Is Forza still king of the gaming hill?

When Turn 10 released Forza Motorsport during the halcyon days of the original Xbox, it won the hearts and minds of a generation with a refreshingly experiential kind of racing game.

It was a serious solution for a market with a hitherto immature approach to its audience. Finally, here was a game that understood the physics of driving - and you didn't need to invest in a PC to experience it.

Since then each iteration of Turn 10's iconic title, for one reason or another, has been an essential purchase for Microsoft gamers, racers or not.

Much like its fan-boy Sony-exclusive nemesis Gran Turismo, Forza remains a halo brand for the Microsoft mothership, 10 years after that original wowed its fans.

And just as Polyphony's GT series has ruled the PlayStation driving universe with its photogenic look and feel, exhaustive car lists and attention to detail, so Forza has delivered its own brand of car culture to the faithful Xbox community.

And for some, it is the reason they remain wedded to a machine roundly trumped by the PS4 in the early months of the next-gen console war.

Microsoft's Gran Turismo rival looks the part on Xbox One

The Forza series has nearly always delivered two things.

First, (mostly) believable and dependable car dynamics with a physics and tyre model that transmits an experience so much more than just steer, brake and throttle. It requires you to 'feel' and predict the weight transfer and tyre load - and all with a gamepad.

Second, a thoughtful and immersive online experience.

Through the last decade, game forums have lit up with Forza and GT fans heatedly bump-drafting over the merits of each title. It's subjective territory. But in the case of each of Forza's first four titles it was at least true to say that the brand broke new ground.

Whether that be through astonishing car physics, utterly compelling online racing or relentless community building where in-game marketplaces for set-ups and paint schemes grew lives of their own.

Problem is, that all appeared to zenith with Forza 4 - the last of the truly great Xbox 360 racing titles. When Forza 5 was released as an Xbox One launch title, it was widely acclaimed but significantly under-cooked.

It was beautiful in a way no console racing game had a right to be, and it used the multi-dimensional rumble qualities of the controller to inform the user in ways that had not before been possible. But all this light and magic was not enough to distract from the cracks in the theory.

Forza's dedication to motorsport continues with cars based on real life

Before long there were complaints about random handling, uncontrollable oversteer and a downright broken economy that initially relied on micro-transactions to ramp up the quality of your garage.

Turn 10 fixed that, but by that time the momentum was gone and Johnny-come-lately was left with a game that felt half-baked, low on content and dispiritingly difficult to master.

Now there is Forza 6 - a proper game developed through the luxury of time. It's the one Forza 5 should have been, and the good news is that it is back to Forza standard.

The game runs at a cast-iron, astonishing, 60 frames per second and it is undeniably gorgeous. It's largely bug-free (a rarity in these days of release-date-driven box office titles), and delivers a polished, visceral finish that seems pure Hollywood and accentuates the HD production values commensurate with big-dollar manufacturer partnerships - of which the game boasts several.

No other game in the genre looks so sharply presented or feels so complete in terms of headline machinery. This is the ultimate evolution of the species, if you've not yet tired of it. But that's the rub. This, largely, is where the real innovations stop.

It could be argued, perhaps unkindly, that both from an online and racing experience we've skipped over Forza 5 and got Forza 4 again in next-gen definition. Trouble is, there are others out there forging interesting new paths. Now, unlike at any other time in the genre, there are genuine sim-level alternatives vying for your cash.

Game creator Studio 10 has to appeal to a broader range than other titles

In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, Forza 6 remains loyal to the grind-and-collect career philosophy that has served its predecessors so well over the years.

And had Simply Mad Studios' Project CARS not turned up and offered a completely alternative sandbox, top down, access-all approach to its content earlier this year, it might not have felt quite as conservative and unimaginative as it does.

That being said, there is something comforting about Forza 6's venerable career format. It feels like an old friend. It gives the game reassuring spine, and allows you to want to get better at certain aspects, secure in the knowledge that once you've mastered them, it's safe to move on. Sometimes, you can have too much choice...

Turn 10 is not unsympathetic to the harsh grind of its proven, drawn-out nature, and has borrowed ideas from the Horizon series to spice up Forza 6.

