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Forza Horizon 3 Game Review Script
After it's release, Forza Horizon 2 gained great critical acclaim
and this, is it's successor
The racing video game - Forza Horizon 3, is the third installment of the Horizon series, and the ninth Forza game in general
It was developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios - and is available on the Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs
The game is packed with features and great gameplay aspects, but first I would like to talk about the technology aspects of it.
The game runs exceptionally well on the Xbox, almost not looking like a console game anymore, and utilizes Direct X 12 for the PC version
Minimum requirements may seem high - with 12GB of ram and a GTX 1060 as the 'recommended' minimum,
but the game can be played on 8GB of ram and a GTX 1050, with a modern competent quad core being enough
The game also features crossplay, which lets you play with all your friends no matter what system any of you are on,
and if you have an Xbox One and Windows 10 gaming rig, you can play the game on both systems with everything syncing up
and only have to buy it once, thanks to Xbox play anywhere.
Now to the gameplay, as you load up the game - you are walked through some of the key elements like fans and festival sites,
and the general story is made available for you to tune in to - which you don't need previous-game knowledge to understand,
but you can also comfortably ignore it, which is nice if you just want to drive any of the 350 cars on the beautiful map of Australia.
Soon enough, you are racing in Australia, against a jeep attached to a helicopter. Then picking your first car and starting your journey.
As for the car selection, pick whatever, as there's no "buyers remorse" since you get to collect as many cars as you want shortly after,
Though you should wisely avoid the Mustang if don't want to land in a tree or a crowd, but that's about it.
After doing some *normal* races, you get to explore the openworld map, which is big - like, really big.
It's set in Australia, and captures it's beauty fairly well. Whether the Outback or Surfers Paradise - there's something to look at,
but, more importantly, somewhere to drive.
And wow are some of the roads a pleasure to drive.
The slick roads throughout the forest,
the highways cutting through the desert,
off-road courses,
the roads wrapping around the mountains.
It's astonishing. But it lacks a little something, a little flare is missing when compared to
some Need For Speed games and even the previous Horizon game, it's just a little monotonous and sensible.
Though the game more than makes up for it, with 350 cars on release - of which I only miss the VW Golf and Porsches,
but the Supra and GTRs keep me from complaining.
And each car has immense upgradability and customization, allowing you to astronomically transform the look and feel
of your car. Maybe except from the Koenigsegg Regera, which can still be tuned and doesn't need upgrades.
Now to the races, since a game with hundreds of cars but nothing to do may as well not have any cars,
First up, you can do the main festival races and set up exhibition races with your own or a friend's race blueprints,
gaining more fans so that you can expand your festival and have an excuse to try out more cars
You can also do illegal street races, as if anything you were already doing wasn't illegal. Though these races don't award you with fans,
you get to progress and face off opponents for a chance to win their car.
On the bit more legal side, you can challenge any racer within the game and gain standard rewards,
with specific ones having much higher cash rewards,
and others being recruitable for your drivatar lineup.
You can also join online mode, which, unlike GTA V, is seamless and syncs you to the session you are joining in a way that feels
though as if you were already in the online session.
And anything you do online syncs up to your profile, which is the same one you use offline - so all progress is saved offline too.
And since I'm on the topic of online, you can progress through your career with a friend to make things a little easier and relax,
or you can just play in the online lobby. Which is where you may notice the countless communities and activities that aren't made
directly by the developers - but just set up in an open way for them to be possible.
Whiiiich gets me to drifting, don't get me wrong - it's hella fun, but it feels like the game should've been called Forza Drift,
as it's what convinced me to the game and what I find myself doing all the time.
With countless preset mods and tunes for so many cars, you can easily find yourself - and many others, drifting everywhere online.
I just wish the game had a eurobeat music station.
(Let's hope I can get some good Toyota AE86 drifts for that part)
Now, I've hopefully convinced you that there's always something to do, but there are also several other activities that you can do,
but I'll leave that for you to explore - I won't be covering them here.
And how does that racing and driving actually feel? Great, you get a fair set of options
for how you want the car to feel to match your driving style and skill level. The driving physics are pretty good too, overall solid
and predictable, but it's definitely not a simulator driving experience and can feel a little arcade-y.
Also The drivatars (the racers in the game)
may be fairly stupid at lower difficulty levels, and they can sometimes be extremely annoying in free roam, but they can use information from your
friends list such as names to make the game feel more lively, and the interactions with them are better than none.
But what are the flaws of the game?
The damage models, they're god-awful with only small paint cracks and bumps and that's about it, even GTA V does this better!
and the sound effects don't help either - When damaged, the engine seems to misfire and not rev up properly, but there are no abnormal sounds,
say if you were to compare it to an undamaged engine - no engine knock or rattle,
And the engines don't sound the best in the first place either, some sound nice but the tendency for people to V12 swap
every car in the game gives me an aneurysm and a lot of cars sound quite similar anyway.
Also, you'll need to accept Windows 10's bloatware shit (beep) in order to play the game -
and make sure Windows won't restart and update while you're playing.
Soooo what's my 'unbiased' verdict. Should you buy this game? Yes, - well, maybe,
since if the release cycle continues being the same - We should see Forza Horizon 4 being announced or even released soon TM
And if you don't like car games, then, well, these are still car games. So probably not and my question now is why are you watching this?