Forza Horizon

[nonny]

I've got a feeling any next iteration in the series on next gen hardware will possibly be both flavours combined. Track races with full sim aspects from the motorsport heritage along with off-road and rallying from this.

I've spent more time in multiplayer now than the actual campaign which in turn should make it a lot easier to progress as I've already accrued a good 3 million credits so far.

[nakamura]

Both flavours combined? Why would they do that when they can sell each one at ?50 year on year!

[nonny]

Heh... true. Perhaps to take on GT?... without the 5-6 year development cycle

[gambit6613]

I cant tell you how excited i am to see what the next gen brings to open world racers like this, i am already blown away by the looks of Forza Horizon, just imagine what new hardware could bring? What i would like to see is a full online persistent world where you can see others racing around the map kind of like Test Drive but a game as polished and detailed as Horizon.

What also just blows me away is the quality of racers that Turn 10/Playground Games have been produced over the last few years with Forza 3,4 and Horizon when you consider just how long Gran Tourismo took to develop and that for me is just as boring to play as watching paint dry, i know others like it but for me it was such a chore to play.

[BaronSqwelch]

Gift for the car club members...a 1.8 million cr Aston Martin in matte neon pink is now in the garage
try it in the 'Aston Martin Outrun' race and its impossible not to love this game!!

[nakamura]

If there is any car that beats the rest it is a modded Lotus Exige. Tuned to around a top A or even an S makes this machine an absolute monster to drive and it is so chuckable around the twisty sections.


Gambit, for me Turn 10 only got it right with Forza 4, I found the rest to be pretty dull to actually race in. Forza 4 changed all that but was still rather sterile and lacked decent locations to race but the actual racing was much improved.

[BaronSqwelch]

Almost a perfect gaming moment...final showdown race, 98% complete...achievement pops for hitting number 1 most popular...99% I miss the turn and lose a 10 min race First time I really wished I had rewind turned on!!

[gambit6613]

Dont get me wrong Forza 3 or 4 were not perfect but im just making the point that 3 AAA racing games have been developed in the same time that it took for just one, and far as im concerned very dull, Gran Tourismo game, which is pretty good going. But if im honest i find most track based driving games pretty dull. This is what i love about Horizon, it features all the gorgeous backgrounds of Forza 4 but the freedom to explore the view if you get me. It for me really is driving perfection.

[englishbob]

I think I've played enough single player action to comment. My first 2 hours or so with this where not good.

At first it reminded me of Assasins Creed 2 in its introductions. Everyone you meet in the game is a complete arsehole. Everyone is so patronising and un-friendly it makes you want to punch the screen. Alice (is it?) is the first culprit, I can't work out if she wants to **** me or just take the piss. How dare she answer the phone whilst I am talking to her!! The bloke who works in the garage is a massive condesending prick too, "swing by me for upgrades" which instantly got me thinking, **** it, I'll stuggle on without them thanks!

Every other dudebro / girlbro I've met is also a twat. I can imagine once I come face to face with "Darius", I'll be dreaming of a QTE event to beat the **** out of him. You could argue that I am missing the point of the game, but it makes up such a massive part of your first few hours it's hard to dismiss. Maybe I am just not "awesome" enough to understand the core Fast-and-Furious type angle on this, but isn't this stuff a bit long in the tooth now?

The first time I truely enjoyed any of this was when I was just left alone to find some hidden barns, and being able to challenge anyone by pressing the BACK button. This showed a game always adapted, toying with your expectations even two hours in.

If I am totally honest, I am really not bothered about night driving, I don't enjoy it in real life, so doing it in a game thats supposed to be a bit more relaxed doesn't exactly draw me into it. I would be more likely to pull over or try and accelerate time to get out of the night.

Visuals are excellent, really are something special. Sound is ok, thought it lacked beef. Handling, to me, seems a bit light. Stop in the middle of the road and do a full steering lock and go about 2-3 MPH and you can pretty much do a 360 on the spot. I noticed there is a huge "advanced" section on the options screen, so if anyone has a great setup for a controller, please post.

On the subject of Options, it would of been a better design to use one of the unused controller buttons to bring up the Map, pressing START then MAP seems longwinded to me, especially due to how may times you are going to use it, and how streamlined everything else is.

Of course one of the real saving graces of this whole thing *should* be the rivals mode, but yet again I have to lament the fact that on lap-based events there is NO rolling starts! Forza has always done this, and its bloody annoying to start a lap from standstill and then see the ghost wizz past! You've got another 2 minutes now before you can challenge the time, a total waste! Before it's always had the cry "well, your warming up your tyres" bull****, so I am wondering what the reason is going to be this time?

The open world setting, and the driving aspect to that, is pretty much spot-on. I can imagine that its bliss with a wheel.

The racing though, is a bit hit-and-miss. If your idea of a racing game is to stick to the racing line, shave seconds off lap time, and compete with A.I. in a gentlemenly fashion, you need to avoid this.

