In a varied environment like Australia, it’s a given that Forza Horizon 3 will offer a lot more than just street racing.
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Forza Horizon 3, the latest installment in Microsoft’s long-running racing series, is almost here.
Forza Horizon 3 kicks things off with a bang. When bombing through the vast Australian countryside or splashing down the wide beaches, that makes a world of difference. After spending countless hours in Forza Horizon 3, I can tell you that I have yet to experience every little inch of Australia and I’m often impressed with what I discover, like attractive vistas, historic sites, and breathtaking environments.
If you were thinking that the game might penalise the player in the rewards they reap from races where there was excessive use of the rewind feature, you’d be incorrect. At the same time, you can turn ABS, the racing line, gear shift and limiter on or off as you see fit, so even though we’d consider the balance to be flawless all round, you can tweak it to fit your personal requirements. This means that you can choose the festival sites (from a list of pre-determined locations) as well as each race’s traits.
Forza Horizon 3 has seen some drastic changes this time around, with the introduction of a brand new cooperative mode, cross-platform play, and other features that expand upon gameplay. The best part is you do get to see the Festival grow and get bigger over time. The Horizon festival starts in one place, with a few events scattered around it, along with one-off “PR Stunts” – jumps, drift challenges, speed-tracking cameras. With constantly evolving leaderboards, there’s no shortage of reasons to keep angling for one more foot, one more mile per hour.
Forza Horizon 3 is a compelling, all-round excellent racer that should appeal to both hardcore fans and first time players. The infamous Drivatars return, again filled with the knowledge of a million races, reactions and attitudes. A Dodge 1969 Charger R/T is nothing like the Lamborghini Centenario and it’s incredible to feel the raw horsepower of the former against the overall greatness and speed of the latter. More importantly, it’s less frustrating. The map is huge, yet well-populated with things to do. The rough edges were disappointing to see, but they didn’t come anywhere close to ruining the game. As an open world racer Forza Horizon 3 is epic and diverse, as a racer it’s satisfying yet deep, and as a place to hang out it’s a whole heap of fun.
Forza Horizon 3 is a proper open-world game, so a large part of its appeal lies in randomly speeding around its giant game-world and seeing what you can find. Barns hold a number of secrets, but in Australia they apparently hold some of the rarest, choicest automobiles the world has ever forgotten.
I’m happy to report the Logitech G920 connects you to the vehicle and your inputs are realistically translates through the turns and the vehicle co-operates as expected. Its as if the developers got the CAD models of the more than 350 cars, from the manufacturer, then understood the vehicle dynamics and applied that the handling characteristics while also paying devilish detail on the sound effects like turbos spooling and upgraded exhaust notes. Once unlocked, the drone is ideal for these moments, and can be busted out at any time. The varying road surfaces mean any road-centric cars can become virtually useless as soon as you head off the beaten track, which means a beefed up off-roader is nearly always the best choice for most races. For example, racing rival avatars is fairly linear in the early going but once you unlock bounties, it’s possible to challenge any avatar on the road. There is so much variety that the developers accurately capture the feeling of driving across all of Australia, and not just a portion of the country. That works to your advantage pretty well. The conceit however is that there’s a bit of drama behind the event. At select map points, you can build such events, and there really are a lot of customization elements involved if you want to dig into the nitty gritty of it all. This can then be shared, online, with the rest of the world. All you’ve got to do is complete the challenge yourself to set the pace, upload it, and let the world shatter all your expectations.
Lastly, and this is through no fault of Playground Games, Horizon 3 just doesn’t do enough differently to Horizon 2. Australia is undeniably a handsome country, and this shrunken down, digital version of the continent is stunning.
But if you’d prefer to try it out for yourself before you buy, a demo of Forza Horizon 3 is now available to download through the Xbox Games Store for the Xbox One. You can do that too. When you’ve achieved perfection, where do you go next? It would have been easy to coast to the finish line, but Playground Studios has taken the opportunity to take a joyride. When driving in a racer, typically your attention is tuned to what’s happening directly in front of you. Despite upgrading the tyre compound and spending up big on the top end of the market, the tyres in Forza 6 would start to protest if you through in even 30-40degrees of steering angle. If you read my review for Horizon 2 back in 2014, you know that it was my favorite game of that year. It does let you use your own music stored on One Drive, too, so you don’t need to pay for a pass. There’s no better way to wind down.
Inspired by the much stuffier Forza Motorsport series, which is hamstringed by its need to deliver an authentic racing simulation on tightly controlled courses, the Horizon games provide a massive open world sandbox in which you can do just about anything you can think of that involves an engine and wheels, whether that be pitting a sports truck against a freight train, driving a Ferrari off of a cliff, or entering a Chevrolet Bel Air in a serious closed circuit championship. I never found it too hard, especially thanks to the handy Rewind feature, but that was on Average difficulty. Which seems a perfectly sensible approach if you’re trying to differentiate the two sides of the Forza franchise.
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This review is based on a digital copy of Forza Horizon 3 provided by the publisher for Xbox One.
