It’s as close as I’m ever going to get to actually owning one of these: Aston Martin DB5 Vantage.
I’m a big fan of racing games, but very few have actually impressed me – DiRT2 was as good as they’re ever going to get. Combining mechanics that are easy to learn but impossible to master and very, very good graphics, Forza is hard to bad-mouth. But it was all becoming a bit ‘samey’, something the developers realised and changed with Forza Horizon.
So what’s different about Horizon that sets it apart from other racers? Well, Horizon itself is a car and music festival that takes place in fictional Colorado. You play the cliche newcomer who aims to become King of Horizon. This character you play has to be the most generic character I have ever come across. Complete with douchebag stubble, douchebag white tank top that is too small for him and douchebag aqua-blue wristwatch, he lacks a lot in actual character. In a series of festival races that become repetitive rather quickly, you earn credits and popularity points that allow you to buy better cars and rise through the ranks to eventually challenge the current champion.
Now, credits pose a problem. The amount of money you need to spend on cars is ridiculous. You earn on average around 20,000 credits per race, but you must have a certain graded car to compete. You can either upgrade a current car, but that’s expensive and means that the next time you’re in a lower graded race you’ll either have to buy a new car or downgrade (downgrading the car costs money too…work that one out) or buy a new one, also expensive. The only option is to compete in rivals events, which is basically beat someone in the real-world who got close to your time, to get more credits. That, is very boring.
The races themselves are rather boring, nothing revolutionary. You race on the streets and dirt tracks of Horizon, something that isn’t explained before each race. The problem here is that if you pick an Aston Martin, as soon as you touch a tiny bit of dirt you are going to go hurtling off the track faster than Lindsay Lohan after her electric tag is removed.
The cars, like the races, are dull. They’re all familiar (you choose between a Subaru and Mitsubishi at the start, another cliche) and somehow seem to get shittier and shittier cars until around halfway through the game. I went from racing in a C-Grade car (a rather lovely Mustang) to an A-Grade Lamborghini with literally no time to practice. The difference in speed is so great that I had to pause the game and take a breather. You go from trawling around corners without letting go of the break to being able to fling round hairpins at 5 gazillion miles an hour. It’s like watching a rented version of Avatar and just as the god-awful beastiality scene kicks in, you are hurled into Expendables because someone taped over it. You almost have a heart attack from the change of pace.
The only moments of the game I actually enjoyed were the speed traps, were you have to go past as fast as you can and try and beat your friend’s speeds, and the showcase events. I enjoyed these because they were refreshing, different to the constant looping of the same track over and over. Racing a Mustang (plane) in a Mustang (car) was an awesome way to introduce me to the open-world of Horizon.
Horizon itself is beautifully created. I have to hand it to whoever developed it because there was about 7 different developers. The scenery is pretty and the roads are fantastic to drive on. You only actually take note of this, however, after you complete it. When you can’t be bothered going back and completing some races that you missed, you just roam. I got into my Aston Martin DB5 Vantage, turned the in-game radio on and just drove. That is when Horizon really comes into its own.
The soundtrack I might add is very good. There are some classics such as “She Bangs The Drums” and “Rock & Roll Queen” as well as some relatively unknown tracks that I’ve grown to love, “Aroused” by Tom Vek in particular. Not being able to choose which songs actually get played and not being able to skip until the little banner saying what is currently playing disappears, kind of ruins it.
Forza Horizon is a breath of fresh air in the racing-simulator genre, but it’s like a breath into something that had died long ago. All that can be achieved has been achieved for racing games with DiRT2. It tried to do something but kept playing on the fact that it was, the whole idea being about the event called Horizon meant that propaganda was everywhere – this just made it seem cocky and arrogant. An interesting concept by Horizon, but was ruined by being executed in a cliche and generic fashion. 6/10.
Prepare to be Bloggled! 