Forza Horizon 2

The best moments of Forza Horizon 2 come under the most unexpected circumstances. The Land Rover Defender isn't exactly known for its speed or sportiness, and Tchaikovsky isn't renowned for his contributions to racing game soundtracks, but when Horizon 2 mixes these elements together, something very , very good is happening. While I have played many racing games over the past two decades, I have never seen one in which I happily cleared a vineyard behind the wheel of an agricultural 4x4 originally designed to efficiently transport British farmers through their damp hills. . Certainly not with the car radio playing Tchaikovsky's Overture 1812 at full power. Is this slightly absurd? Yes. Is this funny? Completely.

Forza Horizon 2 takes us back to the successful formula developed by its predecessor, but adds plenty of new and improved ingredients. The dizzying roster of over 200 lavishly detailed cars features vehicles ranging from the most iconic coupes to hypercars, and it's the most impressive garage in the realm of open world racing. As in Horizon before it, the cars are also all quite distinct from each other, and in the usual lineage of the Forza series, the driving dynamics are also very good. As usual, the supercars are crisp and precise, the 4x4s are smooth, and it all seems in place to let you crash your car into a corner after an elegant, but poorly negotiated drift.

However, the real contribution of the developers at Playground Games is a much richer world, which densifies exponentially with rewarding content in terms of racing and exploration.

This time, the backdrop is a piece of land that straddles the border between northern Italy and southern France. It's the answer to a wish expressed by Forza fans, who have spent the past decade watching Top Gear presenters extol the Mediterranean coast every fortnight.

It's a larger area than the small chunk of Colorado that Forza Horizon stood in, although it isn't a full-scale model of the area. So the game space is eclipsed by the full-size modeled Oahu in Test Drive Unlimited, but there's a lot more to do here. The airstrip, the shipping port, and the disused freight yard are highlights, each of them forming an excellent playground for indulging in drifts and other burns between races.

These places are also perfect for hunting for Achievement points. These rewards, given for awesome piloting actions, are taken straight from the original game, but this time they are much better integrated into the gameplay. Where old Achievement Points had a nebulous effect on your “popularity,” they unlock points in Horizon 2 that you can redeem for permanent perks, such as discounts on car purchases, or short periods of time. Thanks to the start of an online game, Horizon 2's "Infected" mode. Accumulating achievement chains in Horizon 2 is really fun, and much more rewarding now that there are even more reasons to collect them.

Horizon 2 races are enriched by many peripheral activities. The new list of challenges is the best example of this. These are unique activities to be won with cars parked around the world. Some are a little easy, like speed targets while passing the speed cameras, and others are really fun, like a stunt challenge on a golf course. Barn-find treasures are also back, dotted around the map, and the Playground games are fulfilling their promise to use half of new cars from the Forza franchise. If you've been following the team's weekly car disclosures over the past few months, the silhouettes in the Barn Treasures UI may spoil most of the surprises for you, but I still loved discovering the wrecks. worn in the grip of weeds, and see them restored to new condition.

One thing I particularly liked about Horizon 2 is how perfectly you can ignore the car championships that the game suggests to you on your way to “Horizon Finale,” and instead select the cars you prefer. Allowing us to progress through the game in this way by leaving us in our favorite cars, rather than forcing ourselves into vehicles we don't want to drive, is a great idea.

Much like Forza Motorsport 5, Forza Horizon 2 uses profiles from your Friends List for AI Controlled Drivers. This is in order to populate your championship races during the single player mode, as well as in the world itself, to avoid having to resort to a gallery of vulgar generic pilots to serve you as adversaries. This improves the overall feel of Horizon 2, but the game is still too pushy when it comes to requiring the player to choose a design to immediately apply to the cars they buy. This results in a swarm of clipart-clad cars cruising the French Riviera. It all looks more like a Toys 'R' Us shelf than a line-up of expensive, alluring supercars. You can still avoid it for your own cars, but there's no way to turn off those user-generated designs acting as opponents like you could in Forza Motorsport 5, and it spoils the aesthetic a bit. of the game. The cars I want to see in my games are the sleek, sleek machines that feature in the Horizon 2 intro; not garish bins dotted with ostentatious images.

The world itself is beautiful, from the huge fields of poppies to the lines of scooters in the streets of Nice. While some of the shadows seem a bit flickering, the deliberately locked framerate never flickers, and delivers a reliable and smooth driving experience.

As impressive as Horizon 2 is during the day, it is even more beautiful at night. All light sources benefit from real-time rendering; the headlights contrast with the darkness, and hitting a streetlamp realistically darkens the previously flooded scene. From the right vantage point, the soft gleams of fireworks and rides can be seen from several kilometers away. The new weather effects in Horizon 2 also benefit from excellent rendering. I love the way the world is reflected off the puddles that are on the road, but I was a little disappointed with the droplet bounce effect on the vehicles, a bit more static than I was looking for. 'waited. Even at full speed, the drops leave no mark on the windshield and on the hood.

The sound effects are as good as you would expect for the Forza series, with roaring engines and crackling exhausts, which will take over the long tunnels of Horizon 2. I particularly liked enjoyed the delicious screech of gravel under the tires, but the tire sound setting needs to be increased by 10 from its default setting to enjoy it.

Imagine you are behind the wheel of a Lamborghini Huracán, chased by a large group of avid supercars, while sliding gently between Italy and France on a splendid road that cuts in half the steep Ligurian Apennines, characterized by terrace crops, and the boundless blue sea beyond the stone walls that delimit the roadway. The road is barely humid, so much so that even the yellow monster of Sant'Agata Bolognese, 610 horses anchored to the ground with four-wheel drive, loses grip just enough to dance, honoring Vivaldi's summer that flows from the radio, with the passion that is its own. At that moment you understand that the important thing is not the destination, that the opponents do not count and that the next race does not exist: there is only you, open mouth and pad in hand, Forza Horizon 2 in the console, and the best summer ever .

There is the tortuous charm of the Ligurian villages, with those houses that seem to have taken their place by force in the mountains. There are the colorful French boulangeries, which line the long walks on the sea (and occupy the precious sidewalk!), As well as the unshakable medieval villages and small country houses, subtly interspersed with the endless vineyards or the irresistible lavender fields on the sides of the roads. Forza Horizon 2's Europe emerges and lives thanks to its smaller details, its little shops, its urban furniture and, of course, thanks to its countless streets and its postcard views, to be crossed with full beer or to be enjoyed with the right calm, perhaps with the help of the usual, excellent photographic mode.

To make the most of the vastness of the map and the different categories of competition, in fact, the progression of Forza Horizon 2 is entrusted to the Grand Tours, the "compilations" of three events to be tackled on the road: choosing your car you start towards the destination city, to play four races designed specifically to showcase the different characteristics of the cars and the great variety of the game's territories, in order to fully enjoy every different corner of the map by all means and in all conditions.

Whether it's a heavy SUV struggling with a Climbing race on top of a slope, or a Huayra that takes a curve at 250 kilometers per hour in the pouring rain, even pad in hand we will have the right pulse of the situation, and it will therefore be necessary think in advance of your moves to always get the best in all circumstances. Considering also that Horizon 2 certainly does not forget its arcade nature that I mentioned earlier. As it should be, such a "young" game - and, let's say it, "tamarro" in the most positive and pleasant sense of the term - can only pay some attention also to the style and the way in which the curves are tackled and you live the countless ways of the game. Especially considering that it is no longer a matter of showing off for its own sake.