Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels
Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels brings thrills and spills, but still plenty of depth.
I’m not saying ForzaHorizon3’ s HotWheels DLC has a subtext, but if it does, it’s about the importance of voting in local elections. You should know what your politicians are up to, lest they blow the budget for local infrastructure on constructing a network of orange plastic roads, and you’re forced to do loop-de-loops on your way home from picking up the kids. Sure, it may solve the pothole problem, but can a Peugeot 206 clear a jump through a flaming hoop? The action for this branded expansion takes place in Thrilltopia, a tropical-atoll-turned-playground for the Horizon festival. It’s a Hot Wheels track made lifesize, spiralling, climbing and twisting around hills and mechanical dinosaurs. It’s silly, audacious, and inarguably impressive. The presentation is on point—the incredibly vibrant track looking resplendent against the hyperreal vividness of ForzaHorizon3’ s environment design.
I was initially hesitant about Forza Horizon3 going full toytown, but it works. Horizon has always carried a hint of the ridiculous, of course, but the surprising thing about Hot Wheels is that it’s not as wacky as I first assumed. Yes, there are speed boosts, flaming hoops, and dinosaurs, but the quality of racing keeps things grounded. You might be frequently upside down, but this is still a series of competitive events. You’re in a playground, but you’ve still got a job to do. (The job is going fast through the playground.)
The Hot Wheels licence means bright orange tracks, jumps and stunts, and a few Hot Wheelsbranded cars. But aside from those elements, this is still ForzaHorizon3. The tracks are designed for racing, and so they’re wide enough to fit multiple cars side by side. In later events, the corners become tighter and more technical, and, because the road is often suspended in midair, taking one too fast can leave you hurtling towards the water below.
It’s strange: HotWheels is more of a departure for ForzaHorizon3 than the recent BlizzardMountain expansion, but not for the obvious reason. As visually spectacular as this island’s road network is, driving on it essentially feels the same as on tarmac. And many of the stunts that you can pull off are simply things you can do in the base game, but bigger, faster or more twisty. They’re fun, but they don’t make a huge difference to the difficulty. The layout of the tracks, however, creates a technical challenge that feels unlike anything ForzaHorizon3 has done before.
The roads are straighter, longer, and narrower, which makes jostling your way to the front of the pack more difficult. Your car’s top speed makes a huge difference, as does your ability to utilize slipstreams and slingshot past other drivers. It’s for this reason that the new Hot Wheels cars are rarely the best choice for these races. Events are restricted only by class, and AI competitors tend to favor Forza’s standard garage—often picking faster cars. A new stunt swap option in the Blueprints menu lets you change out parts of the track, potentially swapping a fast jump for a slower, more technical roundabout, but it’s a basic system that has little real impact on a race.
This is still Forza Horizon. The tracks are designed for racing
Build Up
As in Blizzard Mountain, progression involves collecting medals from races and PR stunts. Finishing nets you one medal, winning gets you another and a third is awarded for completing a special challenge—either performing a specific skill, or surpassing a given amount of skill points. I like the implementation better here than in BlizzardMountain because the challenge feels more natural in this environment. Earning a skill score can be tricky. It’s possible to build up huge chains during high-speed sections, but it’s also easy to nudge a car or roadside barrier and lose it all.
My only real complaint is that, much like BlizzardMountain, Hot Wheels doesn’t build to anything spectacular. There are no showcase events, and it all ends in just a big, long race. Surely this concept is crying out for an audacious finale? That aside, HotWheels is an often-thrilling series of racing events. It looks great and provides an unexpectedly deep challenge.