Forza Horizon Catch-All

Blind_Evil wrote:

I see where you're coming from, but I don't think this is any worse a case than we see everywhere else daily.

No, it's not worse than we see daily, though I believe that's an even greater problem. I just feel that with minimal effort this game in particular could have been made less worse, making it more welcoming to the other half of the human species.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Gravey wrote:

no one who's mentally sound should be looking for an ego boost from a video game character.

There's a successful business dedicated to making statues for display from people's game characters. I don't think every customer is insane, and I certainly don't think less of them for buying.

That's totally separate from being cooed at by a fictional character telling the player how great he is.

I don't think the gameplay shown is lacking in attractive men, really. And they don't need to be shirtless to count. Social realities are usually a direct result of human nature, I don't think in this case they can be separated so easily. Sure, the developers could have taken another path, but where you could argue that it's a slightly sexist approach, they could argue that they just didn't want to make another sterile racing game (Forza and Gran Turismo have never had much if any character, IMO). I see where you're coming from, but I don't think this is any worse a case than we see everywhere else daily.

Gravey wrote:

no one who's mentally sound should be looking for an ego boost from a video game character.

There's a successful business dedicated to making statues for display from people's game characters. I don't think every customer is insane, and I certainly don't think less of them for buying.

Edit: just a small typo

If you want to call it "sad," that's much easier to swallow, if a bit judgmental. Questioning this hypothetical person's mental stability seems like a step too far.

Dec. 18 Rally Expansion and Season Pass first details

The “Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack” is coming on December 18 to Xbox LIVE and will be available for 1,600 MS Points (or included as part of the Forza Horizon Season Pass).

Delivering an immersive and authentic rally racing experience on the roughest untamed roads of Colorado, the “Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack” will offer Horizon players an outstanding off-road racing experience with deeper ruts, higher jumps, and new surface types to explore. Players will experience authentic rally action behind the wheel of rally-tuned cars, complete with co-driver calls, and much more.

Look for further details on the “Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack” in the coming weeks, leading up to the release of the pack on December 18.

Will it be any substitute for a Dirt 4? No. Am I going to buy it anyway? OF COURSE. I was already excited about the rumour of rally lights upgrades (how about roof vents too, like in Auto Modellista?)—but now deep ruts (probably not dynamic, but you can't win'em all) and co-driver calls? Oh yes.

And what does 4000 MSP buy you? (Edited for space.)

Forza Horizon Season Pass Details:

Month One Car Pack
The Month One Car Pack for Forza Horizon will be available starting on October 23 and will include six cars for use in Forza Horizon:

2012 Ferrari 599XX Evoluzione
2012 Gumpert Apollo Enraged
2012 Alfa Romeo 8C Spider
2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302
2012 Lamborghini Aventador J
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

The Month One Car Pack is included free for Forza Horizon Season Pass owners, or available individually for 400 MS Points.

Six Monthly DLC Car Packs
Beginning in November, Forza Horizon fans will enjoy a steady stream of monthly DLC cars and the Forza Horizon Season Pass will give you instant access to all these cars as they are released. Each monthly DLC pack will include six incredible cars bound for Horizon Festival greatness – from cutting edge supercars to eminently drivable classics and all points in between. Individual DLC car packs will cost 400 MS Points but Season Pass owners will have access to the first six monthly DLC packs, from November 2012 through April 2013, at no additional cost.

Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack

Five Exclusive Season Pack Bonus Cars
In addition to the Month 1 Car Pack, the six Monthly DLC Packs and the Rally Expansion Pack, Forza Horizon Season Pass owners will also receive five exclusive Season Pass bonus cars, with one car delivered monthly for the next five months. Season Pass Bonus Cars will be available for download on the third Tuesday of each month from November 2012 through March 2013. The Season Pass Bonus Car for November is the 2006 Lamborghini Miura Concept. Look for more details on future Season Pass Bonus Cars in the coming weeks.

I can pass on that.

Skimming as I'm on a conference call, but it sounds like the expansion is adding roads which was greatly desired. Awesome!

