Right then, let's do my best to counter everything negative said about
Forza Horizon
furie said:
1. Tiny bushes that are like brick walls. Why can you run through some bushes, but not others? Eugh!
I assume it's to discourage you from driving too much off the road and taking shortcuts as mentioned below.
furie said:
2. Finishing a race and finding yourself on the other side of the map. I want to be where I started the race from!!!
Ah, but the check point things allow you to get about easily AND it's great fun just driving around anyway. Plus, unlike Burnout: Paradise City (which is where this moan comes from), you aren't looking in areas in such minute detail and the roads are much more open and less cluttered "easier travelled". It doesn't matter that you're somewhere else because you'll enjoy going to your next destination anyway.
furie said:
3. The radio. OMG, the **** radio. I turn off "Bass bollocks **** **** **** flaps" because I don't want to listen to it. Then the next car I get into, it's back again. Then I get back into the car I detuned it from and it's tuned back again. If I change radio station, I do it for a reason, remember the station. Oddly, it remembers "Off" though.
Yeah, actually, that is really annoying. Maybe change your taste in music?
furie said:
4. The incredibly hard Stunt Challenges. Two minutes to rack up 18,000 stunt points? Really tough when the other challenges are "go 20mph in a Ferrari" or "take a photo without putting your thumb over the lens". Why the suddenly massive difficulty uplift.
Or possibly you're just **** at drifting. Don't blame the game for your own inadequacies
furie said:
5. Linked to the above, the random way you lose "cool driving points". You do twenty minutes of spins, drifts, near misses, etc, etc and then tap the rear end at 2mph on a fence and lose it all (usually because by this point you are trying to retune the radio). Yet it seems when you have 200 points banked for a drift and smash into a tree at 200 mph it's all fine. The punishment I think is too harsh, but I do understand it.
Again, just be less **** ?
furie said:
6. It's an arcade racing game that is constantly badgering you and distracting you from that fact. The "forza 4" physics stuff is complete and utter bollocks, it really is. 80 mph in a mini in under 10 seconds? Seriously?
The Forza 4 stuff IS there though, you can feel the pedigree under the hood, brooding. Yes, the game has changed the way that it works slightly, but that's fine. They've used the Forza 4 basics to produce the finest arcade racing game ever. It doesn't matter about PR bull, it's the game play that's important.
furie said:
7. Added to that, the fact that the game is designed to be "looser". So it's easier to drift, etc, to gain points and grab control back. That way you're playing the "cool points" game all the time. This works against the physics when the game finally deems to give you a technical section of track. Usually if you over accelerate (in Forza 4) out of a corner, you'll wheel spin a bit, maybe over/under steer a little. However, when the grip/acceleration kicks in, you're back and smooth. I've come out of corners (again, the Mini is the perfect example as it's a low powered car) and accelerated a little too hard. I've had one wheel wheel spin for 200-300 yards. Not both driving wheels, just one and you can't get it to grip in any way. So you either stop the car and start again more gently, or just hope it sorts itself out eventually while every other car passes you because you can't get up to speed!
Part of that is your own fault for turning off the assists, but...
What about when you get it just right? When you get the braking perfect and carry the speed and momentum through a set of corners perfectly, delivering just the right amount of power to overtake in a breathtaking manner? The frustration is suddenly probably all worthwhile for those moments of sheer joy. It's more satisfying than any overtaking on Forza 4, ever. Yes, it may be hard to perfect, and you may have to work hard at it (which is a contradiction to the ease of the rest of the racing), but it's so worth it.
furie said:
8. The whole dreadful characters thing. "yo yo, yo think yo can take me on, yo have no chance foo!" and "I'm a sexy character model and so are you, I'll spend the whole game flirting with you in the hope of us exchanging bodily pixels at some point". Like the game is designed to appeal to pre-pubescent idiots... Or Americans...
Outnumbered several million to one - tough ****. And seriously, is it THAT big a deal? It's not a deal breaker by any means and it's not happening ALL the time.
furie said:
9. With it being an arcade game, you just move on from race to race and forget what you've done before. So you win a race and drive away, never to return. When you start a race, you don't have a lot (or any) idea of what the race will be like. Near the start, you get this "the even will be off road, so you need an all-wheel-drive vehicle". So you get one, but then you never know if you'll need it or not. Even some of the challenges to win cars don't know. A Ferrari F40 doing autocross? Seriously? WTF???
Worse, it means that you never settle on cars. I know on a fast track, I want a car with lots of top end speed. On a tight track, a car with good grip. You start a race and you have a choice. You know the Mustang will be more tail happy than the Evo, but the Mustang has 1 point more in top speed. Is it a long track where I'll need top speed? Or a twisting track where I'll need the control? So you plump for the control. Except that car isn't good enough in a sprint, so you end up just going for a car that is fast. Which is rubbish, and... Well, you get the idea. You're all over the place.
