23 replies to this topic

[MattFoster]

Anybody else dowload the demo of Forza Horizon?

Talk about killing a franchise with one shite release! Glad I tried the demo, don't need to pre order the full game now.

If we wanted a Dirl Clone (arcady dumbed down crap) we would buy that instead. Forza has been about circuit racing and this is just a Need For Speed mess.

Rant over!

[mahelgel]

Anybody else dowload the demo of Forza Horizon?

Talk about killing a franchise with one shite release! Glad I tried the demo, don't need to pre order the full game now.

If we wanted a Dirl Clone (arcady dumbed down crap) we would buy that instead. Forza has been about circuit racing and this is just a Need For Speed mess.

Rant over!

One thing that does appeal though is the "drive around in a free world" bit, but that will wear off pretty fast. The handling felt i abit tweaked for the worse, and the driving on the dirt road in th demo didn't feel loose enough (the demo does give you a 4x4 for that challenge though). I do have a hope that the full game is better than what i saw in the demo, but i will not be in line to buy this game on release...

[The Kanisteri]

It is for sure more arcade than Forza 4 - not far away Forza 3 I played little on weekend.

Graphics look out stunning and I understand now even less why Codemasters decided to take dashboards away from their Grid 2...

Talking about racing games...I went to order Fanatec wheel set with clutch and other joy parts. My laptop is hardly good for any recent racing games, but PS3 and Xbox360 yes.
I have GT5, Grid 1, F1 2011 and Forza 4 (3 too but it game as bundle with xbox). Any other cool racing games I could put new wheel into use?

[MattFoster]

I will be waiting for Forza 5 to come out, pretend Horizon doesn't exist and enjoy 4

[chdphd]

Here's gamespot's take on it: http://uk.gamespot.c...orizon-6398150/

[vtpachyderm]

I will be waiting for Forza 5 to come out, pretend Horizon doesn't exist and enjoy 4

Same here - probably wait until the next gen of consoles are out before getting the next Forza. I can't say I was surprised at how disappointed I was in Horizon, as the moment they announced it, I was expecting the worst, and the demo did nothing to change that.

[Afterburner]

Forza Horizon was intended to be a different game--and if it takes the street racer crowd away from the core franchise so it can focus more on real racing, then I say 'a thousand times yes'. We'll then get a good arcade racer and a good sim racer. Works for me.

I haven't played it yet, but I have watched videos of gameplay and I must say it looks like fun to drive. I hate the music and the 'gangsta' motif they seem to be going for in the festival, but I can get past that as long as the driving is fun--once I turn the music off and start playing with friends, I'll probably be set.

As someone who's been waiting many years for a replacement for Burnout Paradise, I welcome the effort placed by the folks at Turn 10 towards Forza Horizon.

[chdphd]

Forza Horizon was intended to be a different game--and if it takes the street racer crowd away from the core franchise so it can focus more on real racing, then I say 'a thousand times yes'. We'll then get a good arcade racer and a good sim racer. Works for me.

I haven't played it yet, but I have watched videos of gameplay and I must say it looks like fun to drive. I hate the music and the 'gangsta' motif they seem to be going for in the festival, but I can get past that as long as the driving is fun--once I turn the music off and start playing with friends, I'll probably be set.

As someone who's been waiting many years for a replacement for Burnout Paradise, I welcome the effort placed by the folks at Turn 10 towards Forza Horizon.

Did you not try Driver: San Francisco? You could drive for miles and miles in the massive city and engage in cop chases as a felon or a cop. Some nice cars too.

[The Kanisteri]

Did you not try Driver: San Francisco? You could drive for miles and miles in the massive city and engage in cop chases as a felon or a cop. Some nice cars too.

Driver: SF is action based driving game - very arcadish. Since first Driver game from mid 90's they haven't made other good sequel than recent Driver: SF. Driver: San Francisco is very good and entertaining game in own genre, but man should not compare it to Forza Horizon.

Demo of Forza Horizon was quite nice actually and controlling car is not so arcadish than some people has kept saying. On the other hand I did test Forza Horizon demo with xbox gamepad and that is in first place is very bad controller for serious racing games. Driving always should need wheel (outcounting Driver, Burnout, GTA and such). Unfortunately Microsoft has not made very easy to get wheels for xbox. You even can buy cheap toy wheels, or spend twice or several times more money than you actually paid for your xbox into proper wheel.

[chdphd]

Driver: SF is action based driving game - very arcadish. Since first Driver game from mid 90's they haven't made other good sequel than recent Driver: SF. Driver: San Francisco is very good and entertaining game in own genre, but man should not compare it to Forza Horizon.

I was comparing it to Burnout Paradise

[The Kanisteri]

Heh, even worse option to compare Forza Horizon into! Though Burnout Paradise is fun game.

[chdphd]

Heh, even worse option to compare Forza Horizon into! Though Burnout Paradise is fun game.