Gravey wrote:

Dec. 18 Rally Expansion and Season Pass first details

The “Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack” is coming on December 18 to Xbox LIVE and will be available for 1,600 MS Points (or included as part of the Forza Horizon Season Pass).

Delivering an immersive and authentic rally racing experience on the roughest untamed roads of Colorado, the “Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack” will offer Horizon players an outstanding off-road racing experience with deeper ruts, higher jumps, and new surface types to explore. Players will experience authentic rally action behind the wheel of rally-tuned cars, complete with co-driver calls, and much more.

Look for further details on the “Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack” in the coming weeks, leading up to the release of the pack on December 18.

This could change my decision!... I mean:
!! R2 -> Bestbuy

They had me at "Gumpert" (not like I wasn't already planning on buying the season pass).

I'm all over the Rally pack if it's received well.

I absolutely love the DiRT/RalliSport Challenge franchises and if Forza can enter the fray successfully, bringing their sim physics and handling along for the ride, then this could be epic.

I'm curious to see how well Playground/Turn 10 handle the grittiness of the rally sport. Codies have perfected the down and dirty feel, esp. with mud and dirt buildup on the cars, the car/camera jostling effects, the pitch-perfect sounds of dirt and rocks grinding under the wheels & undercarriage.

Those are some big shoes to fill. Can Forza Horizion rise to the occasion?

EDIT:

As per usual, NeoGaf is in full meltdown mode over this. Announcing DLC before the base game launch is a Cardinal Sin I suppose, though I don't remember hearing about it in Sunday School (never mind that it’s releasing about 2 months later). Kinda funny 'cause last week they were Female Doggoing about the price of the season pass contrasted with so little details revealed. Oh well. It’s good for a laugh at least.

Aaron D. wrote:

NeoGaf

f*ck NeoGaf.

Sorry. That's all I've got.

Also.. I'm hoping this game is what I need to get me back into Forza and racing games in general. I still can't believe how quickly my interest in FM4 waned and I just stopped playing.

I saw in one review that they're keeping car clubs in Horizon. Are we moving the GWJ Motor Pool to Virtual Colorado or coming up with something new?

Aaron D. wrote:

I'm all over the Rally pack if it's received well.

I absolutely love the DiRT/RalliSport Challenge franchises and if Forza can enter the fray successfully, bringing their sim physics and handling along for the ride, then this could be epic.

I'm curious to see how well Playground/Turn 10 handle the grittiness of the rally sport. Codies have perfected the down and dirty feel, esp. with mud and dirt buildup on the cars, the car/camera jostling effects, the pitch-perfect sounds of dirt and rocks grinding under the wheels & undercarriage.

Those are some big shoes to fill. Can Forza Horizion rise to the occasion?

I'm guessing not to that degree, since Dirt is built for that and Forizon isn't. Rutted roads, big jumps, co-driver and rally-tuned cars is one thing; I won't count on anything else that would involve more systemic changes in an expansion that would affect the core of the base game. I don't expect the expansion to be about the sport of rallying, but instead just more rally-appropriate roads and cars than you'd get driving an STI off-road without the expansion.

Happy to be surprised, of course!

[Edit: But if the expansion doesn't include Pikes Peak, I'm going into full-on GAF mode.]

Aaron D. wrote:

As per usual, NeoGaf is in full meltdown mode over this. Announcing DLC before the base game launch is a Cardinal Sin I suppose, though I don't remember hearing about it in Sunday School (never mind that it’s releasing about 2 months later).

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to read the threads on the Forza site, and yeah, sad NRI. A few sane voices trying vainly to explain how things like "time" and "video game development" work, God bless 'em.

The best was someone miscalculated the cost of everything in the Season Pass and came to 4000 MSP, someone corrected him (4800 MSP), and subsequent posters completely ignored that and continued to have a fit over the wrong sum.

Why is everyone (else) on the Internet an idiot?

The willful ignorance that many gamers maintain regarding how the development process works strikes me as sad and annoying, but I certainly don't find it surprising anymore.

People will find a way to complain about anything.

Hey, that's what makes 'Gaf so darned entertaining.

I don't personally get caught up in the hysteria, I just love it for the popcorn material.

zeroKFE wrote:

The willful ignorance that many gamers maintain regarding how the development process works strikes me as sad and annoying, but I certainly don't find it surprising anymore.

