Let’s talk about Forza
Sooo.. this is how Playground Games restored my love for racing games.
I don’t know if i can classify the Forza Horizon series in the same place as Forza Motorsport series, Horizon being defenitelly more arcade-y than it’s big brother but not as much as NfS… i think?.
Horizon blurs the line for me, the line between the arcade and the simulation. The thing is, i’m a fan of NfS, or more accurately i “was” a fan, and being a fan of NsF i became something of a fan of cars, not a diehard fan, but enough to interest me in the PS Gran Turismo, i played a few hours of 3 or 4 Gran Turismo games back in the day but they never hit the spot for me, there was something missing from them, and it took me a long time to figure it out that i was missing the reward that NfS usually gave to the player.
You see, game designers need to think of a way to entice the player to stick to the their game, either by giving small and evolving rewards as the game goes on or simply by giving the player feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction each time he does something cool or right.
I’m not saying that Gran Turismo and, by consequence, Forza Motorsport are bad games, they are good games in their own right, but they lack this important aspect of games, or at least they did (i haven’t played any of them on a long time but Forza 6 is on my downloaded games waiting to be tried). You can also say that the game is closer to a simulator and therefore doesn’t need to have this, and i would say: Bullshit! Just because it’s a simulation it can’t be fun?
Now, Let’s talk about Forza Horizon 3, at first i was skeptical to play, to me it would be a game closer to Forza Motorsport and as i explained before i wasn’t that much interested in that. But for some reason i decided to try it and… It’s the best racing game i’ve seen in some years.
Almost everything you do, every drift, every jump, every road you drive gets rewarded, it seems like there’s a progress bar to everything in the game and that feels great, it feels like you are progressing just by driving around appreciating the beautiful Australian views, and about Australia, the setting and atmosphere, is absolutely beautiful, something i thought i would never say in my life.
Everything in the game seems right, from cornering right to simply taking a stroll along the Twelve Apostles, and i didn’t need to mention this here but i going to anyway, there’s an awesome moment for Halo fans like me in the game that is simply Masterful.
Now just a warning, it may seem like i am overpraising this game, but i’m really having a great time cruising around my BMW Isetta on the jungles of Australia. But who knows, maybe you won’t like it like i do.
