When it comes to open-world racing games, Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Burnout Paradise are the best. EA, Ubisoft and other developers have tried to surpass them with mixed results. From middling hits like the Most Wanted reboot to downright failures like Ubisoft’s The Crew . ThenForza Horizoncame along and pulled it off in style. Now the third instalment of the Horizon festival is here and we hope it’s worth it.
What’s it about?
The Horizon festival is a fictitious racing festival that takes place in real-world locations in the Forza Horizon. The game features several types of races in dream cars, ranging from ultracars to retro cult classics, set anywhere across the vast expanse of the open-world stage. Think The Fast and the Furious , except with a focus on racing simulation rather than arcade.
The Horizon festival debuted in Colorado, where it was a runaway, rather, drive-away success. It later took place in Southern France and Northern Italy, letting you race across the French Riviera and the regions around it. Now forForza Horizon 3, the festival has moved Down Under. You get to race across the Australian Outback right up to Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay.
Things are different now though. Previously, you were just another driver taking part in the festival for glory. Now, you not only participate, but also are a director in the festival. Assistants guide you in setting up and expanding the festival. You get to plan races and also take part in them. That’s your game, except there's a lot more depth to it, including a bit of illegal street racing and a lot of off-roading.
How does it play?
The game introduces you to the high speed road races before jumping into the seat of a tricked out 4x4 as you take the off-road less travelled.
The interface is really easy as it strikes a balance between managing the Horizon festival and letting you go all-out racing.
Select your character and name (custom or preset), and meet Keira, one of the best parts of the game. As your in-game assistant, she's well-voiced and cracks some really good jokes.
At its heart, Forza Horizon 3 is a hardcore racing sim, much like Gran Turismo . But it lets you burn tarmac.
If you make a mistake, you can rewind the race to that point and try to fix it: one of the best features of the game. If you want deeper control, you can bring up the race tune menu and tweak everything, from the front and rear tyre pressures to shocks, and more.
In the garage, you can upgrade your cars with a staggering number of customisation options, from tyre treads to performance upgrades to cosmetics. There's even a deep car skin designing tool, which you can share online.
The world map opens out as you race. As director, you make a lot of decisions, including signing up musical acts from cutting-edge electronica to retro funk and hip hop to draw in more crowds. You can take part in races or you can jump into any of the challenges.
If you don't feel like racing, you can hunt around for boards to smash and take up little PR stunt challenges. One of them involves driving a Warthog from the Halo series in a time trial.
There is no shortage of stuff to do: you can drive around your little slice of Australia or tinker around with your ever growing garage of cars.
Instead of being always online, the game has your friends’ Drivatars (driving avatars) populate your offline game world. Meaning you will constantly see your friends’ cars take part in your races or you see them drive by waiting for you to challenge them. You can either drive around in a convoy for some impromptu racing or can keep racing against your friends.
These Driveatars are not just reflections of your friends, but they actually adapt and learn from your friends’ racing style and bring those into your game.
When you feel confident of your driving skills, you have your favourite car set, then you can take the game online in free roam or you and your party of friends can tear up the town in co-op mode, which is a lot of fun.
Forza Horizon 3 is beautiful, from the detail in the cars right up to the environments when you're standing still. The sheer amount of car porn is enough to make any hot-blooded car fan extremely happy.
On a PC, all that fidelity is pushed further; even an Nvidia 1070.
But not everything is perfect and while every car has really good handling characteristics, sometimes the bigger cars feel a bit float-y. Also, the menus sometimes have a lot of unnecessary animation that makes tinkering take longer than it should.
Should you get it?
This is not a game, but a celebration of music, racing and everything that's good in life.
The game has totally embodied the spectacle that accompanies a massive festival that Horizon is aiming for, with you at the centre of it. If there is one racing game that you just have to play, it's Forza Horizon 3 .
The author is a freelance tech and lifestyle writer
Forza Horizon 3
Developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Price: Rs. 3,999 Xbox One and Windows 10
