Forza Horizon Catch-All

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I could have sworn we already had a thread for this game, but I guess we only talked about it in the Forza 4 thread. Anyway, lots of new info coming out of E3, and I've significantly more optimistic now than after watching their initial teaser trailer a month or two back.

Official product info page: http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/FH/...
Community compiled feature list/car list/FAQ: http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/fo...

I haven't had a chance to watch the videos yet (since I'm at work) but from from what I'm reading it sounds like the game structure is something akin to Test Drive Unlimited or Burnout Paradise, but with a Forza flavor to it, leveraging as much of the tech from previous Forza games as possible while making concessions to allow features that weren't possible to implement given the simulation focus of the core Forza games.

Here's brief feature highlight list culled from the community link above. If you follow the Forza community you'll see a LOT of frequently requested features that have been left out of Forza Motorsport games due to the heavy requirements of running their full simulation at 60 FPS. However given that this game is not focused on full simulation, one assumes they are using a scaled back version of their physics engine to allow them to include the sort of features expected in a more action oriented racing game.

New features to Forza:
- Open world driving based in Colorado, with a mix of mission based races and free roaming
- Some amount of XBL support for free roam mode
- Traffic on the roads
- Dynamic day/night cycle (and headlights on cars, of course)
- 60+ different driving surfaces including dirt

Returning Forza features:
- Some version of Forza 4 physics
- Forza's livery editor, and online livery sharing
- Rivals mode
- Car Performance upgrades and the Forza PI system, although from some reports NOT full tuning
- Photo mode
- Cockpit view
- Drivatar AI
- Wheel support
- Customizable driving assists including racing line and rewind

Some videos:

Official Trailer:

Spike TV demo/interview with Dan Greenawalt:

24 minute long demo from InsideSimRacingTV:

Cockpit view gameplay

EDIT:

Forza Horizon 2 has been announced for the Xbox One and Xbox 360. New thread to discuss the sequel here.

Haven't watched the videos yet, but looking over the community link in the OP, I'm intrigued. Open road racing, day/night cycles, traffic, and everything looks and plays Forza beautiful? How hard could it be?

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/5gCpws.jpg)

If Need for Speed: Most Wanted is just Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit physics, is Forza Horizon just TDU with Forza fidelity?

If Need for Speed: Most Wanted is just Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit physics, is Forza Horizon just TDU with Forza fidelity?

Early signs point seem to point to yes, and if so I'll be f*cking thrilled.

Gravey wrote:

If Need for Speed: Most Wanted is just Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit physics, is Forza Horizon just TDU with Forza fidelity?

I think I just jizzed my pants a little.

zeroKFE wrote:
If Need for Speed: Most Wanted is just Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit physics, is Forza Horizon just TDU with Forza fidelity?

Early signs point seem to point to yes, and if so I'll be f*cking thrilled. :D

Yeah, and I meant that as a good thing. E3 2012: "You know those racing games you love, or could have been better? Here they are."

Gravey wrote:

If Need for Speed: Most Wanted is just Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit physics

That wasn't Burnout with Hot Pursuit physics, that was Burnout with Burnout physics and a NFS skin slapped on top.

Gravey wrote:

is Forza Horizon just TDU with Forza fidelity?

This on the other hand sounds great, as I thought TDU was a great idea with horrible actual driving.

I'm slightly interested. I have often liked the ideas behind Need For Speed and other arcade racers and just hated the execution so I am willing to withhold judgement here until I can actually get a bit of hands on time with it.

Thin_J wrote:
Gravey wrote:

If Need for Speed: Most Wanted is just Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit physics

That wasn't Burnout with Hot Pursuit physics, that was Burnout with Burnout physics and a NFS skin slapped on top.

I addressed that in the Most Wanted thread.

"- 60+ different driving surfaces including dirt"

Sweet. When announced I figured I would pass on this game but it is starting to sound really cool.

The only reason I'm interested in this game is because I live in Colorado.

Watched the videos (well, listened mostly -- I'm still at work). Definitely sounds good. In the long video the presenter puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that while this is a "action racer" it doesn't mean that it will have an arcade feeling to the driving, which I was glad to hear (even though they obviously won't be able to have the FULL FM4 simulation with all the other stuff they are adding in).

The only thing that could really be a buzzkill is if they get too obsessed with this "Horizon Festival" concept. The general conceit doesn't bother me, but I can see ways in which it could lead them to do stupid things to the structure of the game to support it.