People will find a way to complain about anything.

Don't care about the DLC, but I do care about this:

From Michael Barnes' review at No High Scores:

You’ve got to drive to each event. And if the event you want to participate is all the way across the map, you might have to drive ten minutes to get back over to it. Or you can fast travel by spending 10,000 of your hard-earned credits. Don’t want to waste your time or your in-game money? The game will gladly sell you scrip at one dollar (real money) a credit to fast travel. Granted, you can complete PR challenges at each fast travel outpost to reduce the cost, but the fact that the game even offers to take your money to perform a routine time-saving function is simply disgusting. Cars can also be purchased with scrip if the grind is too long- and the game is designed and paced so that it is long and it creates demand for an accelerated development curve. You can even buy time periods of double points if the trickle is too slow for you. These are freemium marketing and monetization strategies applied to a $60 retail game. It’s a game that willfully wastes your time to make you want. This kind of “service model” should not be OK with you.

This is the same kind of stuff that ruined Be a Pro in the NHL series. It's not that they sell shortcuts as much as they tune the game to make it less fun unless you do buy them.

SaintFaucet wrote:

I saw in one review that they're keeping car clubs in Horizon. Are we moving the GWJ Motor Pool to Virtual Colorado or coming up with something new?

It would be nice if we could just transplant the whole F4 club to FH!

Jayhawker wrote:

This is the same kind of stuff that ruined Be a Pro in the NHL series. It's not that they sell shortcuts as much as they tune the game to make it less fun unless you do buy them.

I agree in principle, but I don't have an issue with it in Forizon, simply because one of the things they're nudging me to buy my way out of doing is the very thing I've bought the game for: driving on open roads. I don't see more driving in a driving game to be problematic, not in 2008 with Burnout Paradise's fast-travel-free restart-free world, nor here. With speed traps, speed zones, random AI challenges, sign smashes, unexplored roads, and generally accruing kudos, I'm looking forward to doing as much driving as possible. I'll see how slow or fast I find the progression (but I spend at least the year on my annual racing game purchase).

If PG/T10/MS want to experiment with this aggressive of a wring-more-money strategy (sorry, spell check didn't like "monetization"), then that's their prerogative. The success of that is up to us, not them, at least.

Thin_J wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

NeoGaf

f*ck NeoGaf.

Sorry. That's all I've got.

Also.. I'm hoping this game is what I need to get me back into Forza and racing games in general. I still can't believe how quickly my interest in FM4 waned and I just stopped playing.

This happened with me too(FM4 thing, not so much neogaf). What's kept me playing FM4 is hot laps vice the career stuff. I've found that being able to just pick a track and go round and round without traffic is a blast now and again for short spurts here and there. Doubly so since my two year old loves sitting next to me and exclaiming "Cars!!!" as I drive.

Jayhawker wrote:

Don't care about the DLC, but I do care about this:

From Michael Barnes' review at No High Scores:

You’ve got to drive to each event. And if the event you want to participate is all the way across the map, you might have to drive ten minutes to get back over to it. Or you can fast travel by spending 10,000 of your hard-earned credits. Don’t want to waste your time or your in-game money? The game will gladly sell you scrip at one dollar (real money) a credit to fast travel. Granted, you can complete PR challenges at each fast travel outpost to reduce the cost, but the fact that the game even offers to take your money to perform a routine time-saving function is simply disgusting. Cars can also be purchased with scrip if the grind is too long- and the game is designed and paced so that it is long and it creates demand for an accelerated development curve. You can even buy time periods of double points if the trickle is too slow for you. These are freemium marketing and monetization strategies applied to a $60 retail game. It’s a game that willfully wastes your time to make you want. This kind of “service model” should not be OK with you.

This is the same kind of stuff that ruined Be a Pro in the NHL series. It's not that they sell shortcuts as much as they tune the game to make it less fun unless you do buy them.

Hmmm...conflicting reports on this issue.

From the NeoGaf OT

v0mitg0d wrote:

https://twitter.com/heymarkd/status/...

