Forza Horizon

[ShadowGLI]

Apparently coming out in October.

Seems interesting, I would love to run some of my race cars in an open environment or race some of my crazy AWD creations on rally stages..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvOPw720-r0

Are you a paddock rat who loves to spend all day shaving tenths of a second off your lap time? Well, then “Forza Motorsport 4” for Xbox 360 is a match made in heaven. But if you’d rather celebrate your car enthusiasm in an unrestricted digital universe with a cadre of dream driving machines, the forthcoming “Forza Horizon” is for you.
Before “Forza Horizon” was officially demoed at the Xbox E3 2012 Media Briefing leading into this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, we sneaked a peek at — and briefly played — the game. More importantly, we heard from two guys who have heavily invested their time into it. Ralph Fulton is design director at United-Kingdom based Playground Games, and his development studio has put together a visually striking package. Publishing house Turn 10 Studios’ creative director Dan Greenawalt bleeds Forza and wants the franchise to appeal to an even wider car-loving audience. Knowing there are many different kinds of auto enthusiasts, it’s hard to argue against casting a wider net.

So what is “Forza Horizon” like? To start, the backdrop and driving roads are modeled after the best that Colorado (especially Grand Junction) has to offer. The game’s seeds were planted some time during E3 2010, and Fulton’s development team surveyed Colorado last year before deciding it was ideal. An open-ended virtual world of majestic magnitude was born, consisting of long highways, rustic-looking buildings, fun twisties, and dirt paths. Day turns to night, and vice versa. Players can roam wherever they wish, dodging (or hitting) traffic and generally being a menace to society by powersliding, doing donuts, and knocking down signs and fences. The main focus is to enjoy your car of choice on your own terms. Fulton and Greenawalt wants to engage the youth audience who may not be as zealous about cars as we wish they were, and we’re behind the two all the way.

Aside from driving around aimlessly, there are challenges too. You can partake in street races for points or pink slips, earn points for causing mischief on public streets, bask in car culture and an auto show in the game’s Horizon Festival (the player’s staging area), and Playground and Rival modes from past and present Forza games will make appearances. And like any good racing game, multiplayer action comes standard.

When asked where the horizon name originated, Fulton said, “‘Horizon’ connotes freedom, expansiveness, and it just seemed to work in terms of naming a festival. The name just stuck.” Cool fact: In case you’re lost, Kinect users will have access to a voice-activated GPS command that draws a route path to the Horizon Festival (non-Kinect players can mundanely activate via menus).

While the freewheeling “Forza Horizon” doesn’t appear to be as technically intense as we’re used to from the series, it retains the comprehensive Pirelli tire modeling system from “Forza 4.” Additionally, there are 65 different surfaces you’ll be able to drive over. That’s no typo; we believe 65 shows serious dedication to making this game stand out.
Available vehicle information will be released during the summer, but here’s a sampling of cars we spotted during our demo, all gorgeously rendered:

Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione
Audi Quattro
BMW M5 (F10)
Ferrari California
Ford GT
Maserati GranTurismo
Mazda RX-7 (FD)
Mercedes-Benz SL-Class
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X
Nissan 370Z
Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34)
SRT Viper

Traffic cars: Chrysler PT Cruiser, Honda CR-V (or a clever lookalike), Toyota Prius, Volkswagen New Beetle

We drove the 2013 SRT Viper in a single point-to-point race on twisty roads and can’t say the handling predictability and control response gives anything up from “Forza 4,” though it does take a different driving mentality when weaving through traffic versus tracing the racing line on a track. The Forza-standard camera views remain in play.

Amusingly, playing chicken with traffic cars will force the AI to flash their high beams as you zoom towards a head-on collision – a neat touch, that.

“Forza Horizon” rolls out on October 23 in North America, South America, and Asia. The European market waits until October 26. Those who preorder will get something special but no specific beans have been spilled.
Be sure to keep your eyes on WOT for inevitable updates as “Forza Horizon” draws nearer to its release.


Read more: http://wot.motortrend.com/free-roami...#ixzz1wrVgvbVk

[Kris]

I hope they don't boch the physics anymore. And it reminds me of the old Need for speed series, like underground and such.

[ScottinBend]

Kinda like NFS......cool

[RallyFox]

very much like NFS Most Wanted...speaking of which....NFS Most Wanted is back, this time by Criterion Games who if you remember are the guys behind the Burnout series and the recent resurgent of NFS Hot Pursuit.

Anyways, Horizon looks pretty cool. If you go watch the E3 trailer it hints at everything from hooning it up on the street to full on car shows.

[Kris]

So now I never have to leave the house? Gayy

[RallyFox]

indeed..and I'll still get it

[RallyFox]

So while I was away on vacation I spent time at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. While there I got to spend some time with the incredibly short demo of Forza Horizon. The demo was short and you could only drive a Viper in it but it did give me a pretty good feel for the game.

Basically it confirmed that this is a lot like the old NFS games but with Forzas superior physics. Even though it was short it was still pretty fun and felt a lot more intense than the track on based racing that Forza is.

Honestly I'm a lot more excited about this game now after testing it. By the time Forza 4 came out I have pretty much burned out on track based sim racers like FM and the GT series, and the NFS series has gotten pretty annoying with their "catch up" based physics that ensure no lead is ever safe. I'm really looking forward to this game coming out and getting into the full experience of it.

[Rally]

Mike and I got a special invite to meet with the developers of the game and sit down and play it for an hour. The game is a blast. IMO, it's the perfect car game to come back to after a long day of work and just relax.

It is like NFS in that the world is open, you have "free-will", you can challenge racers, and there are "missions". It's different in the driving dynamics and it REALLY shows. NFS has always sorta felt like driving in a dream. Forza Horizon legitimately feels like Forza driving....you're just doing it on public roads.

We did a write up here:

http://www.stanceworks.com/2012/08/f...-test-session/

[RallyFox]

Nice write up.

I've always looked at the NFS series as a fun arcadey racer, that I enjoyed for it's open worldness and ability to just roam around. FM and the GT series were the serious racer games to me and unfortunatley for me, after playing through all of them, they just got stale. I can't even really put FM4 in the concole anymore.

After playing this though it really seems to have combined the best of both worlds along with more of what seems like real world (not just track based) car culture. I'm excited.

[maxmini]

Looks like something worth adding to the collection . nice find !

Randy

[WanderingRobot]

This is the first I've read of this game, I don't know how it snuck by me.
I will be scooping this game up. I really hope that the wide range of cars remains.

Did any one play the last forza with the kinect? If so what are your thoughts on it?
The head tracking and such sounded pretty awesome.
I go back and forth on getting a kinect quite a bit, and need more convincing.

[ShadowGLI]

Yeah after seeing the 2 reviews above I'm very interested to play this hands ion.

[Rally]

Originally Posted by ShadowGLI

Yeah after seeing the 2 reviews above I'm very interested to play this hands ion.

I mean....the first car you get has a VR6 in it. How bad could the game be?

[RallyFox]

Kinect on FM4 was pretty lame IMO.
The driving part basically has you holding your hands out on a pretend wheel to steer with the game doing the throttle and braking for you. It seemed more like a novelty gimick than anything else. I tried it once and never tried it again. The problem with the head tracking is that you still have to look forward at the screen even though you move your head, which becomes annoying really quick. It's easier, faster and less distracting to set your face buttons to look left/right for quick glances out the side windows if you really need that.

Assuming FH has clubs like in FM4....m|u Forza club?

[RallyFox]

Demo for this came out yesterday on XBL