Destructoid - A new kind of Forza
I've been trying to peg Forza Horizon since its announcement earlier this year, but Turn 10 and Playground Games never gave it to us straight. Is it more of a racing sim? Or a casual, arcade-style thing? Somewhere in-between?
Now that I've spent some quality time with the game, I can give it to you straight. Forza Horizon is an open-road (like open-world for cars) racing playground. It takes the Forza Motorsport engine and physics and plugs it into something more casual, and way less serious. Imagine a Forza game with a story and dialogue and a dubstep radio station. Weird, right?
Forza Horizon has been around for 10 years today, but due to the franchise's constant "End Of Life" policies, it's hard to celebrate.
Literally the only XBox exclusive that I still regularly play. I'm glad I had bought FH3 (PC) when I did, but this really sucks for other people who never picked it up. I still love the Australian Outback setting most of all.
BLG writes: "When the Forza Horizon games franchise launched in 2012, it was an enjoyable spin-off of the highly successful simulation racer. A decade later, the Horizon series has overtaken Forza Motorsport series as one of, if not the, premiere driving video games of all time."
Don't think there's literally a "worst" Forza game man. Microsoft just makes these too damn good.
Microsoft didn't develop (make) Forza, Playground Games did.
Microsoft simply published it.
I see no difference being they've only ever made games for Microsoft on Microsoft's dime for the entirety of their existence as a developer.
@MadLad:
The amount of MTs and repeated attempts at rivalry towards Gran Turismo.
@god, i think you are confusing motorsport with horizon. MS is compared to GT, Horizon isnt.
lol.. pedantic much? ^ PG and the Forza IP are owned by Microsoft.
FH5 may be a technical marvel but it's been a buggy mess since launch and PG seem intent to add new content without ever bothering to fix anything. Many of which were bugs that were also in FH4.
FH3
FH1
FH4
FH5
FH2 (still good but the structure was messed up - too much emphasis on grinding "roadtrips" which was tedious)
They didn’t buy Playground until 2018 or 2019 I forget which year but it hasn’t been that long . The first Forza came out in 2005 . So most of the games were published by MS at the time but they didn’t own PlayGround. MS doesn’t make good studios in general , they buy them .
When Sony buys a studio after working with them for a couple of games, people on here call it an "organic purchase". MS & Playground made three very good games, based on an existing IP using an engine made by Turn 10 before purchasing them. But it is still pedantic. Shall we say that Sony didn't make The Last of Us? Or that they don't "own" the first 12 Ratchet & Clank games because they only purchase Insomniac a few years back? We all know what they meant.
Anyway, Forza Motorsport has always been developed by Turn 10. Which Microsoft built from the ground up. So when you refer to games from 2005, your point about only buying studios is completely wrong.
You left out a FH2, there were two versions. The one made for XBO by playground and the one made for 360 by sumo digital. There are enough differences to warrant each one being on its own.
FH3 is my favourite by a long shot. I got surprisingly bored of FH5 quick enough unfortunately so that's down the bottom of my list
I really dont care for any of the horizons. Hate having to do what I'm told. Forza 7 was the same, I didn't want to do anything other than race cars. But it made me drive lorries!!!..
Technically they all good games but I want the next Forza to be a proper car racer, all the trucks etc can be put under an arcade racing section which I never have to go into.
The mandatory gimmick races are a bit of a bad habit in FM games, atleast since 5. Also dislike the heavy amount of unskipable cutscenes and dialouge in FM5 and perhaps 7.
Tbh I found FH3 to actually be my favourite and the one I played the most.
The one I got bored of very quickly was 4. Wasn't a fan of the seasons and driving round England was boring cause its where I live. Got very old quick.
I still think 2 (Xbox One version) is my personal best. Driving an Italian supercars on an Italian highway just feel so "right"!!!!! "2" make me understand why Italian make those supercars.
I don't know why so many do not like 4. I like the seasonal change & dramatic weather change. 5 seems to dial the weather change way way down that the weather seldom change (Is the real Mexico really has such a perfect weather all the time?).
KeenGamer: "The advanced sky capturing gives the Forza Horizon franchise a natural and realistic feeling. Yet, it's a long process from capturing to complete in-game sky. It's a technology that was introduced during the development of Forza Horizon 3, which provided more beauty and were widely praised by players."
Forza 4 looks really great now that Series updates have been applied. In Forza 5 Microsoft uses photo technology throughout the entire game. The volcano setting in Mexico looks amazing!
Incredible looking game, and it's not even powered by the next iteration of the ForzaTech engine which is still developed by Turn10.
Time to flex that 12TF.
Want.
Even Destructoid like it, it's got to be good.
Played the demo, looks decent but car were sliding too much, reminded me of Ridge racer...
Never liked Forza games and i never trusted reviews...
I got WRC3 playing it right now and its fantastic great driving physics!
So wait u can get parts like the older forza but u can't tune Your car like motorsports? Can u still buy body parts tho?
not knocking this game in anyways, but by the sound of it, its more like a need for speed game.
could be cool for xbox owners.