REVIEW: Forza Horizon 2

First of all I want to apologise. This review is somewhat late. When I started to play this game the day before the UK launch, I realised after only a couple of hours I couldn’t write a comprehensive review of Forza Horizon 2 without investing some serious time into it… it’s massive… IT’S BRILLIANT.

Adopting the winning formula of its predecessor (Forza Horizon), Forza Horizon 2 creates an open world mixture of both street and off-road racing, whilst incorporating a serious kick-ass sound track, all in a festival setting.

The game is set within a huge world recreating a vast area of Southern France and Italy, where the Mediterranean literally becomes your playground. Throw in side missions, car clubs, road trips, collectables, an XP system, perks and hundreds of cars to buy …and we are only just beginning to scratch the surface.

So where do you start with a behemoth like Forza Horizon 2 ? Lets start right at the core of the game and get the more simple elements out of the way first. Forza Horizon 2 is an arcade racer set in a part of the world that is celebrating racing culture with the creation of the ‘Horizon Car Festival’. Your mission is to enter various championships around the map, gaining wristbands and XP along the way. In turn these elevate you towards the main event of the Horizon Festival, the finale. Each championship win takes you a little closer to the final race where your destiny is to become the Horizon champion.

As with Forza 5, we see the implementation of ‘Drivatars’ to provide the competition. For those that haven’t had the pleasure, Drivatars are AI representations of people from your Xbox Live friends list, and are created based on a very clever mix of their actual racing behaviours and Cloud technology. I’m sure I dont need to tell a lot of you that this new breed of A.I. can provide stubborn and sometimes challenging opposition.

Each championship starts with a decision on what car to take (which optionally includes tuning, design and livery creation etc.) which then initiates a ‘road trip’ to the race destination following the festival theme. You will be treated to racing, instances, challenges and even just the joy of driving around. Almost everything you do provides the potential for earning skill points (XP) which can be spent on perks that allow greater in game rewards; such as increased point yields, car rewards and skill boosting abilities.

The diversity from one championship to another is one of the games main draws, supplemented by changing weather environments which have a direct impact on how you drive. One minute you’re tearing around on an off road track in the rain, the next you’re in a high speed race covering free ways and populated, sunny streets.

Cars handle brilliantly and feel realistic, creating a vibe closer to a racing simulator rather than an arcade racer. Guided by cheesy in game characters, who are an annoyance rather than providing anything remotely close to story driven gaming. However they quickly fall into the background once you realise the scope for you to just do your own thing. Side missions and collectables become addictive, especially the ‘bucket-list challenges’. These are cars placed around the game world for you to find, and take. Once you have driven to their location you have to complete certain challenges, of varying difficulty, such as speed runs or drifting skills.

Special stages also become available after the completion of some championships. For example, racing a plane to the finish line through numerous checkpoints introduced an adrenaline-fuelled event I found particularly enjoyable. Throw in a beautiful game world and a kick ass soundtrack of electronic dance beats (by some of Europe’s most popular DJs, it certainly makes you push your foot a little harder on the pedal. It’s fun without taking itself too seriously, and to me that is only a good thing. You know… FUN! -the only measurable attribute a game should be wholly judged on, and in this case Forza Horizon 2 certainly delivers.

The online element of Forza Horizon 2 is easily accessible… once you have unlocked it that is. You are required to finish two championships first. Road trips, championships and single events taking place in a variety of different game modes provide ample opportunity to burn rubber with a few friends over Xbox Live. Online play is one of the most important aspects within a game of this nature and is certainly a feature on which Forza Horizon 2 impresses. Finding your friends, and even more importantly finding an online server to race in, has not provided any issues for me whatsoever since the game’s release earlier this month.

Impeccable performance and good clean fun can be found at the very heart of the Forza Horizon 2 multiplayer experience. Car clubs allow you to create a faction and battle your way up the online leader boards. Allowing up to a thousand members per club it is a great touch that certainly indulges the online community spirit. The car club option becomes available when you have fully completed the first Road Trip …and if you would like to join the XboxMAD car club simply search and come and join us on the roads for a race or two! There are also a number of club vinyls available on the Forza hub, check out the below video from Villz to find out how to find them.

