![]() ![]() This dirt-bashing machine has an absolutely foully popping exhaust, and playing with an Xbox controller, I could really feel its back end lumber whenever I took a turn too tightly.įorza Horizon games dominate open-world racing because of the Motorsport heritage the handling between vehicles is noticeably different even in this arcade context, and I sense that this is why, say, The Crew, can't hold a flame to this series. Thankfully the main serving is promising: During my little race against a cargo plane and a guy in a wingsuit I acquired a 1994 Hoonigan Ford Escort RS Cosworth WRC, which demonstrated some of the advancements Playground Games and Turn 10 have made in the audio department. At least they seem optional past the usual early onboarding period. In this build, the weather events seem too inconsequential to justify their presence-they translate as a brown patina obscuring the horizon.įrankly, I don't like these non-races, just like I've never liked them in previous games (who cares about accumulating English manors?!). This preview build didn't show me how it can demonstrably add challenge to races, though. It's a nice effect, though, the dust storm. The woman who has given me this task warns there are legends of people getting lost in these dust storms, but that's no concern to me: I've got a magical GPU minimap and besides, visibility ain't that bad. On another non-racing mission to take a fancy photo in a dust storm, it's my job to use Forza's camera mode to photograph some half-buried, Aztec-looking monument. I'll probably get gifted the Vocho eventually, because I'm a race car hero and who's better qualified to destroy the Mexican wilderness with it than I? I'm made to drive this slow-arse truck myself for some annoying reason, but that's ok. Then we cart the ancient vehicle to a workshop in a truck to be repaired. "It's not just a car, it's a lifestyle," my Mexican quest giver advises when we embark on our search (we drive to a clearly marked point on the map). ![]() These come with some ever-so-light exposition, such as the search for a Vocho, which is a Volkswagen beetle once ubiquitous in Mexico. Sure, races are the bread and butter-whether circuit or point-to-point-but there are frivolous side quests you can do too, like taking photos or discovering old cars. It's been developing over several instalments, but Forza Horizon is really a Far Cry game at heart. In this build, the weather events seem too inconsequential to justify their presence-they translate as a brown patina obscuring the horizon FH4 is still the best looking racer on PC though, so that's OK. Since this was an Xbox-only preview, the graphics options were limited between "performance" and "quality." Either way, aside from more rugged mess and foliage, it doesn't look like a huge technical advancement in terms of graphics, at least on a moment-to-moment, 180 kmph level. That doesn't mean it's not fun to explore the various biomes-it just means this is a new map with some Mexico stylings, and frankly, that's enough for me, because this game is just the previous game with some new stuff to do. I don't feel like I'm in Mexico, I feel like I'm more in a generic computer world lightly inspired by it. Mexico gives you cliffs.įorza Horizon 5, just like previous instalments, falls well short of digital tourism. England gave you graceful air after long, enchantingly steady ascents. I think they want us to play Rocket League in it. What's important is that this is a new map and there's a lot of opportunity for trackcraft here, with its rolling emptinesses, its treacherous high-elevation mountains, and its oversize soccer stadium, complete with oversize soccer ball. I live in Australia and can confirm that Australia in FH3 doesn't look much like real Australia, but I don't care and don't think you should either (they nailed the roundabouts, though). The foliage is different (cactuses) and the landscape is more browned, less gentle. Mexico doesn't actually seem that different to England at first, though there are jungles, cacti-strewn plains, Mexico-looking towns of varying sizes, the kind you see in American films set in Mexico. The fact that it was a great racer anyway is testament to Horizon just feeling good, nailing the fundamentals, iterating successfully on the open-world racing formula. True, Mexico proves a more turbulent, landmark-strewn sandbox than England, but the English landscape's "lack of obvious drama or spectacle," in the words of Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, was a weird choice for a sandbox arcade racer, let's face it. This instalment is the same-in fact it could easily be mistaken for its predecessor, save for its Mexico setting. If you've played previous Horizon games you know it already. Forza Horizon 5's presentation is pure car commercial.
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