Forza Horizon 3

In the United States, we call it "making donuts", in Australia it is "making circles." Right now, I'm doing spectacular rounds near an outdoor airstrip, in a custom, full-featured V8. I'm talking about, for example, a CB radio antenna pointing proudly up to the sky, and a front panel of large Kenworth trucks. "Thunderstruck" hums through my radio and my taco blows through Australian roads. That's what I think sums up Forza Horizon 3; an experience that couldn't be more Australian, as if Paul Hogan had crashed into your living room, holding a crocodile in his arms.

But probably not in yours. Maybe you prefer muscular Americans, or maybe you are more Japanese, or a particular preference for European supercars. That's not a problem, because the Forza license is famous for its eclectic approach to its choice of vehicles, and Forza Horizon 3 is no exception; it's still the best of its kind. The biggest difference here is the high level of customization of the cars, an incredible single player experience that is malleable as possible, which can be played alone or in co-op with friends. It is even possible to import your own playlists in order to play as you wish, never seen in the series. Combined with the dazzling landscapes and lighting effects, the exceptional sound design, and the driving that is as dynamic as it is sharp, the result is absolutely fantastic.

The great southern lands

The standards of the series are very high. In 2014, Forza Horizon 2 had already offered something sumptuous on the Mediterranean coasts; a splendid summer weather to visit the most beautiful cities of southern Europe, sometimes even making us think of an episode of Top Gear. It was just excellent, really.

And the world imagined in Horizon 3 puts it all in the trash. Cars are obviously part of the good news, but the locations where the game takes place steals the show.

There is not just one reason, but several that add up. The attention to detail, for example, is wonderful, and as an Australian that's most definitely something that matters. The markings on the road, the road signs, even the garbage cans along the sidewalks with that multicolored side. It is very disturbing. The lighting is amazing, with an incredibly authentic sky bathing the entire environment in sunlight in a strangely realistic way, casting even sharper shadows. (The latter are even prettier when you find yourself hurtling down the roads near the rainforest, as the sun's rays pierce the branches of tall trees.) Water plays an important role too, and not just because entire area looks even smoother in the rain. Everything from the gentle sloshing of the waves and the splinters caused by your wheels, to your slowdowns caused by deeper water, is on top.

Its greatest strength is the variety of its environments. Horizon 3 takes the let-motiv of The Crew by offering a particularly large map, but with a whole bunch of different terrains in Australia. There is this small coastal town, its picturesque beaches and dirt roads, but also more urban landscapes with tall buildings. We must also count on its forest expanses offering a tropical atmosphere, very humid in thick undergrowth populated by tight trees. There are also plantations that give way to a desert made of isolated farms. In any case, it is large enough for the game to communicate to us the immensity of what it is trying to represent (although you have to do with an arrow road to guide you towards ... the horizon), and it's a noticeable improvement over Horizon 2 where the four corners of the map looked a bit too similar to each other.

Light management also does a great job on the different vehicles, driving them is even better than expected. Even though I'm more of the interior viewer type, I'm getting more and more enthusiastic about using the far view on a regular basis to enjoy the effects on the car, and experience the realistic reverbs, right up to clouds in the sky. However, the interior view is probably the best place for those who want to feel the weather effects. These have been considerably improved since Horizon 2, with droplets exploding on the glass, jostled by the wipers, as we already saw last year in Forza Motorsport 6.

The price for having these stars in your eyes on Xbox One is that Horizon 3 only runs at 30 FPS (as it does for previous episodes of Horizon), and the framerate is particularly solid, as usual, offering a pleasant and smooth driving experience. The only time I could see a slight derailment was when I discovered a notable new place (and there are even more of them than before, and well hidden in the menus to allow the surprise). The PC version obviously had no restrictions.

Another feature to benefit from improvements: the audio part. Horizon 3 is the best Forza game currently on this side, including Forza Motortsport. The difference with Horizon 2 is glaring, and it's already a great game on that side, but there is something bigger, more aggressive in Horizon 3. I don't think I will ever be able to do it. Weary of the sound of the throttle when the flames start to appear at the rear. It's like a warning shot.

Unlike Horizon 2 which opted for a simple multi-mode to activate, Horizon 3 includes new cooperative features, so if you don't want to play Career mode alone, then you can join three of your friends and do it together. Everything you discover and complete can be done alone or with others, in a setting to die for.

"Kick It in the Guts, Barry"

Beyond its visual prowess, Horizon 3 scores a huge point thanks to its malleability. There are more options for customizing your cars than ever before, and they have a dedicated and separate menu, to showcase the possibilities for modifications. Since Need for Speed in 2015, the Forza franchise has caught up with a lot of ground (even surpassing its predecessor in some areas, including the ability to place stickers on the windshield and windows), and therefore offers strong competition in this aspect. .

We are also no longer restricted by the default choice of our avatar; you can now find a selection of characters, like in Test Drive Unlimited. Playground has also worked on the voices, especially for the commentators, who will not hesitate to call you by your first name (and there is a vast choice in French, ndt). By default, your name is Luke, but you can also choose “Sausage”, which is still a lot of fun. Every time I launch my game, I hear Anna, my GPS assistant, say to me "Hi Sausage, you are back!" »And it is downright impossible to drive in these conditions.

