There are about 20 per cent more events in total than in the last game, which should give players even more choice and extreme completionists even more challenge. Like with Forza 3, the game presents a series of different events for you to enlist in – and these are tailored specifically to your current car alongside other cars in your garage, rather than pie-in-the-sky vehicles you won’t be able to afford for weeks. It’s a whistle-stop tour of five countries, starting with a short version of Spain’s Ladera test track. I paint my RWD Aygo a metallic grey (because that’s all the rage right now) and head off into the five-race Amateur Division, designed to segue you into the game good and proper.

I go for the 2011 Toyota Aygo, purely because I remember it from those ridiculous adverts where the machine turns into a sticky blob. Before the sporty numbers are the trendy city cars, and it’s time to pick an F-class starter vehicle. Then, as if we were playing Metroid, the game snatches it all away – at least for now. M Rossi will probably be even more of a douchebag than ever. This is the World Tour, the revamped version of Forza 3’s Season Play, and its main new features are dynamic difficulty adaptation and the new ability for AI drivers to upgrade their cars. The fourth entry in the series opens with you in an inordinately expensive sports car blazing through the Bernese Alps, a new track with thick roads and enough leeway to cruise down much of the track at full throttle. The third game was so comprehensive it essentially rendered all other racing games inert, and I’ve been slowly chipping away at it for a couple of years now. I do, however, really enjoying playing Forza Motorsport. Jeremy Clarkson, if we ever met, would probably kick me in the balls.

I hate the idea of families owning multiple cars. I have a confession: I am one of those people who thinks driving is bad for the environment. The environmentalists are taking over, the age of the Petrolheads is heading into receding hairline territory, and automotive fun in general is dying out.

This is the first phrase uttered in Forza Motorsport 4, spoken by none other than Top Gear presenter/right-wing poster boy Jeremy Clarkson himself.

“We’re an endangered species, you and me.”

How to upgrade cars forza motorsport 4