Anthony says he's written a book titled Why AC/DC Matters, explaining why AC/DC is probably the greatest rock band of all-time, you should probably think about taking a look at it.

Being a die-hard AC/DC fan myself, it wasn't a stretch for me to agree with Anthony's assessment. After reading the book, I invited him to come by the studios to talk about what made him want to write Why AC/DC Matters and what he thinks the future may hold for the greatest rock band of all-time.


Why AC/DC Matters with Anthony Bozza and Ray Carsilllo

Video by Jared Bodden

Why AC/DC Matters by Anthony Bozza is available now wherever books are sold.

-Ray Carsillo

I'M GOING DOWN TO SOUTH PARK

It is one of the funniest and longest running programs on television and has permeated the pop culture like few shows do, especially ones that reside primarily on basic cable. But the four foul-mouthed youths from South Park on Comedy Central are still going strong and are once again attempting to invade the digital realm.

South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! takes this hugely popular franchise and sticks it in a tower defense game (hence the title). What is amazing is that South Park's cast of characters makes this straightforward, lackluster genre somewhat fun.

The basic plot is that a mysterious force is sending some of the boys' most nefarious foes from the past towards the heart of South Park in order to destroy the town once and for all! Homeless people, terrorists, ginger kids, demons, and old people just scratch the surface of the mindless hordes bent on destroying South Park as the boys must set up specially designed towers ranging from fast pitch baseball machines to magnifying glass powered lasers to cherry bomb launchers and fireworks to repel the invading forces over 11 levels from all over South Park and the surrounding area.

Cut scenes between each level help forward the plot (done in the style from the forever classic episode "Good Times With Weapons") as the boys desperately try to unravel the mystery of who has brought together all of these clearly evil forces (I'm focusing in on you old people!) bent on destroying their peaceful little town and the end revelation will shock you into hysterics.

The best part of the game though is the scrapbook (inspired by the "Cartman Sucks" episode) in which you not only collect images of the foes you defeat along the way, but unlock over 80 original clips from the show highlighting the first appearances of these infamous villains ranging all the way back to Season 1.

Being downloadable content, don't expect the graphics to be crystal clear, but considering the animation style of South Park, it is more than forgivable. The audio though is top notch with the entire voice cast coming on to do voices and record thousands of original lines for this game.

The game is not perfect though, as the gameplay is a little glitchy. I found it difficult for my characters to run around a lot of times without freezing a little and it was difficult to select which specific tower I wanted to build many times. Add in that it would have been so much easier to set the boys to the four directions of the d-pad instead of constantly having to rotate through them with the right bumper.

The bottom line is that if you are a fan of South Park, you are going to want this game because it is hysterical, but I don't see it appealing to people otherwise. There are four difficulties to the game and they threw in five challenge maps for when you beat the 8-10 hour campaign, but aside from that there isn't a lot to bring you back to this except for a couple of classic laughs you might want to replay.

South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! is an Xbox Live exclusive, available tonight (which just so happens to coincide with the new season premiere) for 800 Microsoft Points (roughly $10) and considering the content you get, the price is well worth it if you are a South Park fan.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 8.0: You might download this and gawk at the high graphics score I gave it, but you have to take into consideration the style of animation that South Park is done in, so the game's actual graphics are close to watching the actual cartoon and the cut scenes, although done in the old school comic book panel by panel style, look awesome.

Audio: 9.0: The game opens with the theme song and the entire cast came on board to voice over thousands of lines of dialogue so I can't give the audio a poor score. Generic SFX and background music in the levels though docks the overall score a point.

Plot/Plot Development: 9.0: Fans of the show will already be familiar with the surroundings and characters so since this is clearly marketed to the already established fan base (myself included) there wasn't a need to go into background details. The game starts off like an episode of the sitcom and continues over the course of the day. The mystery is developed well through the cut scenes and the surprise ending fit perfectly into what South Park is all about.

Gameplay: 6.0: Passable, but barely. The gameplay is a bit glitchy and I thought the switching between characters and selecting towers tool was difficult to use at best. The whole game, even with the challenge maps, is probably about 12 hours overall and doesn't get more straightforward than build towers, delay and kill enemies, don't die yourself.

Replay Value: 5.0: It is nice that you can do online co-op and play with lots of characters like Jimmy or Pip if you get tired of the boys, but there just isn't enough here that appeals to me to play through the campaign mode repeatedly on different difficulties to try to unlock all the various clips of episodes I've already seen countless times.

Overall (not an average): 7.5: If you love South Park, you will love this game because there is just enough polish to make you try to work through the entire campaign. If you don't like South Park, then you are going to want to avoid this game, but who doesn't like South Park? This game is sweeeeeeet.

-Ray Carsillo