From the moment you pop in the Forza Motorsport 4 disc, it’s clear that this game is made for anyone who’s ever had a “dream car,” regardless of whether they’ve ever been lucky enough to own or even drive it. Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson narrates a tone-setting opening cinematic that establishes the sequel as a digital haven for the world’s most exotic and historically unique whips — over 500 of them, actually. In fact, about the only ride missing from Forza 4 is a clown car, because just when you think there couldn’t possibly be any more vehicles, out pops something obscure like an AMC Javelin.

All of them are crafted with meticulous detail both inside and out, bolstered by a framerate that never dips below a slick 60 frames per second. In truth, the presentation — including truly breathtaking stages like the Bernese Alps and a track snaking around the feet of Mount Fuji — kept us playing from the cockpit view the entire time. It helps that the sound design delivers as much pleasure to your ears as the graphics do to your eyes: each car has its own distinct exhaust note (or in the case of the electric Tesla Roadster, A/C motor whine). Unfortunately, the techno soundtrack makes it seem like you’re driving through a rave; after a while, we had to turn it off.

All of this is bolted to a racing engine that’s flexible enough to make everything from damn-near-autopilot settings to all-assists-off simulation — including our preferred mix of somewhere in between — feel so gripping you’ll forget to blink during races in the 10-season career mode. You’ll feel your tires start to stutter when you’re taking a corner too fast, you’ll notice when your car starts to pull in one direction if you damage it enough, and you’ll get a slingshot effect when you draft someone, then pass them. Your A.I. opponents react realistically, too. To wit: we spent most races brute-force smashing through rivals to pass them, and later in the game they began getting fed up with our tactics and returning the favor.

The game’s better against humans, of course, and as in Forza 3, the community features rule the day. User-created tuning setups, paintjobs, decals, and the auction house are back, while the glorious new car clubs let you team up and share resources (if one member buys a car, it’s available to everyone in the club) and challenge other groups. Rivals mode borrows from other games, but is nevertheless welcome, letting you earn in-game credits for beating other people’s times and scores.

Really, the worst thing we can say about Forza 4 is that, while it has an undying passion for automobiles, it assumes you do, too. Nowhere does it teach you about driving lines, drafting techniques, or other nuances of racing. For example, we learned the basics of drifting only through trial and error, although we still can’t figure it out enough to earn the Achievement for doing a perfect one. For a hardcore driving simulation, this vagueness is somewhat puzzling.

Forza 4 is also the first hybrid Kinect game, letting you drive with a controller while using Kinect to navigate menus with your voice or look left/right with your head during races (to get a better view of the road). We love the former, as it’s great to say “Xbox, Autovista” from any menu and have Kinect take you straight to the interactive auto museum, a fun addition in which Clarkson tells you fun facts about some of the game’s most noteworthy cars. However, we had much difficulty getting head tracking to work properly no matter the setup, and even when it did (read: rarely), we found it didn’t add anything to the driving experience.

Put simply, though, no other car game on Xbox — and we’d dare say any other platform — even approaches Forza 4’s depth, versatility, beauty, and community support. It’s so comprehensive that there’s probably nowhere for the series to go from here — except onto the inevitable Xbox 720. Until then, enjoy every minute of this ride.

On Xbox 360 (Kinect-compatible)

+ Ridiculous number of cars, all gorgeously re-created.

+ Oodles of options and online community features, including an auction house, liveries, decals, and car clubs.

– Not much in the way of tutorials; Kinect head-tracking doesn’t work well and/or is useless.

? How come the DeLorean looks accurately stainless steel in Autovista, but is wrongly painted silver during gameplay?

9.5