Game Review: Forza Horizon

Any avid Xbox and Xbox 360 owner will know of Microsoft's Forza Motorsport series of racing games. When it was first introduced on the original Xbox back in 2005, it was clear that Forza was clearly aimed at competing with Sony's Gran Turismo 4 for the Playstation platform. Both games focus on automotive realism and track driving, rather than arcade style racing games such as Electronic Arts' Need for Speed series. The difference between Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo though is that Forza is generally seen as being easier to get into that Gran Turismo as Forza's tuning options are much simpler than those of Gran Turismo's. In the end though, you have two great racing simulators on two different consoles.

Forza Horizon, released last year in November for the Xbox 360, is a completely different direction for the Forza game series. Looking to muscle in a bit on the arcade style racing game category, Forza Horizon attempts to takes the simulated realism of the main Forza Motorsport series and takes it to the streets. Horizon sees you playing as a young, up and coming racing prodigy, looking to take part in the annual "Horizon Festival," located in the fictional city of Horizon, Colorado. Your ultimate goal is to become the champion of the Horizon Festival and dethrone four time Horizon champ, Darius Flynt.

The fictional city of Horizon, Colorado occupies roughly 63 square miles of virtual real estate. Forza Horizon encourages the player to explore all 63 square miles by placing races all throughout the city, and also leaving hidden "barn finds" for the players to discover. Every road in Horizon, even the dirt ones, can be driven on. 

The Good

As expected, Forza delivers a graphically beautiful game. From certain angles, it can be difficult to determine whether a still shot is in-game footage or a real life photo. Adding to the graphical splendor, Horizon now includes daytime and nighttime, meaning those headlights on your car now actually get some use. For the most part though, Forza Horizon basically borrows all the graphical cues from Forza Motorsport 4, which is not a bad thing since Forza 4 is an incredibly beautiful game. Everything from the in-car camera to the landscape of the fictional city of Horizon, Colorado looks absolutely stunning. Even if you get tired of racing, just picking a car and driving around the beautifully rendered roads of Horizon is an experience in itself.

Forza Horizon's game play is really not that far off from Forza Motorsport 4. The physics of both games feel roughly the same, but with the main difference between the two being that one takes place on closed course tracks, and the other one on city and suburban streets. The one type of course not available in Forza Motorsport are dirt courses, yet Forza Motorsport 4's physics engine handles dirt courses incredibly well in Forza Horizon. Dirt courses cause the car to rumble and slide, just like what you would expect from driving on a real dirt road. Attempt to take a car with racing slicks onto a dirt course, and things can get very amusing, very quickly. Thankfully, Forza Horizon does include the option to buy specialized rally car equipment, but at a cost. More on that later.

Many of the races in Forza Horizon are very entertaining. Horizon does include the standard closed course lap races and point to point racing available in every version of Forza Motorsport to date, but also tries to include many more race types. One of the more amusing race types involves racing against an aircraft, a lá Top Gear. Your first opportunity to race against an aircraft involves racing a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 against a P-51 Mustang.

The Bad

What some may deem as a good thing, others may deem as not so good. While removing the tuning menu from Forza Horizon lets Forza newbies get into the game much quicker, it does remove the primary element of adjusting your car for specific conditions. Rather than tweaking your car to a specific track or race type, you just have to hope that the pre-adjusted settings are to your liking. Also, the physics of the game, while still very good, do feel slightly dumbed down from the Forza Motorsport series. Turn 10, the studio behind the Forza series, wanted this game to be more arcade like in its focus, but that focus comes at the expense of the realism that made Forza Motorsport a true challenge.

Gone from Forza Horizon is the giant list of cars made available in the main Forza Motorsport series. Granted, Forza Motorsport never had the same gigantic list of cars Sony's Gran Turismo series had, but more than half the cars available in Forza Motorsport 4 are missing from Forza Horizon. Granted, Horizon does have some new cars not available in Forza Motorsport 4, but the choice of available cars feels very constrictive. I also miss being able to pick your first vehicle rather than being stuck with a Volkswagen Corrado VR6 by default. Sure, there is nothing really wrong with the car, but it is probably not the car I would pick as my starting vehicle.

Turn 10 seemed to try a bit too hard making Forza Horizon hip. A lot of the one liners spoken by your various rivals throughout the game are incredibly cheesy. The races against aircraft, while cool, are a blatant rip-off of BBC's Top Gear. If the developers were going to include Top Gear like challenges, the least they could have done was let Jeremy Clarkson narrate part of the game like they did with Forza Motorsport 4.