I was quoting Afterburner: "As someone who's been waiting many years for a replacement for Burnout Paradise, I welcome the effort placed by the folks at Turn 10 towards Forza Horizon."

[Afterburner]

Did you not try Driver: San Francisco? You could drive for miles and miles in the massive city and engage in cop chases as a felon or a cop. Some nice cars too.

No, I hadn't heard of it before. Reading the Wikipedia page, though, it doesn't sound like my cup of tea; I don't want to be confined to a plot, I just want to be able to drive around, lol. Plus, the whole 'police chase' thing is more likely to put me off of a game than it is to attract me to it. Just personal taste, I suppose.

Burnout Paradise was the only Burnout game I ever purchased--I tried to go backwards through the series from Paradise, but I just couldn't handle the difference in style from what I saw in demos. Paradise puts you into a huge open world designed to celebrate fictional cars and lets you do whatever you want with them--you're not confined to any objectives or challenges unless you choose to be, and you can complete these in any order you wish. Actually, the only real incentive to progress through the game is to unlock new cars--and even then, you can unlock them all immediately for $5. That sort of freedom is missing from many other street racers--and besides, in what other game can you take an LMP1 or an F1 car to the streets and cruise along mountain roads at full tilt? Probably not even Forza Horizon.

However, having finally played the Forza Horizon demo last night, I must say I'm impressed so far. I spent an entire hour just driving around in the Lancer after I finished the first challenge. My impression of the visuals remains as it was in my first post. My only real complaint with the game thus far is that it doesn't cover all the bases as well as Paradise did; there appears to be no emphasis on mid-air stunts or 'big air' of any kind, and no instances of 'combat racing'. You can't even wreck your car in Forza Horizon, which, while it does make getting around far easier, takes a good deal of thrill away from driving knowing that the worst that'll happen is that you'll spin a few times and be on your way again. Not like Burnout Paradise where a head-on collision would result in wheels and all manner of debris flying everywhere before you eventually respawned.

All in all, I'm optimistic about Forza Horizon so far. Just cruising around with friends will probably be a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that the full version of the game has more to do away from driving than just racing. I'm also hoping that they throw at least one prototype in there for good measure, just so I can see the headlights on, say, the Audi R18 work on Forza, finally.

[chdphd]

No, I hadn't heard of it before. Reading the Wikipedia page, though, it doesn't sound like my cup of tea; I don't want to be confined to a plot, I just want to be able to drive around, lol. Plus, the whole 'police chase' thing is more likely to put me off of a game than it is to attract me to it. Just personal taste, I suppose.

Burnout Paradise was the only Burnout game I ever purchased--I tried to go backwards through the series from Paradise, but I just couldn't handle the difference in style from what I saw in demos. Paradise puts you into a huge open world designed to celebrate fictional cars and lets you do whatever you want with them--you're not confined to any objectives or challenges unless you choose to be, and you can complete these in any order you wish. Actually, the only real incentive to progress through the game is to unlock new cars--and even then, you can unlock them all immediately for $5. That sort of freedom is missing from many other street racers--and besides, in what other game can you take an LMP1 or an F1 car to the streets and cruise along mountain roads at full tilt? Probably not even Forza Horizon.

However, having finally played the Forza Horizon demo last night, I must say I'm impressed so far. I spent an entire hour just driving around in the Lancer after I finished the first challenge. My impression of the visuals remains as it was in my first post. My only real complaint with the game thus far is that it doesn't cover all the bases as well as Paradise did; there appears to be no emphasis on mid-air stunts or 'big air' of any kind, and no instances of 'combat racing'. You can't even wreck your car in Forza Horizon, which, while it does make getting around far easier, takes a good deal of thrill away from driving knowing that the worst that'll happen is that you'll spin a few times and be on your way again. Not like Burnout Paradise where a head-on collision would result in wheels and all manner of debris flying everywhere before you eventually respawned.

All in all, I'm optimistic about Forza Horizon so far. Just cruising around with friends will probably be a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that the full version of the game has more to do away from driving than just racing. I'm also hoping that they throw at least one prototype in there for good measure, just so I can see the headlights on, say, the Audi R18 work on Forza, finally.;)

I think you could do free roam at any point in Driver SF, but doing the missions unlocked new areas and cars. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit also had a massive playing area and you could free roam that too. These games have supercars, but not LMP1s or anything like that.

As for another big area driving game, I looked into Need for Speed: the Run, but it got middling reviews.

I never played Burnout Paradise much myself. I never got that into it and I hated the intro music which you can't tun off. I played all the other Burnout games. A couple on the PS2 were really good fun apart from the night-time city races where you could not see where the track was going The crashes in the burnout games were really well done, but I turned off the replay thing as ruined the flow of the game a bit. I also enjoyed the crash puzzles in some of the burnout games. They were very well designed, if not occasionally impossible.