Anyway, definitely looking forward to it.

What the design director said: "We've solved navigating open worlds with an innovative, intelligent line using Kinect."

What I heard: "We've got Grand Theft Auto's wayfinding but you'll have to buy a Kinect."

This video makes me very interested in this game. Doesn't look like it is quite a sim style as the other Forza games but still much better than any other games of this style.

Also it sounds like it will have a decent soundtrack. Love that track playing during the video: Me & You by Nero.

This video makes me very interested in this game. Doesn't look like it is quite a sim style as the other Forza games but still much better than any other games of this style.

Indeed.

Also, I don't understand why Turn 10 (and Playground now, I guess) always demos Forza games in the behind the car views -- the cockpit view is so much more impressive.

Also it sounds like it will have a decent soundtrack. Love that track playing during the video: Me & You by Nero.

Turn 10 has always done a good job of selecting good electronic music the Forza series, so I'm hopeful that they'll continue to do so making the "music festival" conceit be less annoying than it could be (assuming you appreciate good electronic music, of course ).

zeroKFE wrote:

Turn 10 has always done a good job of selecting good electronic music the Forza series, so I'm hopeful that they'll continue to do so making the "music festival" conceit be less annoying than it could be (assuming you appreciate good electronic music, of course ).

I usually turn the music off in the more sim style racing games so I have no idea if the Forza music is normally good.

I usually turn the music off in the more sim style racing games so I have no idea if the Forza music is normally good.

Yeah, I go back and forth depending on my mood.

While there is a little bit of (to me) annoying anger rock in there, it's mostly decent electronic music (mostly drum and bass) that makes good background music for driving.

zeroKFE wrote:

Also, I don't understand why Turn 10 (and Playground now, I guess) always demos Forza games in the behind the car views -- the cockpit view is so much more impressive.

Most people that buy these games play from behind the car, plus that view shows off the car model in consistent detail. Those of us who mostly play in cockpit view, well... demos at trade shows aren't what's going to sell us on the game.

Rykin wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Turn 10 has always done a good job of selecting good electronic music the Forza series, so I'm hopeful that they'll continue to do so making the "music festival" conceit be less annoying than it could be (assuming you appreciate good electronic music, of course ).

I usually turn the music off in the more sim style racing games so I have no idea if the Forza music is normally good.

I always turn music off in all racing games. I'm not big on DJ Atomika or whoever he is here, though the informational value of the DJ in Burnout Paradise was just enough to leave him on until I'd discovered everything. If this DJ is at least as useful, then hopefully Horizon lets me turn off whichever elements of the audio I want to.

Suffice to say I'm not big on the whole music festival/Dirt 2 neon typography aspect. But let the babies have their bottles, I suppose, if the open road racing, upgrading, and painting is going to be all that.

I wonder how the multiplayer is going to work? Seamless drop-in/drop-out like Burnout Paradise would be ideal.

I guess I never replied to this thread. But I just placed my preorder. I'm really hoping they have detailed, accurate mappings of Colorado. There are some awesome roads around here that I can't push too hard thanks to blind corners and people having problems staying in their lanes. I've seen two motorcycle accidents on one stretch to one of my bike trails.

[Edit]

TheVerge article wrote:

The studio studied over 30 areas across the world to gauge the best terrain for a large-scale racing game, only to end up in Colorado, taking thousands of pictures of foothills, ski towns, mining towns, canyons, and miles of road. This is the state they'd start to build.

"Not the entirety of Colorado," Fulton admits. "What we've done is looked at the full of Colorado and picked out the best of it. We've also picked the best roads. Not all roads are built for driving so where they're not we've taken license. Some of those roads are fantastic so we put them in the game and didn't change them. But some aren't fantastic so with our experience of building tracks we turned them into fantastic roads. So every single one in horizon tells a story and has an experience to it."

LiquidMantis wrote:

I'm really hoping they have detailed, accurate mappings of Colorado.

This a big no. They have said multiple times in the various videos and interviews I have seen that the game world is heavily inspired by Colorado but not accurate to any real world locations.

I'm strangely not that worked up for this game. I think most of my interest for racing right now is in NFS: MW.

And I loved Forza 4.

Can't put my finger on it, maybe it's expectations based on name and developer history.