Now when you win, you're treated to a great 'fruit machine' spin feature that rewards prize cars, proper amounts of in-game credits or a player card from a misfiring and pointless boost system. The problem is most of the stuff you win is unusable until you've worked your way through much of the single-player game.

If you tire of the career mode, there is now a Showcase section - which is effectively the new bonus race area. Here it seems Turn 10 is beginning to understand certain segments of its audience.

Wet-weather dynamism could be improved on Forza 6

There are some really nicely grouped cars in sensibly manufactured scenarios. For example, a snapshot of the Can-Am era takes you to Lime Rock Park in either a McLaren, a Lola, a Chapparal, a Toyota and even in a Mazda.

And that highlights another nice touch, which is that in all areas of the game, there's more than one obvious option, which is a step on from past iterations when you could only really chose one car to win in (especially online).

Virtually the whole grid of Indycars, Formula Es, V8 Supercars and even several British Touring Car Championship machines all prove competitively matched. There's an undeniably deep selection of tracks too.

Interestingly, the Drivatars you race against in these cars are dynamically-derived AI that constantly evolve based on the style of those online friends who have either Forza 5 or Forza 6. The ones we race against have grown both in talent and personality since we first played the game pre-launch and provide a proper challenge at higher levels. Though they still brake in some odd places...

The conditions you race in have become more dynamic too. Wet weather and night racing both make a debut in Forza 6, but neither has been baked in and are far from dynamic! While beautifully delivered, these feel a year of so behind the curve and the weather systems in Project CARS and Codemasters' F1 games are more advanced and more realistic.

If these comparisons seem harsh, perhaps in a way they are. Project CARS plays to a simulation racing audience and offers a vast array of options, classes, controller set-ups etc. But what it offers in depth it sometimes takes away in annoying bugs or overly complicated choices. The F1 series is brilliant, but limited to, well, F1.

Formula E makes its gaming debut in Forza

Forza 6 aims at a broader church, one that not only includes petrolheads but those not even concerned with cars outside of the gaming sphere, yet still it manages to entertain in ways that give it a unique value to the likes of you and me.

There is overlap, yet there remains sufficient difference to argue that any racing game collection requires all three titles at this point because they fulfil very different needs.

Which only makes the online experience across all Xbox One racing games that much more frustrating. Unfathomably none nail it in the way they should in this era of gaming.

At a time when you can ramp up weaponry, tailor your soldier or dissect leaderboards so that you feel vested in your Call of Duty career, or work your way through the ranks of FIFA Ultimate Team where online gaming is not only compelling but essential to the experience, console racing is significantly lagging.

Not withstanding the fact that most of those you race against in Forza's online sessions have no concept of braking, there is still no real sense of identity within it.

Turn 10 has begun to address this with a neat League system that locks to a specific type of car, places you on a 'ladder', and supposedly matches you to likeminded people. Yet still it rewards persistence and game time over talent in a way it shouldn't.

BTCC cars, from 2014, are also part of the Forza 6 line-up

People that have played more hours have more points, and no matter how fast you may be, there seems to be no catching up if you have, say, a job! Also there is no merit to learning the game without assists.

Last week's league featured V8 Supercars, and while this reviewer is certainly no ace, without the use of traction control the venture was futile.

That being said, Forza still does what it does the best, between a neat little touch that allows you to download a race-winner's set-up (if you know how to find it), the community colour schemes and laptime leaderboards, Turn 10 offers a more complete online experience than anyone else, and without the bugs you find elsewhere.

Turn 10 is not the only guilty party. No one is doing online racing well in the console market right now. It's not impossible to hope for more.

PC racing games have been doing it well for years, and iRacing - which sets the standard across all formats in this area - has an unbelievably compelling system that powers its own championships to an astonishing level of detail. You can check out lap charts, laptimes and it has a punishment system that keeps the unruly properly in check.

In the console world, there is nothing like this. Not all of it is appropriate for the console brigade perhaps, but gamers deserve better than what's currently available when they're pitching in at £50 a pop.

Is Forza still the Xbox benchmark? Probably yes, but it's not a clear-cut thing anymore. And while it is still a great ride, it's no longer the only game in town.