The Forza Motorsport franchise is one of the go-to options for enthusiasts looking for some realistic, frisky couch action that doesn’t involve another person, but the simulator’s makers have rolled out a totally new variant called Forza Horizon that trades sim-level dynamics for a new style of driving gameplay. Instead of the usual linear game progression found in Forza 4 or Gran Turismo 5 that involves winning race after race after race, Forza Horizon features an open-world driving concept mixed with a loose variation of an arcade-style game structure. Oh, and in-game characters.
Allow us to set the scene for you: You’re an amateur street racer guy driving a lowly Volkswagen Corrado looking to enter the Horizon speed festival in rural Colorado. (Think Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza, but for car enthusiasts and with a lot less pot smoke. Maybe more tire smoke.) Some scantily-clad promoter lady who works for the festival notices you and puts you on a path towards street cred and fame by getting you into Horizon. This where is the game’s most unique feature—that it attempts to synthesize “car culture” into a playable, measurable format—comes into play. Progression through the game is as much about winning races with style as outright victory, and interacting with other characters in the game both in sanctioned Horizon events and unsanctioned street races and challenges.
The World Is Your Oyster, So Long as That Oyster Is Colorado
Equally compelling as the car-culture aspect of the game is how one goes about beating the game. Whereas Forza Motorsport 4 features a typical structure through which players progress by winning specific races that are accessed via a home menu, Forza Horizon has no central menu screen or prescribed race schedule. Sure, there are challenges and races for players to enter, but they’re “found” or recommended by in-game characters. And there’s no bouncing back and forth between a central menu and the races—everything is accessed via a large, in-game map, which displays the locations of races and challenges in a huge open world. Simply pick which event you’d like to compete in on the map, click on it, and set it as a destination and directions appear on your in-game GPS to lead you there.
New challenges and races are opened up as players accumulate skill points—earned by finding roads, winning races, and performing vehicular stunts and mayhem (including but not limited to drifting, near misses with the slow-moving civilian traffic, and wreckage of the surrounding scenery). Besides the aforementioned sanctioned Horizon festival events and impromptu street races, competitions include flashy showcase events (like racing a plane around a course) and star showdowns (in which you take on a Horizon great for glory). On a macro scale, progression through the game is measured by the number of wristbands a player accumulates by winning such races; higher-level wristbands unlock higher-level Horizon events. Clever, but based on the number of wristbands one must attain, Horizon is either a permanent fictional Colorado fixture or the longest temporary car festival ever. Of course, players also earn in-game credits similar to those in Forza 4, which can be used to purchase aftermarket parts or entire cars.
Sweet Ride, Bro
Upgrade parts are installed in a garage located at Race Central, a cluster of pertinent buildings whose purposes effectively mirror those of a home menu in a typical racing game. There is a Marketplace where players can download new game content (such as downloadable car packs); a Car Club where you can start or join a, uh, car club; an Auto Show that serves as a sort of showroom for cars you can buy; and a Paint Shop that allows players to create or purchase fresh graphic designs for their cars.
Speaking of cars, Forza Horizon has a veritable pantsload of cool rides, many of which are so cool as to stand out as slightly odd in a street-racing atmosphere. Cars like the Nissan GT-R, Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, and a Mitsubishi Evo all fit the underground racing bill rather nicely. On the flip side, a 1965 Shelby Daytona coupe, 1964 Ferrari 250GTO, or a Lamborghini Reventón are among the last cars we might think of when it comes to street racing, but at least Horizon’s got the fantasy aspect of gaming down pat.
So the car list is nothing if not filled with automotive porn, and the virtual Colorado is packed with some wonderful ribbons of blacktop. Better still, only a portion of the virtual driving heaven is visible on the map from the get-go—players “discover” the rest of the roads by finding them and driving them. Besides the open-world concept, Horizon also offers a few Forza “firsts,” including night driving, dirt roads and off-road courses, and the ability to stumble across “barn finds.” As the barn-find concept implies, you can discover cars buried in old buildings throughout the game; find them, and they’re yours. All of the cars in the game are damageable, but the scope of the destruction is limited compared to Forza 4, and it’s only cosmetic. Impacts don’t affect cars’ drivability, and mostly consist of many paint scrapes and shattered glass.
Horizon plays a lot like the regular Forza, only slightly watered down from a realism standpoint. Forza 4’s near simulation-quality driving dynamics are present in Horizon’s many drivable cars, but it feels filtered and just a bit dumbed down. After a week of playing time, your humble author in particular found the game much more satisfying to play with a regular controller instead of a wheel. A joystick not only affords you an easier time navigating the in-game map, but also makes dodging slow-moving traffic less of an upper-body workout. Play with a wheel, and you’ll be sawing constantly as you attempt to avoid civilians.
On the upside, the cars in Horizon are just as lovingly detailed as those in Forza 4, and the scenery is just as well-presented. Even the humdrum traffic is crisply rendered, and we like that the civilian vehicles aren’t simply anonymous blobs but real cars. The roads are roamed by Audi A4s, Ford Taurus SHOs, and Chrysler PT Cruisers, to name a few. The near seamless transition between gameplay and seeking out races feels fresh and new, although loading screens still queue up when you opt into a race. And because the “tracks” are all cobbled together from the (many) roads within the world, the game mostly avoids the regular driving-game syndrome of “too many races, too few tracks.”
Overall, we think basing players’ progression through the game on multiple factors—skill points, credits, race wins—keeps things pretty engaging, and maintains a constant sense of challenge that keeps you coming back for more. It’s especially great for those with shorter attention spans, both because you don’t have to get very far in the game to begin enjoying the ability to modify and purchase new cars, and because each race feels unique, lessening any sensation of repetitiveness. We still prefer the challenge served up by titles like the Forza 4 and Gran Turismo 5, but Horizon should appeal to a wider audience and maybe even stir up some new enthusiasts, which we’re all for.
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