Same thing for music, you are no longer restricted by the choices of the game: there is an incredible integration of Groove Music. It's really surprising how easy it is to play your own music in Horizon 3, and it's worth a visit if you like to drive on very particular tracks. I mentioned “Thunderstruck” in my introduction, but there is no AC / DC; i just play it from my own library. Having this option is very different from just using background music, an option you get with the latest update for Xbox One. In the first case, the music is integrated into the radios present in the game; there is no DJ, but only your music which will benefit from a specific treatment to work with the noise of the motors, while changing the volume when you approach the key places of the festival, where the speakers play this music at their tour, putting you in the shoes of a concert goer. However, I noticed that sometimes my music tended to skip, but I couldn't tell if it was a bug or a connection problem.

But it's the flexibility of the events themselves that gives us near-complete access to how Horizon 3 unfolds. Horizon 2 allowed us to switch from completely ignoring the suggested car class, which meant we could progress to the festival grand finale without ever switching vehicles. Horizon 3 goes even further. Not only do some events automatically adjust according to the type of car, but it can also be completely rewritten to have a personalized race performed as part of a challenge with friends.

This Horizon feature is a bit like a blank diagram that allows you to choose, within a race, the weather, the type of competition, and even the name of the race itself, via the poster. It's brilliant, and it means the same event can be done dozens and dozens of times in a different way, with a lot of special conditions. We add to this the possibility of enjoying the diagrams of your friends, as well as those more official, created by Playground. You can even create your own challenges - those special events introduced in Horizon 2 - starting from a predetermined point on the map.

My only real complaint about Horizon 3 is on the distinction between Ford brand vehicles from the US, UK or Australia. As a result, races reserved for Australian cars are a real waste of time since Australian Fords are considered American, and are therefore ineligible. A strange failure considering how Horizon 3 seeks to be as respectful as possible.

After tracing the path with the first chapter and expanding it and making it much more open with the second, with the third iteration of the series the developers focused on improving the game formula, going to refine it with a touch of personalization and extra connection. On the other hand, what need is there to upset something that works very well on its own?

Set in Australia, Forza Horizon 3 is proposed as the largest and most diversified chapter of the series: the setting of the third Horizon Festival is twice as large as the previous and delicious European stage, with an immense variety of areas and driving styles. We pass from the sun-kissed coasts and caressed by the sea, to the urban setting of the town of Surfers Paradise, jumping among the vegetation of the rainy forests and darting among the desert dust on board a dune buggy. The predominant theme, however, is the reckless off-road, which is often called into question and managed by the physical ForzaTech engine, which has definitely improved as regards the management of the suspensions and tires.

In general, the driving system finds all the necessary confirmations: with the Horizon series, the developers had already shown that they can handle dirt roads and variable climatic conditions, especially with the Rally and Storm Island expansions, while with the more recent Forza Motorsport 6 a firm point has been put on the management of races with rain and puddles. The unpredictability and diversity of the setting of this third chapter, therefore, will not reserve negative surprises for fans of the series, who will find themselves at home rediscovering a gameplay and a concrete feeling struggling with the over 350 vehicles available in the game garage. In short, one of the great certainties acquired after years of improvement is that Forza Horizon 3 is able to adequately offer an impressive insight into driving situations, without ever losing sight of a touch of credibility.

Unlike what happened with the first chapters, where perfect strangers were playing in search of success, this time we will be the boss (with face and name selectable at any time) of the Horizon Festival, on which the task of increasing the fans of the automotive event to expand it visibly on the fully explorable map surface. At the completion of each stage of the Festival, choices are proposed to advance the event in other areas, which are then "leveled" to obtain more and more races, participants and activities to be carried out up to the final challenge. All this opens up to a clearly more customizable game concept, based on the constant connection with the community of players.

The personalization, in fact, does not stop at the enormous possibilities that the series has always offered to embellish and enhance its racing cars, but goes further with the introduction of Horizon Blueprint, a system that allows you to create your own event by sharing it instantly with the other pilots scattered around the globe. The theme of the cars, the climatic conditions, the laps to be completed and all the other predefined aspects of a given race can be modified, not only to adapt the experience to one's tastes, but also to diversify and exponentially enrich the performance of the whole The carreer.

An interesting novelty, which goes to file one of the big problems that often occurs over the long distance with driving games, or the variety of game situations. A problem that was not already part of the Horizon series with the boundless types of events available and that in Forza Horizon 3 has been further mitigated with the inclusion of new challenges, such as the jumps to be made in the most dangerous places on the map, the areas drift, night battles and convoys with which to challenge the Drivatars. In October, then, the Forzathons will be added, weekly tests that will allow, upon completion, to unlock special cars never previously introduced.

The feeling you feel from the beginning of this generation by getting your hands on a game from the Forza series is that you are never alone. The merit is first of all the Drivatar system, the artificial intelligence that updates persistently with the style and behavior at the helm of the players of the franchise, reinvigorating the races with extremely credible situations that never boil down to the typical "little trains" of few years ago. The game experience of Forza Horizon 3 is much more focused on the accumulation of credits and fans to enrich the stages of the Festival, and the Drivatars have their part in building this evolution. Right from the start of the game, in fact, he was asked to set up a team by identifying and beating the strongest Drivatars encountered through the map. Thus, making sure the deeds of the best drivers of the Festival, among which the exponents of the friends list stand out, the scores are increased, speeding up the growth process that replenishes the game with content.