Review: Forza Horizon

Posted by: 10/22/2012

When we talk about the Forza franchise, the first things that come to mind are closed circuit racing and precision driving for hours and hours on end. Forza 4 was probably one of the most complete and satisfying racing games we have seen on this generation of consoles. Turn 10 has worked continuously to improve the Forza DNA over a span of four games to critical acclaim.

While Turn 10 was still involved in the development of Forza Horizon it was really a project brought to fruition by Playground Games, which is a studio made up of veteran racing game developers formerly employed by studios like Codemasters, Bizarre Creations, and Criterion Games. These names should ring a bell since these were the development houses responsible for franchises like DIRT, GRID, Need for Speed, Project Gotham and more.

Playground Games set out to make a different Forza game with Horizon set in the absolutely beautiful, fictional Colorado. If you’ve watched Top Gear enough to see the episode where Jeremy Clarkson and Co set out to find the best driving roads in the world, you may see what Horizon is going for. Playground Games crafted a massive open world with all sorts of roads which were carved through the red driving oasis that is Horizon. The game world includes day and night cycles as well and Horizon does not slow down in the dark. It is hard not to be gushing over this game like a child on Christmas morning.

Oftentimes open world racing games tend to suffer on the visual side since they are loaded with content and some concessions must to be made – this is not the case with Forza Horizon. It is hard not to accuse the developers at Playground Games with witchcraft since Forza Horizon does not only have an enormous and beautiful world to play in but also tons of things going on in it. With all of the regular traffic and Horizon competitors populating the world, along with night driving, sun rise and sun sets as well as kicked up fall leafs from the roads, Horizon never slows down in frame rate and remains stable and smooth throughout the entire game.

The many classic and modern cars within Horizon are exceptionally modeled as we are used to from the Forza Franchise and are also a blast to drive as the sunlight reflects of them in real time. I have had a huge smile on my face more often than I can count when blasting through the gorgeous world, while piloting cars like the historic Aston Martin, the powerful Bugatti Veyron, the numerous Ferrari’s and Lamborghinis, while the in-game radio was on blast on one of the three stations covering the festival. Horizon does a fantastic job at immersing the player within the game as it combines the open world exploration and competition with the Forza driving model.

Let me talk a bit about the modes in the latest Forza game. Playground Games created this large open world but also put a lot of things in it to make sure players don’t get bored. The game is set around ‘The Horizon Festival’ – this event will have players compete in festival events to acquire wristbands that qualify our game’s hero to compete for the championship. Of course we start out with a low end car that can be upgraded throughout the game as we are used to from the Forza series using the auto-upgrade option or do it based on your own custom selections as usual. There is also an Autoshow where you can buy new cars. Other ways to extend your garage are winning Star Showdowns or Showcase events where you’ll compete a checkpoint race against an airplane or a helicopter. Progressing through the wristband stages will trigger ‘Barn Finds’ where old abandonment classics can be found through exploration. There is also an illegal street racing scene in which players compete for cold hard cash around the world of horizon.

Since the world of Horizon is so big, it can take some time to get across the vast environments and this is where the Outposts come in. Players can fast travel from anywhere in the world to those points for in-game cash unless the sponsor challenges are completed, which provide discounts or make it free entirely. If you like to travel across the world the traditional way, make sure to do plenty of skill driving such as near-misses, burnouts, drifts or wrecking the environment as all of these will increase your popularity and open new Showcase Events. When finishing a Festival Event players can chose to beat a rival’s time for credits. Rivals are other Forza players who have a time close to yours. Additional mini competitions in the game consist of pulling up behind a Festival competitor and challenging them to a race.

As you can see Forza Horizon is filled with content and quality at that. Since this is an Xbox 360 game, it also includes Kinect integration and allows players to say ‘GPS: Next Event‘, etc to set the mini map to the nearest event. This is a nice edition and I ended up using it a few times. Forza Horizon also includes a multiplayer mode which can be entered in free roam or coop with friends or strangers. This mode is especially fun if your buddies want to join a lobby and compete in online challenges in this immense open world.

When Forza Horizon was first announced it had me wondering if an open world racing game from the Forza brand could earn its keep in this competitive space but Playground Games has more than met the mark, it pushed up the bar to a new level. Forza Horizon is a racing fan’s dream with the beautiful world, exotic cars and all the usual Forza features like user generated content which combined make Horizon one of the best racing games around.

Score: 9 / 10

Forza Horizon was developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft for Xbox 360 on October 23rd. A retail copy of the Xbox 360 version was provided to us by Microsoft for reviewing purposes.

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