So the review kit arrived from Microsoft yesterday and here's a pic for the curious.

I played the game for only 2 hours but so far my impressions are good--really good. Here are some notes:

-The feel of the drive is perfectly balanced like all Forza games but with a touch of arcade.
-The sounds and rumbles are great, but the music (of course completely subjective) is rather bland with only a few greats.
-It's not really open world per se but more open road with some open world elements.
-The challenges are varied in objective, so far are varied in skill requirement and ultimately fun!
-The fast travel stations unlock as you discover them. Once you do this you can drive up to them and run through 3 challenges that reduce the cost of (fast) traveling to them. Once all 3 are completed the fee is completely removed.
-The graphics are great. I love the warm, breezy tones of the color palette.
-The interface is fast and clean.
-Load times are a tad long when restarting events, but nothing too serious. (indeed I have it installed to HDD)

Does anyone have any questions or things they want me to check?

Sounds like a non-issue, barring how you feel about the hoops to completely unlock the fast-travel station.

I'm absolutely behind that implementation. It's the same as affinity discounts or the new hoonigan billboard discount system.

-The fast travel stations unlock as you discover them. Once you do this you can drive up to them and run through 3 challenges that reduce the cost of (fast) traveling to them. Once all 3 are completed the fee is completely removed.

If that's the case, it makes me suspect of Michael Barnes' review. I know its not feasible to complete a huge racing game prior to putting out a review but how much time would you really need spend on the game to find that out?

Played through the demo with my CSR-Elite this morning. Two things make this a must have:

1. I completely underestimated the value a decent physics engine adds to driving an open road. It makes me want to just drive and try all the cars.

2. The rivals mode implementation is fantastic. Making every corner matter is what a game environment like this needs. Any other open world racing game: physics are sh@t and I just don't care. Test Drive Unlimited was horrendous, for example. The only other game that involved point-to-point/"cross-country" driving like this, where I paid attention to the every part of the course, was the original Need for Speed on 3DO; I loved that game.

Like I said, I had totally dismissed this game as a weak attempt to monetize the Forza brand. I was wrong. Tuesday can't come soon enough.

EvilDead wrote:
-The fast travel stations unlock as you discover them. Once you do this you can drive up to them and run through 3 challenges that reduce the cost of (fast) traveling to them. Once all 3 are completed the fee is completely removed.

If that's the case, it makes me suspect of Michael Barnes' review. I know its not feasible to complete a huge racing game prior to putting out a review but how much time would you really need spend on the game to find that out?

It compelled me to post my first snarky—but hilarious and incisive—reply to a game review, regarding his follow-up comment complaining about DLC.

Gravey wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
-The fast travel stations unlock as you discover them. Once you do this you can drive up to them and run through 3 challenges that reduce the cost of (fast) traveling to them. Once all 3 are completed the fee is completely removed.

If that's the case, it makes me suspect of Michael Barnes' review. I know its not feasible to complete a huge racing game prior to putting out a review but how much time would you really need spend on the game to find that out?

It compelled me to post my first snarky—but hilarious and incisive—reply to a game review, regarding his follow-up comment complaining about DLC.

Hah! I just read it and am interested to see his response.

I'm very very tempted to pull the trigger on Horizon especially with the Microsoft Store 1600 Xbox spacebucks + $10 credit. I just have so many games right now that I already have barely enough time for. We will see how my will power holds this weekend.

EvilDead wrote:
Gravey wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
-The fast travel stations unlock as you discover them. Once you do this you can drive up to them and run through 3 challenges that reduce the cost of (fast) traveling to them. Once all 3 are completed the fee is completely removed.

If that's the case, it makes me suspect of Michael Barnes' review. I know its not feasible to complete a huge racing game prior to putting out a review but how much time would you really need spend on the game to find that out?

It compelled me to post my first snarky—but hilarious and incisive—reply to a game review, regarding his follow-up comment complaining about DLC.

Hah! I just read it and am interested to see his response.

He went with the teh rally expansion should be on teh disc argument, with some caps thrown in ("That’s a big difference than cutting out all of the rally content and charging an additional $20 for it, when it damn well could have been in the $60 retail package. And just three years ago, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN.")

