A must-buy for any petrol head gamers out there
IF there was ever any dispute concerning the king of motorsports games in the past half decade, surely now there can be no debate over which racing heavyweight lays claim to the title.
With the release of Forza Horizon 4, Playground Games have done the inconceivable and somehow expanded on the previous title so much that Horizon 4 doesn’t at all feel like an iterative update, but more like a fully-fledged sequel.
Much ado has been made about always-online titles in gaming’s recent history, but Horizon 4 toes the line so brilliantly that both camps will surely have little to complain about. By default, Horizon 4 places you in a shared online world, replacing all non-traffic cars with real players.
Forza has a clever system to seamlessly transition to offline play should your connection be interrupted, meaning you lose absolutely no progress.
The game also allows to to play offline completely, but there is no real reason to do so, as you will ghost through other player’s cars - unless you join them in a convoy - and all of the gameplay features such as pausing and rewinding still work seamlessly in the online environment.
On top of this, completing Forzathon challenges online grant you a second in-game currency that allows you access to a separate store granting a chance to purchase rare vehicles and vanity items such as outfits and (what a surprise) emotes. Guess what dance they’ve included?
Forza’s approach to seasons is astounding. The entire game world is subject to incredible aesthetic changes during each ‘season’, which lasts a week at a time - both in offline and online modes.
The introduction phase of the game allows you to experience all of the seasons in a few hours, giving you a glimpse of the beauty to come in the rest of the game. Winter is slippy and and bathed in a brilliant white, while autumn boasts the gamut of rich and comforting hues, exposing the painstaking level of detail in the game world.
There is so much new content in Horizon 4 that it is difficult to summarise outside the confines of a short novel. No amount of words can do this incredible game justice.
This should be a must-buy for any petrol head gamers out there.