Forza Horizon 4
LITTLE BRITAIN, BIG FUN. From $99.95 | PC, XO | forzamotorsport.net
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, we have only good news: Forza Horizon 4 may be the most perfect Xbox One game going. It is the gamer’s game, encapsulating everything there is about your Xbox, to the point where Forza Horizon could be your console’s new mascot. Sorry, Chief.
Polished and generous in spirit, Forza Horizon 4 adds new features and reworks familiar ones. It’s a spectacle of how beautifully your console can push pixels around, shaming every other open world racer with its graphical prowess while showing off the depth and breadth of its systems.
The opening 10 minute salvo is an hors d’oeuvres of what you will be doing over countless hours in Playground Games’ take on Great Britain. You’re introduced to the four seasons, which do more than shift the colour pallette by turning crisp, springtime lakes into icy skidpans during winter, or throwing worrying puddles on patches of ground during rainy autumn that were previously clear under the glorious summer sun.
Horizon 4 encourages playing with other actual humans whether in traditional competitive play, or – in a nod to MMORPGs – working towards a common goal in hourly events so you can score exclusive rewards. Rack up ‘influence’ – XP by another name – by watching other people’s streams on Mixer, and by broadcasting your own. Or, you can go totally solo if you want and still have a game that eclipses everything else on your console for sheer value.
Changing seasons permeate the bulk of your experience. Every week, the game shifts into a new season. It’s a clever and bold idea, forcing you to adapt to the altered landscape as you roam the map in freeplay. While your mate in New York is playing the same winter map as your friend in Auckland, single player races and events can be locked to a season.
Racing blueprints return from Horizon 3, but now allow you to fiddle with the actual course layout along with the car class, time of day and more. Horizon Stories step in for the standalone, single-event blueprints found in Horizon 3, providing more context to what you’re doing and why, throwing you the keys to hypercars, drift racers and much more to offer a tantalising taste of what’s next.