I don't read No High Scores as often as I should, but I've never really agreed with anything I've read by Barnes. Since he appears to reason like a forumite, that's now not surprising.

Edit: I double-down'ed with a reply. I'll regret it. Never ever post outside GWJ.

I'm glad you've found the 10 minute drive across the map to be perfectly reasonable in the many hours of time you put into it. It's not often that a reviewer gets schooled by a reader that has such a better grasp of feel of the game by putting in so much more time putting the game through its paces.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'm glad you've found the 10 minute drive across the map to be perfectly reasonable in the many hours of time you put into it. It's not often that a reviewer gets schooled by a reader that has such a better grasp of feel of the game by putting in so much more time putting the game through its paces.

But it appears like the author of the article is wrong on that point. Apparently you can unlock those fast travel stations by doing a few challenge races. No money required.

Gravey wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
Gravey wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
-The fast travel stations unlock as you discover them. Once you do this you can drive up to them and run through 3 challenges that reduce the cost of (fast) traveling to them. Once all 3 are completed the fee is completely removed.

If that's the case, it makes me suspect of Michael Barnes' review. I know its not feasible to complete a huge racing game prior to putting out a review but how much time would you really need spend on the game to find that out?

It compelled me to post my first snarky—but hilarious and incisive—reply to a game review, regarding his follow-up comment complaining about DLC.

Hah! I just read it and am interested to see his response.

He went with the teh rally expansion should be on teh disc argument, with some caps thrown in ("That’s a big difference than cutting out all of the rally content and charging an additional $20 for it, when it damn well could have been in the $60 retail package. And just three years ago, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN.")

I don't read No High Scores as often as I should, but I've never really agreed with anything I've read by Barnes. Since he appears to reason like a forumite, that's now not surprising.

Edit: I double-down'ed with a reply. I'll regret it. Never ever post outside GWJ.

Not to be a Barnes apologist, but I think it is naive to believe that the Rally expansion is not ready and that its announcement is not meant to encourage people like me to snag a Season Pass. Unlike, Barnes, I find it perfectly reasonable to do business like that...it isn't like the person buying the $60 game isn't getting a ton of content already. And the DLC argument always seems ridiculous to me; it wouldn't exist if people weren't throwing money at it! I am perfectly happy with buying DLC as long as I keep getting the original "base" game worth the money I pay, and I have yet to find a game with DLC that did not give me money's worth with the original purchase. Otherwise, I wouldn't buy it!

Maybe, but we can only speculate if the rally expansion was complete before Forizon went gold, and then sat on for three months (assuming certification takes a month). Otherwise I'm happy to believe that work began on it as soon as Forizon entered certification, and maybe it's done now, maybe it's being QA'ed... I don't want to go down that rabbit hole of second-guessing, so suffice to say as you did, the game on the disc is still to me worth $60 regardless of pending content. The rally reveal definitely didn't entice me to consider a Season Pass though.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'm glad you've found the 10 minute drive across the map to be perfectly reasonable in the many hours of time you put into it. It's not often that a reviewer gets schooled by a reader that has such a better grasp of feel of the game by putting in so much more time putting the game through its paces.

Thanks! I haven't actually played the game yet so I can only argue principles. So I wouldn't go so far as to say I schooled him, but I appreciate the compliment.

Heading down to EB now for the preorder placement. Looks like I'll score the same vehicles as you too Gravey.

I scored a "$20 additional trade in credit" when I subscribed to a $30 game magazine, so in my mind, the magazine only cost $10, and Forizon is now only going to cost me $78, well worth the impulse!

Spoiler:

And no, I don't care where that extra $20 went, it's consumer blindness ;)

EvilDead wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I'm glad you've found the 10 minute drive across the map to be perfectly reasonable in the many hours of time you put into it. It's not often that a reviewer gets schooled by a reader that has such a better grasp of feel of the game by putting in so much more time putting the game through its paces.

But it appears like the author of the article is wrong on that point. Apparently you can unlock those fast travel stations by doing a few challenge races. No money required.

This is the real point. He's just... wrong. And he didn't pay enough attention to the game to know that he's wrong.

Which says something on its own.