I have Forza Horizon on pre-order and I'm looking forward to giving it go.

[The Kanisteri]

You dislike Guns N' Roses Paradise City? You are very bad human.

[chdphd]

You dislike Guns N' Roses Paradise City? You are very bad human.

It is my opinion that Axl Rose has probably the worst "singing" voice ever produced by mankind. I can't comprehend how anyone can find it pleasing.

But each to their own, no matter what sort of human they are.

[mahelgel]

Well, i bougt it

First impressions are a lot better han the demo, but i do fear it will not have the longlivity forza 4 have hadde for me. It does seem a bit too easy, but that might change as i progress in the game..

Edited by mahelgel, 24 October 2012 - 20:30.

[Afterburner]

Well, i bougt it

First impressions are a lot better han the demo, but i do fear it will not have the longlivity forza 4 have hadde for me. It does seem a bit too easy, but that might change as i progress in the game..

A friend of mine got it yesterday, as well. I must say they did a good job with the achievement/trophy names this time around-- 'A Wristed Development', 'May the Forza be With You', and 'All Your Race are Belong to Us' are perhaps three of my favourites from any game thus far.

[BoschKurve]

I will not buy Forza Horizon till the price is $29.99 or less.

Here is why...

They are releasing a rally racing DLC pack for 1600 MS Points in December. I will not spend $80 total --price of game plus DLC-- for a game that while not bad, certainly is not a must-have title. It's a garbage cash grab, and I've got plenty of other racing games I can play till Horizon drops in price.

[MattFoster]

So does this version of Forza have a facility to paint your cars with your own liveries? I enjoy that part of Forza 4 as much as the racing, well almost

[mahelgel]

So does this version of Forza have a facility to paint your cars with your own liveries? I enjoy that part of Forza 4 as much as the racing, well almost

There is a paintshop, and from what i understood you could even import old forza 4 templates, but i can't really confirm that as i've only tried to change the color of a car once...

Must admit that Horizon acctually isn't that bad, although there are a few things i don't like... like the way the gravel feels like when driving, or that it feels a bit "dumbed down" compared to forza 4...

One thing that really bugs me though is the sound. When doing races, it seems like the enviroment and the other cars makes so much noise you can't really hear your own engine. Also, seems like the radio turns it self on when changing cars (i prefer no music when drivig). The sounds are pretty good when you are out driving by yourself though, but it seems the sound engine has been geared towards pumping out music and enviroment sounds whenever you enter a race :/

Edited by mahelgel, 29 October 2012 - 13:41.

[chdphd]

"GPS" "Next Event". I like doing the kinect speech recognition thing

[The Kanisteri]

Got Forza Horizon yesterday. Here's few my opinions of it.

+ Scenery is stunning good looking
+ Headlights (range, vector) of cars are best so far I have seen in games
+ Barn find treasure hunt (though very easy and way too valuable and rare cars abandoned in barns...)
+ Dashboards
+ Sense of speed
+ Best handling in arcade game so far
+ Gravel, mud, concrete, tarmac and grass surfaces
+ You can turn radio off


- Time acceleration through cycle of day. I forgive these from Grand Theft Auto type of games but not driving games. 24h day should be 24h.
- Finetuning car is missing. Upgrades effects on cars, but racing parts can't get finetuned. I bet even brake balance is idiotic 50/50 for all cars.
- Although in desert, some raining would be good
- No people in city! Everybody are at race central. (I don't mean GTA way pedestrians, Microsoft's Middown Madness had lot of pedestrians who jumped away from approaching cars)
- Game (radio) music. Rock radio has few accetable songs but everything else is shite.
- Chav athmospehere. You can stick these music tv and reality tv people into place where sun never shine!
- No headlight controls, indicators, horn, cannot check traffic from left and right at crosroads.
- Cannot adjust your own button layout for liking (few presets available)
- Can't change localizated language (finnish) to english. Fortunately game is not dubbed!

Fanatec issues:
- Like with Forza 4 when launching game, it fails to load pedal ranges correctly and H-stick won't work. I requires mating wheelset and xbox again and restarting power of wheel. Bit annoying
- If using paddles as alternative for gears, at start of race it puts gear from 1st to neutral (might be due H-stick is on N).
- Photographing almost impossible with wheel. Clutch pedal lifts camera angle but there's no way to get it back.

More comments when getting into game more

[PayasYouRace]

I'll agree with most of your points Kanisteri, apart from on the music. I'm quite happy to listen to Horizon Pulse (but then what's a review without music snobbery?).

If you're into super realistic racing it's not for you but if you want a nice romp around the countryside without super "arcade" style handling it's a lot of fun, and that's the point after all.

I don't agree with out on the 24hr day thing. Perhaps the days are bit short but I don't have to to play the game for long enough to experience more than 24hrs unless it had a timeskip function.

Edited by PayasYouRace, 08 November 2012 - 16:51.