I was completely on board until I found out that it's not MMO-like in the style of Test Drive Unlimited. I like the idea of an open world, but without other real people to populate it I need more than just driving a car.

skeletonframes wrote:

I was completely on board until I found out that it's not MMO-like in the style of Test Drive Unlimited. I like the idea of an open world, but without other real people to populate it I need more than just driving a car.

For me, it's more of the game design. I'd love an open world Forza, even if it was just me in the game. One of my favorite things to do in Forza is actually hot laps, so the idea of being able to just go hauling through notable real world locations is a huge draw. But with the way they're doing things? Meh.

The most fun I had in Forza 4 was the leaderboard stuff with people from here. I assume that will still be in, but I bet Need For Speed: Most Wanted will be more fun. I don't know it will be, but I like what Criterion's done with open world in the past, and this seems to build on what NFS:HP did so well.

AnimeJ wrote:

For me, it's more of the game design. I'd love an open world Forza, even if it was just me in the game. One of my favorite things to do in Forza is actually hot laps, so the idea of being able to just go hauling through notable real world locations is a huge draw. But with the way they're doing things? Meh.

Yup, the core of FH looks really appealing (Forza cars + open roads), but then they make the hub a Cool Music Festival for Cool People... I finally flushed Dirt 2's Xtreme Parking Lot from my memory. Why can't FH's hub be, oh I don't know, a giant car meet or an autocross? Why does it need corporate-mandated AttitudeTM? (Well, I know why, and am not overly-grieved that I find myself squarely outside that target.)

So I remain intrigued but generally disinterested—especially with Forza 4 still getting regular play, and NFSMW promising its own open world with the Chameleon engine's proven weather effects and dynamic time-of-day. Or maybe I'll fall in love with F1 2012 and not have time for anything else!

So I was starting to think this was entirely fictional Colorado but I was watching InsideSimRacing.TV's E3 footage and saw this shot. That's I-70 coming through Wheat Ridge and headed toward Golden. In the, uh, horizon you see North Table Mountain, the mesa on the right, South Table Mountain (where I live) behind the trees and that bald hill on the left is Green Mountain where I mountain bike. I-70 doesn't look like that at exit 266 though, or even curve that way.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/lQTN4.jpg)

Who knows, maybe I'll be able to drag race through the strip yet.

IMAGE(http://www.hurricaneplumbing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/plumbing-golden1.jpg)

Behind the Scenes EP2. It lists the radio tracks on the three music stations. I have music turned off in F4 but cruising around listening to the Rocks station should be awesome.

Between that video and Eurogamer's preview the other day—

Your character - an otherwise blank cipher who looks like Cole McGrath after a trip to Uniqlo and with his hair grown out - proudly sports a Bluetooth headset, which says much for Microsoft's perception of cool.

—has me wondering how customizable the player character is. Are we all just going to be playing brown-haired white guy? Or can we choose the gender, skin colour, and wrist accoutrements? (That's the least I'd be satisfied with, really.)

Playing some of of FM4's mountain chases this week, I also desperately need to know how FH's traffic AI is. They'll stick to their lanes now (I assume!), so no more blocking the racing line, but will they move over for faster traffic, or if you honk or flash your lights (and can you do either of those things)? Do they change lanes, and if so do they signal first, like in Burnout Paradise? Questions, questions.

I don't think there's any driver customization.

Here are a couple of new gameplay videos that just popped up in my RSS feeds.

LiquidMantis wrote:

I don't think there's any driver customization.

Blast. Bluetooth McHair-gel it is then. It seems his wristbands change to denote event eligibility.

Also the Season Pass will be $50, and cover the first six car packs and first event pack on December 18th, for anyone so inclined to buy everything and save 17%.

Demo next Tuesday.

Youtube notes wrote:

Download and play the Forza Horizon demo on October 9!

The launch trailer for this year's hottest racing game is here! Don't miss the road-taming speed in this action-packed video, showcasing Forza Horizon in all its open road glory.

Players who download the "Forza Horizon" demo and then purchase and play the full game online will receive a specially designed 2013 SRT Viper GTS, celebrating Forza Horizon's "gone-gold" status. This rare liveried car will only be available to those who download the demo and purchase and play the game online. The "Forza Horizon" Xbox LIVE demo requires an Xbox LIVE account. To receive your free Viper you will need Gold member exclusive access.

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