Forza is Microsoft’s choice driving simulator game. Forza Horizon tries to combine the driving simulator gameplay in an open world setting, so when Microsoft gave us a copy to review, did we find Horizon lives up to the franchise’s history of glory, or was this a race nobody cared to join?
The Forza Horizon story follows a nameless male driver (that’s you) participating in the Horizon Colorado 2012 racing rally. A series of races to find the fastest and best driver. You have your standard garage to upgrade your rides, difference is you’re not participating in nascar or formula 1 like events anymore. Let’s be honest, racing games don’t usually have the strongest of stories and if you’re playing Forza, you don’t really care for story anyway. You’ll use an overworld map to select races to participate in for fame and fortune to spend on new cars and upgrades.
Controls are pretty simple. Gas, brake, hand brake, and steering. The rewind option lets you reverse a decision you made to see if you can prevent the same mistake from happening twice. This is a nice handicap for newcomers to the Forza style of racing and will help a lot when you’re starting out. It’s also nice for when you’re playing in a heated match and just about to win, avoiding the frustration you might feel at a last second mistake (or unfair AI SOMEHOW passing you at the last possible moment). Arcade-style racing players should keep in mind, this is still Forza style mechanics, so handling and acceleration isn’t going to be incredibly smooth depending on the speed and type of car you play with. This doesn’t break the game, per say, but it may not be the happy medium that developers were hoping to create between the two gameplay styles of arcade and driving simulator.
Races are scattered across the Horizon map and players will need to participate in a number of different races in order to earn different colored wrist bands and progress to further levels of racing. Upon arriving at each race, players are able to change the difficulty setting to fit their current expertise, but this also impacts the amount of money players will earn. A rivals option appears after players complete races, allowing you to race people from your friends list for extra cash and bragging rights. This adds to Forza’s replayability in single player, influencing players to go back and reclaim their fame of top racer amongst their friends in different races. Players will also constantly be buying new cars and upgrading/downgrading them per class depending on the race they’re required to enter. This can be annoying to have to restrict your supercharged beasts, but it does help balance gameplay.
Graphically, Forza Horison still looks like the beautiful game you would expect from the franchise. Cars look like they have polished paint jobs (except maybe when damaged) and can have cosmetic changes to suit the players style. The fictional Horizon landscape is beautiful and actually believable as a Colorado location, which shows excellent work from the level designers. Weaving mountains, dirt roads, snow ridden paths and verdant forest landscapes encompass different areas of the game world, and you’ll want to visit all of them. Lighting only accentuates the landscape as you’ll see sunlight beam across your car as you race through the tracks, and dirt kicking up under your car looks so natural that the game can’t do much more to make the world realistic. Let’s not forget nighttime, where you can see the horizon festival lights from a distance and watch the lights and fireworks dance in the reflection of your cars paint job as you drive by. With so much done fantastically well with the cars and gameworld, it’s a little disappointing to find that character models look somewhat cartoonish. Thankfully people aren’t the main focus of the game.
All the beauty comes at a price; however, as load times can be rather annoying and happen fairly often before and after races. It’s never a good sign for a racing game where speed is a focus when players are forced to wait for the track to load, but it can be forgiven for how much the game does well. Being an open world game, fast travel is a welcome option to the over world map allowing players to quickly get back to base to change/upgrade cars, even though load times will continue to annoy. For collectibles, the main draw across the overworld map is to find signs that will get you extra discounts for upgrades. While it’s nice to buy cars and class changes for cheaper, you may not feel so drawn out to go find all (or even any signs) in particular and continue to focus on racing, so it feels almost wasteful. Collectible old-time cars can be found across the map too that can be restored, but that will really only appeal to vintage car enthusiasts.
Geek Citadel gives Forza Horizon a B. The beautiful Forza graphics mixed with an open world makes for a decent racing experience, but load times and other minor quirks do hold back the experience a bit.
Recommended buy prices:
Like Forza? $40
Everyone else? $30