It would be unfair of me to say the A.I. is on rails, its not, not in the slightest. It is however totally oblivious to you. It doesn't give a monkeys if you are on the track, if your on its racing line, it won't brake or adapt, it will literally ram you. You might make the perfect overtake into a corner and take the racing line, but if the A.I. also follows you into a slow bend it will make no effort to slow down because you are there, it will bash into you, throwing you off your line.

The tracks themselves only impound the issues above because they can be so tight to maneuver around. This is especially true of lap based events, some just don't have any overtaking spots at all! And most are walled.

There is an event quite a bit into the game called "Mini Mayhem" which summed up the game for me nicely. You can only race using Minis. The Forza series' consistant flaw is that "you always start in last place", meaning you are up against it, especially on the HARD setting. You can have the fastest lap, shave a few seconds off here and there, but catching up the guy in first place is practically impossilbe because of all the barging and tussling going on. And its a very tight circuit, only one passing point. Over 5 laps, its just not possible to come first, unless you get very lucky, or attempt to barge every single AI car into a wall.

Of course you can upgrade your car too, which can make things a bit easier, but it doesn't change the AI behaviour or the track layouts.

Multiplayer seems very well fleshed out, but only having dabbled I'm not passing comment on it just yet, but what I tried worked well and this potentially is where it can shine. Time will tell.

Plus points
Graphics
Presentation
Menu system (minus the MAP thing, dependant on controller config you choose apparently)
Driving
Plenty to do
Point to point races
Helicopters!


Minus
"Awesome" dudes, who happen to be *****
Aggresive A.I.
No rolling starts on lap-based events in Rivals mode, AGAIN!
Some horrible tracks with lots of walls.
Sound of the cars not up there with the best.
Sound mix means other cars are louder than yours.
Not enough helicopters!

[gambit6613]

Well you Sir are just obviously trolling Only joking around. Each to there own, but i have to say i do find the engine sounds absolutely spot on, the difference between each car is very distinctive, i have never heard such fantastic noise. It works so much better with a decent set of headphones on, music turned off and volume turned up to maximum then take the Lamborghini Murcielago, head for the long straight near Horizon and head for the tunnels, blast along at a least 200Mph, slow down as you enter tunnel and shift down into third gear and just scream through the tunnel, for me its ****ing fantastic. In terms of control schemes i have found that manual gears with clutch works brilliantly, at first it was rather awkward but now im used to it i have found it has totally changed the game for me, i have so much more controll over the car.

One thing that always amazes me about gamers and games is just how for some people a certain game is brilliant but to others they dont enjoy it as much, fascinating

[nonny]

I've only got the old Xbox 360 wheel mounted on a wheelstand but I can tell you that this plays utterly fantastic with the wheel. Basically if you've played Forza4 with any wheel setup this is every bit as good, so nothing has been compromised in that aspect.

I agree, it's more rubbin' is racing in this than compete as a gentleman of the road. That said I've been in several online lobbies now where people were actually pretty decent and aside from the odd few corner pile ups where someone stuffed up the racing line the racing has been as good as can be expected with people still learning the tracks.

One of my mates has this now and we've had one session just 1 on 1 across rally tracks and that was just amazing. Both using wheels, both pretty close in skill level and both picking very closely matched cars. When all that sort of stuff clicks into place you just have to sit back and appreciate what is going on under the covers in this game. It plays so well.

I can ignore all the dudebro type stuff brought over from the likes of Blur etc... when actual gameplay aspects are so well executed. As for night driving... if there is any negative it's that the lighting from the headlights isnt as good as it can be and at high speed you cant quite see whats in front of you. I'd love to see that spare button put to good use to put your full beams on!

As for where this series goes in general. Variable weather conditions please. We've seen in before in PGR4 and it was epic and for me its the missing open world element that needs to be addressed next-gen. Night/Day mixed with Rain/Thunder/Snow/Ice and everything in between.

My only other negative is online some of the default playlists repeat way too often. They need to expand the offerings in rotation and perhaps include longer races across the faster areas of the map in the R classes. Just as a palate cleanser every 10 races or so.

All up though this is the best racing title I've played in years and borrows so many best bits from previous attempts I am hard pressed to pick those over this when it doesnt have the same amount of variety. I've got NFS on pre-order for next week as well so that is going to have to be something very special to compare. Thankfully I see owning both as the best way to go to get a racing fix before new hardware hits the markets next year.

Oh and the Rally DLC... consider me interested. I just want to see more on whats actually included.

[EvilBoris]

On the subject of Options, it would of been a better design to use one of the unused controller buttons to bring up the Map, pressing START then MAP seems longwinded to me, especially due to how may times you are going to use it, and how streamlined everything else is.

...................Did you buy the controller layout DLC, because all 5 default map configurations have MAP as the back button.

I'm pretty sure it tells you this in the tutorial, perhaps if you'd of paid more attention to the tutorial instead of putting so much effort into remaining constantly livid you'd know this.

[QualityChimp]

...................Did you buy the controller layout DLC, because all 5 default map configurations have MAP as the back button.

You have to buy DLC to be able to change the button layout?

[EvilBoris]

You have to buy DLC to be able to change the button layout?

Yeah, the default layout only lets you use handbrake.

[QualityChimp]

*phew*

I only really like parking cars, so I'd only need the handbrake.