Forza Horizon 3 is the culmination of years of work from Turn 10 Studios, Playground Games and Microsoft, and it shows. The third title in the Horizon series is a light-hearted romp through the land down under.
Forza Horizon 3
Developer: Playground Games
Price: $59.99
Platform: Xbox One, Windows 10
MonsterVine was provided an Xbox code for review.
I’m going to start this off by telling you that I’m not a racing fan. I haven’t enjoyed a proper racing game since Midnight Club 3. I have nothing against the racing genre, I’ve just always grown bored of the repetitive and relatively simple gameplay loop that most racing games seem to gravitate towards. Forza Horizon 3 has officially turned me back onto the genre.
Forza Horizon 3 is fairly similar to its predecessors. Like in Forza Horizon 2 the Horizon festival is an automotive festival focused on sanctioned street races and ridiculous stunts. The biggest difference between Forza Horizon 2 and 3 is that this time around it’s your festival. You’re the star from the start. All festival management and decisions fall to you. This means that you can choose where you’re going to build your festivals, assuming you have garnered enough attention to warrant an additional location, among other things.
Racing games have the potential to get old quick from an unfortunate lack of things to do. In most racing titles you simply race. Of course there are different kinds of races and different tracks to master, but the basic formula is the same. Stay ahead, brake here, don’t crash. Forza Horizon 3 shakes this up quite a bit. Racing and smart driving is still a huge part of the game, but there’s so much more here.
As the host of the Horizon Festival you’ll primarily participate in PR Stunts and Events, all with the goal of attracting more fans. PR Stunts such as Speed Gates, Drift Zones, Speed Zones and Danger Zones are all great ways to progress without sticking to the basics of racing. In these areas you’ll have to throw away conventions of caution and focus on breaking records. Speed gates ask you to go as fast as possible as you go through them, while danger zones are essentially cliff edges that the game asks you to jump off and travel as far as possible, and so on.
Events include various types of races that range from conventional to absolutely ridiculous. For example, Bucket List events place the player in a pre-defined car and ask them to do a number of things including trashing a construction zone and rushing through the jungle in a buggy. There are also showcase events, rare but rewarding events that task the player with facing off against some non-car like a cargo helicopter or a freight train.
Forza Horizon 3 has just about everything that you could think to do with a car. I’m about 10 hours in so far and I’m not at all bored with what the numerous events, stunts and activities that I’ve had to participate. I’m excited to see what else is in store for me because so far the entirety of the game has boiled down to one thing. Fun. Everything about Forza Horizon 3 makes me happy. Bright colors, lively NPCs and entertainment-focused environments free of brooding bad guys and political commentary are in desperate need in games nowadays.
Speaking of environments, every view is gorgeous. If Australia is anything like its representation in Forza Horizon 3 I’m booking my ticket tomorrow. I’ve always known that Forza was the forefront of vehicular rendering, but I had no idea natural vistas of this magnitude were possible on the Xbox One. The visuals are so beautiful in fact that the developers over at Playground Games have decided to include a photo mode. Spotted a Kangaroo? Snap a photo. Tear off another driver’s license plate in mid-air? Snap a picture. Want to look simply badass while drifting? Snap a photo, and then make it black and white, then add some tilt for good measure. The photo mode is so nice that I stop the game just about every other minute to take ridiculously crisp photos.
Forza Horizon 3 achieves something that many other games fail to: immersion. Just about everything is seamless, and nearly every action you do is commented on by your liaison Keira, your lively Australian mechanic Watson or your virtual assistant/GPS ANNA. ANNA, first introduced in Forza Horizon 2, is back and far superior than its earlier model. Playground Games has decided to ditch the Kinect-requirements for ANNA and introduced a quick and easy way to activate her via the D-Pad. Through ANNA you can get directions to specific events, start up races with your AI convoy or get suggestions on just what to do next. Matchmaking is done through ANNA in a way that requires no menus and is completely unobtrusive.
Another interesting way Forza Horizon 3 breaks the mold of racing titles is with its RPG-like skill options. Despite the name, the skills options are rewards for skillful driving as opposed to arbitrary improvements. Nothing that you can unlock can affect how fast or smooth your ride will be, instead granting things like an additional 10% skill points or access to the obligatory drone.
Forza has always been integral to the Xbox lineup, but never before have I seen a game so successfully utilize the Xbox One and its various features. After you’ve signed on a few radio stations you can tune into the Groove Music radio channel, allowing you access to millions of songs, and user-defined playlists while in-game. Unlike most titles the ability to resume after a console shutdown has worked perfectly so far, and saves seem to be handled entirely online.
Another facet that Forza Horizon 3 excels in is the sense of community, in both online and solo modes. In solo modes every driver is named after somebody on Xbox Live or your friend’s list. These drivers are called “Drivatars,” NPC controlled drivers that supposedly drive like their human users if they’ve played a Forza title. Over the course of Horizon you can recruit up to four of your friend’s Drivatars to earn credits and experience for you just by participating in events. While free-roaming you can add these Drivatars to a convoy by simply honking at them, allowing multiple drivers to travel with you while you earn bonus skill points. Every Forza user can upload decals and vinyls as well as specific car designs, participate in auctions, share photos and share customized events.
Online gameplay is separated into one of three modes: free-roam, adventure and co-op. Adventure mode is puts you instantly into the action, racing against other players in a series of events for XP points and credits. Free-roam is comparable to that of GTA V, putting players into a shared world where they can interact with each other and invite each other to events. The co-op mode allows players to progress in their solo campaigns together, managing festivals, unlocking events and purchasing cars with a friend. Every action that you do in co-op is saved in both players solo campaigns. Each multiplayer mode works almost flawlessly without any additional loading screens. Co-op mode is almost identical to the single player campaign with the exception of ANNA, photo mode and rewind functionality, and the multiplayer-only events like Infection, King and Flag Run are incredibly fun.
Forza Horizon 3 is a near-perfect title, but no game is without its flaws. There are a few things I could nitpick about things like the fact that the drone can’t fly more than 6 feet off the ground or take photos, or how despite the game’s visual fidelity water splashes are completely two-dimensional, but the truth is that issues like these are completely minor and in no way effect the final product.
The Final Word
Forza Horizon 3 is exactly what a sequel is supposed to be, and then some. A phenomenal follow-up to Forza Horizon 2 that takes what’s best about the series and improves them. The visual are unmatched by anything else on Xbox, the multiplayer is seamless and extremely social, and the community and customization features are extensive. Despite some potential server issues, Forza Horizon 3 is an extremely happy and expansive experience that has yet to get old.
-MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