Forza Horizon 2 is a seriously good looking game. The plethora of cars to choose from is at first a little daunting. However what is evident straight away is, despite having a huge amount of vehicles at your disposal, the developers have put a lot of time and care into how each car is graphically represented. What’s even more impressive is that the same level of detail is taken on every vehicle with no exceptions, from the insanely fast and expensive super cars, right down to the bargain basement bangers. All the elements of the car have been intricately detailed from the inside and out, which is something you would expect from a serious racing simulation, not the arcade racer Forza Horizon 2 was instantly labelled. The developers have obviously made it common practice to make this game look as good as they possibly could, and there is no let up of that philosophy once we enter the game world either.

Leaving behind the State of Colorado from the original Horizon game, Playground have opted for the affluence of Mediterranean Europe. Southern France and Northern Italy become host to the Horizon festival, racing through rolling countryside, sleepy French villages, gorgeous cliff side vistas and stylish Italian Piazzas. The diversity experienced between each race is something that keeps the game feeling fresh and non repetitive, an aspect track racers have often had trouble avoiding.

One race could take you along a windy country road, the next tearing through the streets of modern suburbia, followed by on off-road jaunt through some poor wine maker’s vineyard. Again Playground have managed remarkable results on how stunning the game looks. Sometimes I found myself just cruising around the map, absorbing the breath taking surroundings the world creates. It’s a happy place that envelopes an almost holiday feel in your very being. Dynamic lighting also allows a change in the environments feel all together. Dawn hangs with a whisper of sunlight in the sky, night falls and you start to concentrate on the road more. It’s a feeling not many games in this genre have even come close to achieving. It’s special. It’s amazing.

Performance-wise the game has no hang-ups ,either. Attaining the so-called ‘pinnacle resolution’ of 1080p, and running at a steady 30 frames-per-second, Forza Horizon 2 is as smooth as silk. No screen tear, and no stutters. the sense of speed you get whilst whistling through bustling streets would lead you to the conclusion that the game was running at an even higher frame rate at times. Despite the size of the world and the amount of detail within it, there seems to be no detriment to either the graphics or the performance, which is testament to the developers work in achieving such a balance. It’s also testament to how much can be achieved when they dedicate to one single hardware and work to optimise for it.

Xbox 360 Version

Obviously this title is not Xbox One exclusive. Thanks to the gear-heads at Sumo Digital the Xbox 360 is also getting a version of this amazing title. So as promised, we also wanted to give you a run-down what can you expect from the 360 version when compared to the Xbox One.

The game is *not* a straight port, but in essence a directly different game -in parts down to limitations posed by the 360 hardware. Lets get one thing clear straight away, Sheffield based (YAY) developers Sumo Digital have done a superb job in bringing the game onto the 360 without losing the majority of what’s at the core of Forza Horizon 2 on the Xbox One.

Two of the main omissions are ‘weather effects’ and the ‘tuning’ option found in the car hub menu whilst in single player. Draw distances and foliage density are obviously lower on the older hardware. However, despite this for the most part the game still looks incredible.

The music is one of the most important aspects of the Horizon legacy, unfortunately the limitations the 360 provide in comparison see the game graced with only 3 radio stations instead of 7, which has to be one of the most disappointing losses.

The main criticism however, is not from the game or performance – as the development really has produced an genre defining racer for the 360 and proves there’s still life in the old girl yet. Instead the biggest disappointment is from the lack of support on the last gen machine regarding DLC. Turn 10 recently announced that the 360 version would not receive any DLC at all. In our humble opinion this is a major misfire for gamers who have still to make the next gen leap.

In short, the 360 version suffers limitations imposed by the hardware, but viewed as an Xbox 360 title it is every bit as good as its Xbox One counterpart.

It’s a genuine shame that this gem hasn’t received the press coverage of its near-twin, and I hope that the majority of Xbox 360 owners find their way to it in spite of that.

For more analysis between the two, check out Eurogamer’s video comparison here.

Conclusion

To summarise, Forza Horizon 2 is quite simply the game most racing fans have been waiting for. It delivers fast pace, diverse scenery set against the freedom of a huge environment, and all without affecting the performance of the game.

Balance is achieved between features and performance, which is true testament to a great design team. Ultimately it is FUN, and I put that in capital letters as its hard to convey just how much fun I have had with this title since launch. It’s brilliant, its diverse and it has certainly set the benchmark for future of arcade racers. A must buy for any Xbox owner.

#XboxOn

Liam @XboxMADUk