THEN, you hit a class your car needs upgrading for. So you auto upgrade, but for what reason? I usually upgrade personally depending on the track. So I'll have different upgrade layouts for individual cars depending on the track. In Horizon, it's all a case of "I'll just go for that and hope for the best!".
You never develop favourite cars and/or favourite circuits because you never race the same race twice and the cars make difference because...
I can't think of a counter to this. It's the crux of what makes the game so different to the other Forza games. It's still offering considerably more option and opportunities than any other arcade racing game though and you CAN finish the race and come back with a different car - just stop rushing through the game and maybe replay a little bit here and there?
The thing is, it doesn't really matter
that much. It's rare you'll end up with a complete dog of a car that you can't at least get into the two 3 with. You'll still be enjoying the race anyway, even seeing the top cars running away with the lead.
furie said:
10. It's always a battle and bash fest with running off the track making no difference to your performance (even worse, it allows you to run off track to gain advantage and win (as I discovered racing against one of Jer's ghosts, the racing line and track couldn't beat his run across the dirt)).
But how annoying was the "one tyre on the grass and you stop" rule Forza 4 had? Very. A little bit of freedom is a good thing, and where it isn't, there are always brick bushes
furie said:
11. No penalties. If you race against the "next top racer" for their car and lose? You retry the race until you get it. Surely they should get your car and next time, "Don't gamble!". Also, when I moved to the Blue Band, Flirty Gerty said "this may be as far as you get, don't be disappointed". Yet I was already halfway towards the next band, and due to the ability to infinitely retry an event to increase my placing, I am ALWAYS going to make it to the end for as long as I have time/inclination. There really is nothing to stop me!
A little more challenge would be a good thing, and a little more risk - but how many people would soon find themselves with just a Robin Reliant in their garage? :lol:
furie said:
12. The interface. It's taken years for Sony to get developers to work on a standard interface. Microsoft like it too. A = Yes, B = **** no, back off and get away from the ****. The other buttons are for vague and mystery options.
Complete a race and you get the "Rival Event" screen. "Do you want to race this rival?". A = No, X = Yes, B = Bugger all. Keep with a standard convention. A = YES!
Picky bugger. That really is moaning to cover up your own stupidity!
Now, I don't know if you got the gist of all of that? The game is massively good fun. It's a game that offers constant distraction. You can't just plan to to go out and do this, or do that. All the time it's throwing something new at you and you want to try it all out. It's all at core the racing though, and it's never really THAT silly. I know that's hard to see when you find out you'll be racing hot air balloons, but it isn't. The focus is always on getting your car as fast as you can from A - B (and sometimes doing some fancy driving while you do it).
The cars handle "right". They're not the lumbering monsters that an arcade racer usually offers you, and they're not the twitching beasts waiting to unleash hell that Forza 4 has (or even the mildly dull and laborious lower class vehicles from it). They're exciting and react as you'd expect in a fun way. There's lots of degrees of "slippery back ends", but the front wheel drive cars react in the unexpectedly "throw the car around" way they do in Forza 4.
The game is a real mix of everything. It's got the festival atmosphere of Dirt 2 (and some of the racing that goes with it), it's got the INYOURFACE EAness of Need for Speed and Paradise City. It owes a lot to Paradise City in fact, but it's the purest mix of that and Hot Pursuit, with the best bits of both taken out, and the annoying stuff (apart from the characters and presenters) chucked out.
So the driving isn't hardcore, but it "feels" right and IS reactive. The game is hugely compelling, but never overwhelming. Most of all though, it's just a lot of very basic, pick up and play fun. It's a new breed of Arcade racing that NFS: Most Wanted is going to have to be really lucky to beat. It's everything that has been done before, but it's the best of everything that has been done before.
It's not perfect; it's lightweight and you can pass through he game without caring about it at all. "Yeah, it's good fun" is probably the thing you'll hear most about the game, and you will do in two weeks time while people are still playing it. It's not genius, it's not brilliant, it's not original but it's good fun, damn good fun
I have no idea on multiplayer yet, but I'm not keen to find out. This kind of racing and game doesn't lend itself well to multiplayer racing. There's too much you can get away with and it's more about luck through fast corners than skill on the controls.
The "off-line" multiplayer stuff is good though, with the Rivals system at the end of a race (where you can take on the ghost car of a friend who has beaten you), or the speed traps (where you can try and go faster than others you know and see if you're in the top % of people playing the game). It's all part of that busy feeling you get, that constant "and here's something else you need to be getting on with" thing the game is throwing at you all the time.
If you're a fan of Arcade Racers like Outrun, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Test Drive Unlimited, Burnout, etc, etc, etc then you'll really enjoy the game.
If you're a fan of a realistic racer, then you're going to have to hunt, but in Horizon, there's something there for you, but to be honest, you're going to spend more time trying to find that n you are enjoying it. It's still worth trying the demo out just to see if it's your bag - after all, the demo is a good representation of what you're going to get
