LogFAQs > #950515090

#50 Forza Horizon (Xbox 360, 2012)


For almost 20 years, my favorite genre was as healthy as could be with a wide breadth of options coming out on an annual basis. Things began to change in the late-00s/early-10s. The cost of making games continued to rise, the indie scene was exploding, and new genres and ways to play games were forming to where racing games were being left in the dust. Great developers like Bizarre Creations, Black Rock Studios, and SCE Studio Liverpool were shut down, Forza Motorsport hadn't yet hit its stride with me, Polyphonal Digital wasn't the same, Mario Kart was coming off of a bit of a dud, and the indie scene wasn't really coming out with many, let alone memorable, racing games. Codemasters was basically all I had. That was until Microsoft and new-to-the-scene Playground Games came out with a spin-off in late 2012 called Forza Horizon.

This is how you do an open-world racer! It takes place in gorgeous Colorado where you will in the desert, on the plains, in the forests, and in the city under numerous setups (rally, lap, point-to-point, etc...). While you try to come on top in each event, there's a sub-system in place. The overall goal is to be the #1 ranked racer. Winning events certainly will help you rack up a bunch of ranking points, but so does racing in style. They encourage you to string together moves like drifting, racing at high speeds, playing chicken with oncoming traffic, and otherwise play a risky game to accrue massive point combos to add to your ranking points. I can't even begin to count the amount of times that I raced in a way to see my combo meter rise to a staggering level only to mess up and crash into something. I regret nothing.

The style points extend to outside of events as well. The map is huge, so by simply exploring, soaking in the sights, or going to and from events, you will be earning style points. Sometimes you don't realize that you are in the midst of stringing a nice combo together. There were times I would be on my way to an event but completely blow past the event marker and go halfway across the map because I was in the middle of a sick combo. The sooner you treat the land as your playground, the sooner will be head over heels for the game.

The backdrop of the game is that this takes place in like a racing/concert hybrid festival, and I don't know, I just loved it. The whole thing is chill, but racing is something that I focus hard on, so it is a great palette cleanser to race then just go explore and mess around the area finding secrets or pulling off sick combos before going to another event. Because of the festival theme, they have a deep selection of licensed music with various stations playing a single broad genre type. I suppose if you dislike contemporary music, it might not be your thing, but I certainly enjoyed listening to The Naked and The Famous and Porter Robinson.

The quantity of racing games aren't there anymore and likely won't change, but as long game like Forza Horzion make sure the quality doesn't dip as well, then I will be just fine.


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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
If you smell what the rock is cooking he's cooking crap - ertyu