Forza Horizon 3 | Review

Description

THIS IS YOUR HORIZON

You’re in charge of the Horizon Festival. Customise everything, hire and fire your friends, and explore Australia in over 350 of the world’s greatest cars. Make your Horizon the ultimate celebration of cars, music, and freedom of the open road. How you get there is up to you.

EXPLORE AUSTRALIA, HORIZON’S LARGEST WORLD EVER

Drive through the vast desert and rocky canyons of the Outback to lush, wild rainforests, and to the sandy beaches and gleaming skyscrapers of Australia's Gold Coast.

CHOOSE FROM OVER 350 OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST CARS

Every car is recreated with ForzaVista™ detail including full cockpit views, working lights and wipers, and new vehicle types bringing all-new driving experiences never before seen in Forza.

DISCOVER NEW DRIVING GAMEPLAY

Danger Sign Jumps, Convoys, and Drift Zones are just some of the exciting new driving challenges that await you. Star in thrilling Showcase events that pit you and your car against a fleet of speed boats, even a giant airship!

HIRE AND FIRE FRIENDS

You’re the boss. Hire your friends’ Drivatars to help you gain fans and expand your festival, and form Convoys with them to explore the world even when they’re not online. If they’re not winning you fans, fire them!

CUSTOMISE EVERYTHING

Horizon Blueprint gives you the power to modify every aspect of race events, championships, and Bucket List challenges – and instantly challenge friends to beat you at your own game. Choose your driver character, create custom paint jobs and vanity license plates, add new body kits – even select your own car horn sound.

DRIVE TO THE MUSIC YOU LOVE

Choose from eight diverse radio stations, or create a custom station from your own music collection with Groove Music.

START AN ONLINE DRIVING ADVENTURE

Online 4-Player Co-op allows you and your friends to experience the variety, competition, and rewards of a Horizon campaign together for the first time.

PLAY THE AUCTION HOUSE

Find rare cars and incredible works of art by the most talented creators in the Forza Community.

Review

It is fair to say that I have a great admiration for the Forza series, I would even go as far as saying that it is the racing game that I go to each year. I have enjoyed over the last few years the switch between the normal track racing to the open world Horizon Festivals.

It has made a change to the series, and each year helps give the series a shake up and something different for the racing fans of the series to enjoy.

In Forza Horizon 3 you are the boss, you get to pick the races, the music, where it gets set up and how everything plays out. This is a nice step up for the series and as mentioned above, it has kept the game fresh, as there are new and exciting things to take from the game this year.

The Forza series does pride itself on how there games look, with absolutely beautiful vistas every year throughout there games, and Forza Horizon 3 is no different. The Australian setting looks absolutely gorgeous, and I have been told that those who have played the game on the Xbox One S and had it upscaled, it looks even better! Which when I was told, I found hard to believe. The game in 1080p HD looks absolutely stunning, so I would love to see how the game looks up scaled on the Xbox One S. (I will have to wait till I have a HDR compatible TV) The lighting is simply perfect for me, driving along and seeing that sunrise or sunset, or when your driving through the forests and you get that light shining straight through. Simply perfect. The colours are vast and beautiful, and this is why I want to try my Xbox One S on a 4K TV so that I can get to appreciate the extra colours within the game.

[caption id="attachment_13252" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Just jumping a train. Nothing to see here....[/caption]

 

As you are driving through the different areas that Australia has to offer you will notice how smooth the driving mechanics are and how responsive they are when driving. There are some racing games that I have played where it has felt like you're piloting a Jumbo Jet, and the turning on the cars has been terrible, but that isn't the case with Forza Horizon 3, sure some turns will go wider than normal, but that will be because you're going at high speed. If you time the corners perfect with the correct speed you will fly around the corners with ease, which will also make the difference in races when you're trying to overtake someone and you do that perfect slingshot around the corner to fly past them, there will be much satisfaction.

