"Braking" the Event Horizon

As a gamer, I know that I must subscribe to a lot of different genres.  Action, puzzle, adventure, platformer, fighting, but one genre that I almost exclusively ignore is sports games.  It is no surprise, sports games are known for being extremely generic and they usually suck.  Also, I normally like to play games that allow me to do something that I am otherwise incapable of doing in the real world.  I mean I am certainly capable of playing football or basket ball, not so much slaying dragons with swords or shooting people in the face without risk of being shot myself.  There are a few sports games however that do intrigue me a bit more.  Racing games in particular definitely have things I cannot perform in reality (like drifting without fear).  Racing games also tend to suck apart from the party style of Mario Kart or the crazy arcade antics of Burnout.  Luckily, Forza Horizon has something much more to offer than simple realistic racing.

I normally would never have picked up this title, because I normally hate racing games, but I had recently finished watching all of Initial D...and I heard that the AE86 Toyota Trueno was one of the cars you could get.  I had to most definitely get my Takumi Fujiwara on.  

Lap 1: Story

Alright, it definitely isn't right to judge a sports game by its story, but this time around the storyline is fairly relevant to understanding how it plays out.  You are the nameless nobody that is trying to shake up the Colorodo racing scene by devastating the competition of the Horizon Festival.  Various local racing legends stand between you and the top as you drift, slide, draft, e-brake, wreck or otherwise pass your competition.  You play for wristbands which dictate the types and difficulty of races you are allowed to partake in.  Everything leading up to the big showdown between you and Darius Flynt, the big bad racing king in town.  Alright so the story is shallow as all fuck, but honestly, it works.  Keeping the motivations simple, the character mute, and the action as the main focus at all time.  It keeps the open world environment easy to justify and creates proper motivations to all of the various events.  

Lap 2: Gameplay

Anytime you aren't smashing your car into the guard rails, you can be sure that a race is somewhere around the corner.  You can take part in tons of different types of races with various terrain types, car limitations, and competition.  You get to beef-up your ride in all sorts of fashions and types as well as purchasing one of over 180 cars including special barn finds that are ridiculously rare cars in the real world.  There is frankly a ton of shit to do in this game.  Even still, nothing is done outside of cars or menus, so despite the shear number of objectives and completion goals, it does start to feel repetitive after a while.  Luckily, if a car starts to feel stale, you can always alter it's parts or change it all together.  

The driving itself feels great, it was clear that a lot of time and effort was put into the engine (pretty much a supped up version of Forza 4's engine).  There is definitely nothing that feels as good as nailing a perfect inner line drift in a Trueno so close to the guard rail you can practically kiss it.  The game is ridiculously easy with the rewind feature turned on.  It feels like Prince of Persia in a car.  Unfortunately, even with the difficulty turned up and all the driving assists off, the game isn't very difficult.  The computer AI cannot handle good drifts (you just come out of the turns too fast), and since your potential money is indefinite, there is always a way to get your car a bit more up to snuff.  Not to mention that since you don't retain any permanent damage to your vehicle, you can crash about into the opponents and not have to worry.  The AI will almost always try to avoid the walls and other cars so you can bank off of them or use the guardrails to slingshot you forward to give yourself an undeniable advantage.  Now online multiplayer is an entirely different story.  Human opponents can be brutal.  If your great at drifting, and you don't let yourself fall prey to their aggressive attacks then you'll be fine, but any less than perfect and you're going to have some serious trouble.

Lap 3: Presentation

This game looks amazing.  The graphics, blur effects, lighting, road appearance, environment, tire marks, and even the soundtrack make for one incredibly enjoyable experience.  Each car is beautifully detailed and looks exactly like their real world counterparts.  There is a lot of fun to be had with adding special designs to the various cars, you an upload your designs and you can share them over the internet.  Even though the presentation is top notch, there is a few lacking texture loads and issues with online connectivity.  I had a lot of roads not load up when I was driving on them during online play.  Still, that isn't quite enough for that to deter anyone from playing it.


Final Lap: Result

Alright, so we have a realistic racing game, with a giant open world environment, large number of events, hidden treasures,180+ cars, online multiplayer, and extra tracks and cars available via DLC adding up to a huge experience in the corners of Colorado. There is a few issues with the game as an entity.  It is a bit too easy, connection issues, a lame story and a small number of song titles and music variety in general hold it back from true greatness, but even still, this is one of the best fighting games I have played in a long time. 


89%

My grade for this title is an 89%, it has a lot to look forward too, but it ultimately is a very linear experience that doesn't leave a lot of room for unique gameplay elements.  It is however a racing game and all of that is to be expected.  It doesn't make it bad luckily.  And of course, you get to rock it in a Toyota Trueno, so what else could you possibly ask for in a racing game?