Forza Horizon 3 review
Forza Horizon 3 is the latest title in the Horizon spin off games from the Forza series. Unlike previous entries, Horizon 3 takes the limits out of the occasion and allows you to free-roam across Australia. This new-found freedom really shines in Horizon 3, the different vehicle types are fun to drive across the varied landscape, be it buggies over sand, off-roaders over mud or sports cars over tarmac. It’s certainly a fun game, but does it live up to the various claims of it being the best racing game ever made?
As a ‘next-gen’ racing game, Forza Horizon 3 looks very good, the detail of the cars is astounding and the environments look great as well. One thing I noticed however was that the shadows during the daytime didn’t move smoothly across the ground but rather juddered. It isn’t very noticeable when you’re racing across the countryside at high speed, however when you stop to take in the surroundings or just for a quick break, it’ll become very obvious. Another thing I noticed was that when you got up close and personal to a decal in the customization menu, they would often be pixelated and would take a moment to pop in.
As I mentioned earlier, Forza Horizon 3 is a very fun game to play. The driving mechanics are superb, with each car feeling and sounding different. In the campaign you must earn fans to expand your festivals. You can earn fan through different events. These include lap races, point to point races, PR stunts and bucket list challenges. These challenges are mostly fun but after a while you’ll begin to find them somewhat repetitive. While there are some alternate game-modes such as Infection, King and Capture the Flag, these are only available online in a playground game, and cannot be played offline.
The game also has a few issues. I had a glitch at one point where the garage section didn’t load in properly when I went to go check out my cars. The walls were see through and everything kept flickering. This eventually lead to a crash, which was unfortunate. I’ve also had the game crash when saving a design for a car. This was annoying as it meant I lost all the progress I had made on the design, and as far as I know there is no way to save while designing a car. The in-game Forzathon events can also be a bit buggy, sometimes the description is wrong and the challenge is actually different. Sometimes it takes a while for the game to register that the challenge has been completed (At times over an hour). The same is true of the Forza Hub; an app that lets you collect rewards for the games, sometimes these rewards turn up in your in-game inbox immediately, other times it can take hours.
The game also has something of a microtransaction system. You can spend some real-life money in order to buy cars with ‘Tokens’, saving your in-game credits. In credit to the game, these tokens were things that I didn’t actually know existed until after I’d beaten the main campaign, whereupon a popup informed me about them. If you choose to continue using the credits over the tokens, then the game will not bug you about them and you can peacefully forget they even existed in the first place.
Another gameplay mechanic in Forza Horizon 3 is the ability to create blueprints for Races, Bucket Lists and Playground games. These allow you to choose which car you want to race, the time of day, weather and car class. This means you can create some quite interesting races however, for both the Playground Games and Race blueprints, you can only create one, creating another means overwriting the previous one. Which is annoying if you have multiple ideas for races using the same track.
Overall, I’d say that Forza Horizon 3 is a very capable racing game. The cars are fun to drive, the modification system in-depth and easy to understand. The paint/decal system is good though I think it could be made a little more user friendly. The customization for the races on the other hand I think could be improved a little, being able to create your own course with a bit more control over it would be a welcome addition. While there are a few bugs, they generally haven’t been too problematic and not to common either. In the end, the game is very solid and I would recommend it to those who are interested.
If you're interested in buying a copy of Forza Horizon 3, then follow the link below:
Forza Horizon 3 - Xbox One
As a ‘next-gen’ racing game, Forza Horizon 3 looks very good, the detail of the cars is astounding and the environments look great as well. One thing I noticed however was that the shadows during the daytime didn’t move smoothly across the ground but rather juddered. It isn’t very noticeable when you’re racing across the countryside at high speed, however when you stop to take in the surroundings or just for a quick break, it’ll become very obvious. Another thing I noticed was that when you got up close and personal to a decal in the customization menu, they would often be pixelated and would take a moment to pop in.
As I mentioned earlier, Forza Horizon 3 is a very fun game to play. The driving mechanics are superb, with each car feeling and sounding different. In the campaign you must earn fans to expand your festivals. You can earn fan through different events. These include lap races, point to point races, PR stunts and bucket list challenges. These challenges are mostly fun but after a while you’ll begin to find them somewhat repetitive. While there are some alternate game-modes such as Infection, King and Capture the Flag, these are only available online in a playground game, and cannot be played offline.
The game also has a few issues. I had a glitch at one point where the garage section didn’t load in properly when I went to go check out my cars. The walls were see through and everything kept flickering. This eventually lead to a crash, which was unfortunate. I’ve also had the game crash when saving a design for a car. This was annoying as it meant I lost all the progress I had made on the design, and as far as I know there is no way to save while designing a car. The in-game Forzathon events can also be a bit buggy, sometimes the description is wrong and the challenge is actually different. Sometimes it takes a while for the game to register that the challenge has been completed (At times over an hour). The same is true of the Forza Hub; an app that lets you collect rewards for the games, sometimes these rewards turn up in your in-game inbox immediately, other times it can take hours.
The game also has something of a microtransaction system. You can spend some real-life money in order to buy cars with ‘Tokens’, saving your in-game credits. In credit to the game, these tokens were things that I didn’t actually know existed until after I’d beaten the main campaign, whereupon a popup informed me about them. If you choose to continue using the credits over the tokens, then the game will not bug you about them and you can peacefully forget they even existed in the first place.
Another gameplay mechanic in Forza Horizon 3 is the ability to create blueprints for Races, Bucket Lists and Playground games. These allow you to choose which car you want to race, the time of day, weather and car class. This means you can create some quite interesting races however, for both the Playground Games and Race blueprints, you can only create one, creating another means overwriting the previous one. Which is annoying if you have multiple ideas for races using the same track.
Overall, I’d say that Forza Horizon 3 is a very capable racing game. The cars are fun to drive, the modification system in-depth and easy to understand. The paint/decal system is good though I think it could be made a little more user friendly. The customization for the races on the other hand I think could be improved a little, being able to create your own course with a bit more control over it would be a welcome addition. While there are a few bugs, they generally haven’t been too problematic and not to common either. In the end, the game is very solid and I would recommend it to those who are interested.
If you're interested in buying a copy of Forza Horizon 3, then follow the link below:
Forza Horizon 3 - Xbox One
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