There are lots to see and do in the game, and with a game as beautiful as this, you will want to see as much of the world as you can, and this can mean going off the beat and track. There are plenty of races to take part in, all of which (barring the showcase events) are split into 3. These take the form of a one of exhibition race, Time Trials is where you try to set the fastest time for the route, and there is also a championship. With the Championship you can make the rules, or pick a pre defined championship to play through. When you make the rules, it is exactly that, you set which cars can be used, the laps per race etc. This option to pick your own rules is called a Blue Print, and it new the Horizon series, and I love it, being able to make the races how I want to see them.

You also have the bucket lists which are making a return from FH2, there are also PR stunts within the game, which links in with some of the bucket lists, other PR stunts can be skill points games where you have to get a certain amount skill points to pass the challenge. Another new challenge to FH3 is the danger signs, these are basically stunt jumps where you have to try and jump the farthest to get up to 3 stars.

There are also illegal road races in which you can take on 'Unknown' drivers and race in non Horizon Festival races. These are dotted about around the world and more get released to you as you do head to heads. So far I've noticed that more races will unlock with every 8 head to heads won. After you have won 16 head to heads this is when the main midnight race unlocks for you to complete!

[caption id="attachment_13253" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Evening racing... We'll try and keep the noise down[/caption]

 

Each Horizon Festival location can be upgraded up to Level 5, after this you will have to start moving onto the next location, however at the moment I have 2 locations on the go, and this all comes down to the amount of fans that you have attending the festivals. When it reaches a certain number this is when you have to expand to another location. This does however unlock more races and things for you to do.

This game world is absolutely massive, there is so much to see and do that it is going to take a while to get everything completed and that for me is good. It keeps players coming back for more and keeps the longevity of the game going. One good thing with Forza Horizon 3 is that because there is so much to see and do it hasn't felt boring to me. I can change it up and go do some PR stunts if I get bored of races, or I can just drive around and see what I stumble upon. The game is so beautiful that is what I have been doing with most of time so far, just driving around and seeing what I stumble upon and it has felt so relaxing. Especially as I have had Timeless radio on most of the time and all that classical music has kept me so chilled.

The radio stations within the game are nice and varied. There is a lot of choice to pick from, and you get choices ranging from Classical to Punk and beyond. You sign the stations that you want to be playing in the games, which again is a nice touch, as you ca pick the music you like or vary it up. There is also an option to integrate your groove music playlist, so you can play your own music through the game and I love this, I think that more games should be making this option possible. I know it won't be for every game but for something like this, it definitely worth it.

[caption id="attachment_13255" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Midnight stroll to the shops....[/caption]

 

I have one very small gripe with the game though. When having to go off road to say get a board that's under a bridge, when trying to get back up, 9 times out of 10 I found that my car would get stuck on nothing. It would be the tiniest incline and the car would struggle... The revs would go off the chart and the car would just sit there until I reversed back and went round a little further up. Seemed rather strange to me. But like I said, it is something that's very small, but still a tiny bit annoying.

Drivatars have been in the game since Forza 5 and every year I have found them to get better and better... Like a fine wine they have matured, and with each game have evolved with the series, and this year you can really tell the difference. Drivatars reactions and competitiveness does show through in the world and when in races, and for me that is a joy to see. Pushing players to the limits and making those cheeky tactical blocks in front to stop overtakes is how it should be.

I know Drivatars are based on the people who own then, and are sync'd to there style of driving, but for people I see in the game who haven't played it, you know it's based purely on the system it's self, and that is the perfect way to gauge how the system is going to operate. Well played Turn 10 and Playground!

Now onto the cars, I'm not a car buff and know literally nothing about cars, other than how to check the oil etc under the bonnet and put fuel in :D However, there is a section within the car where you can tune and design your car to your hearts content. I went with just conventional colours most of the time as I'm not one for bling on my cars. Tuning your car will allow you to change the tyres, engines etc and pretty much upgrade anything you want as you turn your car into a supercar. This does look to be a very nice feature, which has been in the series forever, but car buffs and those in the know will have an idea of how to tweak there car to perfection.

This for me is a fantastic entry into the series, and again, will be another Forza that I'll be playing until Forza 7 is released, but even then, track based and open world do compliment each other well, so it's more than likely that I'll no doubt be playing this until Forza Horizon 4.

A very well earned 9.8. Congrats Turn 10 and Playground Games.