First off, I have no idea why this game is so under-hyped. Every blog and gaming site I see is constantly talking about the next Gran Turismo. I’m sorry, but Forza 3 is 10x more fun than any version of Gran Turismo I’ve every played. The graphics are on par (if not better) than GT. Variety of cars is great, with a ton of DLC to keep things interesting – both car and track packs.

I love the way the new season works. It’s based on a calendar of events that get slightly more difficult as you progress. There also an event listing that makes it very easy to jump into any race you’d like. This color-coded chart shows if your current car is eligible for the race, or if you have a car in your garage that’s eligible. This is one grip I had with Forza 2 – I could never tell which races fit my current car and felt like I was always fiddling around in menus too much.

A system of driver XP and individual car XP unlocks various manufacturer upgrades, new cars and the like. Speaking of manufacturers, there are a ton. Each offers several models, divided into different performance classes. Aside from looking fantastic, each car feels, handles and sounds unique. And then there’s the tracks. Sweet, Jesus, the tracks. Hands down the most gorgeous racing courses I’ve ever experienced. Nothing else needs to be said.

I’ve just scratched the surface of the insane amount of customization. A new “quick upgrade” feature makes it MUCH easier to select new parts for your car. It’s easy too get lost in the hundreds of aftermarket parts and accessories to improve your ride. Quick Upgrade automatically selects the best combination of parts based on the current amount of money in your account. For customizing the look of your car, pretty much the same system is in place from Forza 2 (a good thing), offering you complete creative freedom to literally do anything you want visually.

Lastly, I can’t forget to mention the community features. You can shoot and upload videos, which I haven’t tried out yet, but you can also conduct a photo shoot with any of your cars. Spin ‘em around and take shots, then you can upload them directly to the Forza 3 website. You can link up your gamertag on the site and you’ve got your own little ‘mini-blog’ kind of thing that shows all your photos, any auctions for cars you’re participating in, etc. So, obviously the first car I had to buy and tweak was my pride and joy – a silver, ’98 Honda Civic (technically they only had a ’99 in the game, but they’re virtually identical).

All in all, this is a fantastic racing game. Maybe not as ‘arcade-y’ as some people would like – this definitely isn’t Burnout or Need for Speed – but the visuals, customization options and variety of tracks come together to create a complete package. I don’t foresee the need for another racing game anytime soon. Until Forza 4, that is…

Perhaps the single best aspect to the game is the immersive environment. You are dropped into a living, breathing re-creation of 15th century Italy. Maybe it’s just my one year of being an architecture major in college, but I could spend 1/2 a day just looking at the city-scape, reading the descriptions in the game’s database of historic information.

For me, the single addition of an economy to the game pushes it from “really good” to “fantastic”. Being able to shop at the vendors to upgrade clothing, armor, weapons, items, etc. really add to the enjoyment of the game. If you’ve got a PS3 or xBox 360 you owe it to yourself to go buy this game.

There are plenty of sources on the web to get a full game review, so I’m not going to go into crazy detail about every aspect of the game here. Let me first get one gripe out of the way. Valve – I’m not a fan of being able to jump into any level of any campaign at any time. Flat out. It may seem nice to let players get into whatever section of the game they want from the first time they boot up, but I don’t like it. I find it really leaves me no incentive to play through the game in its entirety. I could just jump in to the final chapter of any campaign, play through it and bang – I just “beat” that campaign.

I think a much better approach would be “unlocking” each episode of the campaign for free play after I’ve beaten it, one by one. If you really think it’s necessary, you could still allow players to choose to start at any campaign.

Ok, that’s that. I can’t stress what a minor (and probably personal) complaint that is. This game is pure action, start to finish. Every minute of every episode of every campaign is packed to the gills with zombie-killing, adrenaline-pumping button mashing. The controls are tight. The visuals are good. The audio is fantastic. All of that adds up to the completely immersive feeling of being in a Hollywood zombie flick. Actually, it’s probably better than that. Granted, the characters are fairly stereotypical and offer no real change in gameplay depending on who you choose, but that’s not what this game is about. The characters aren’t bad by any means. Each one has a distinct(-ish) personality and all deliver some great one-liners.

Due to time constraints, I really never got into the multiplayer aspect of the first title. This time around I wanted to check it out and I now definitely regret not playing it in the original. Playing a campaign with 3 other live people only adds to the chaos of being overwhelmed by hundreds of undead. I was surprised how pretty much everyone I played with really worked together as a team. I think part of this can be attributed to Valve’s game design. If you don’t work together, you’re dead. It’s that simple.

I’ll leave it at that. This game is definitely getting a “buy” rating from me. I think it’ll provide you with many hours of entertainment, especially the multiplayer. And with the randomization of the levels (weapons, health assists, special bosses and hordes change placement with each play through) helps keep the game interesting, even when re-playing a campaign after you’ve beat it. Also, I’ve heard reports of at least a couple of DLC packs coming down the road which should add even more to this title. The official blog is a nice source of info that I’d recommend checking often.

Finally got a chance to try out the new multiplayer (massive?) first-person shooter, MAG. Initial impressions are pretty good, but I really only went through the tutorial and played a couple Suppression (ie. deathmatch) rounds.

There are definitely some Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 similarities, with custom loadouts, experience, leveling up to unlock weapons and gear, etc. The experience leveling is a little more involved, allowing you to spend experience ‘points’ to upgrade physical skills (sprint time, stealth, etc.), weapons (attachments, faster reloads), armor, field skills (faster repair, better healing of you and/or teammates). There are also some fairly basic appearance options for your character, including armor design, headgear, and couple other things I haven’t unlocked.

After the tutorial stage, you start progressively unlocking various match types such as suppression, sabotage and others. The bulk of the game (which I haven’t gotten to yet) is the “Shadow War” – a persistent war that players (up to 256) can drop into.

One of the features I enjoyed the most was just joining a match. You select your match type and are immediately put into a queue (I never had to wait longer than 20-30 sec. to join a match). This was refreshing compared to CoD MW2′s party system and lobbies where I feel like it takes me 10 minutes to finally get into a group of players and start a match. Granted, I wasn’t playing MAG with any friends, so I can’t speak as to how that part of the game plays out yet.

Anyway, there’s no way I can really give an opinion of the game until I get into, but right now I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far. The controls are solid, graphics are decent – not quite as polished as CoD 4 MW2, but that’s easily overlooked in a firefight with 30+ players. More info as I get into the game a little more.