Of course, just like any other game today, Forza Horizon is available with a plethora of downloadable content...at a price. I can understand charging a small fee for monthly car packs to keep the game fresh, but charging roughly one-fourth the price of the full game to include a "Rally Mode," a mode which the game should have had to begin with, seems a little absurd. There are plenty of dirt roads around the city of Horizon, and quite a few races already take place on these dirt roads, so having a "Rally Mode" right out of the box seems like common sense. Of course, if you are willing to pay for the downloadable "Rally Mode," then more power to you. Personally, I feel that if I have already spent $60 on the game, why in the world should I pay more for something that should have been included in the first place?

Versus the Real Thing

As mentioned before, Forza Motorsport was designed to be a fairly realistic driving simulator. The physics of the main Forza Motorsport series was always done relatively well, with the exception of cars with torque vectoring all-wheel drive systems. Unfortunately for Forza Horizon, that sense of realism just is not quite there. You would think that Turn 10 would try and improve the realism of the game since it would give players an opportunity to experience their favorite cars on open streets, but Turn 10 instead opted for a slightly more arcade like approach.

For example, I picked up an S2000 and modified it to include everything that was available on my own S2000. When I first took it out on the open road in Forza Horizon, the car felt twitchy and unsettled, even at freeway speeds. Having driven my own S2000 on a day to day basis for nearly three years, I can confidently say that the S2000 should not behave like it is going to oversteer all the time. Of course, my experience with Forza Horizon is with the Xbox 360's standard controller. Playing the game with a full racing wheel setup (wheel, gated shifter, three pedals) may yield a completely different result.    

From a graphical standpoint, Turn 10 got Forza Horizon to look as realistic as possible. Every car model looks exactly like the real thing, from the exterior of the car, all the way down to the details in the in cabin view. As mentioned earlier, it can be somewhat difficult to discern an in-game still shot from a photograph. Horizon's landscapes are also stunning to behold. The incredibly rendered environments along with the new day/night feature add to the stunning visual realism.

Summary

Overall, Forza Horizon is a good game. It is fun, entertaining, and very pleasing to the eyes. Since a lot of the very technical details do not exist in Horizon, it is much easier for newcomers to the Forza series to get into that game, and hopefully branch out into the main Forza Motorsport series. However, if you are expecting a technical racing game in the model of Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo, you may want to look elsewhere. This is definitely a game that I would recommend renting before making the decision to buy. If you do decide to buy it before trying it, give the game some time for the price to drop. Getting the game cheaper may help with the sting of having to pay for all the extra content.

Test Riding the MV Augusta F4 and Ducati Streetfighter

A special thanks to <a href="http://www.ducpond.com/" target="_new">Duc Pond Motorsports</a> of Winchester, VA for setting up the awesome demo day. It is rare to get a factory demo ride and even rarer for an event to be run this well. Although our time was short, I was able to sneak in test rides of two really different, but amazing bikes. The demo route was about 20 miles long, but a good mix of back country roads and high speed bursts on highways giving a good impression of the capabilities and comfort of the bikes.

My impressions will be split over two posts. With the Ducati below, and the MV Augusta impressions arriving later in the week.

<b><i>Ducati Streetfighter First Impressions</i></b>

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1641106710"><img border="0" height="125" src="http://www.ducatiblog.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ducati-streetfighter-wallpaper_1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ducatiblog.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ducati-streetfighter-wallpaper_1.jpg">Photo Courtesy of Ducati Blog</a></td></tr>
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First up, the Ducati Streetfighter, which I actually rode second that day. The riding position is upright enough to be comfortable for a long ride, and the power, from the 1099cc Ducati L-twin motor, was excellent, with impressive torque in the low rpm range below 5000 rpm and strong pull to the power peak at 9500 rpm. Swaddled in Ducati's traditional red, the bike is stunning to look at in all of its mechanical glory.

But besides the bad-ass transformer look, the greatest thing about this bike was the sound. The desmosedici valve-train rattling away, punctuating the deep, guttural note generated by the factory option Termignoni dual exhaust, creates just the right balance of tones and truly backs up the bike's menacing appearance with a sound to match. Rev up the motor and the exhaust bellows a note that stirs even the most downtrodden of souls. As the RPMs rise, so does the pitch of the exhaust, terminating in a wail that stabs at the air as though screaming at it to make way. Few bikes sound this good straight from the factory.

Seat height is surprisingly manageable, even given my 31-inseam. With my boots on, I could comfortably flat foot the bike and the pegs were closer to a standard position under the rider as opposed to set back as on the Ducati sport bikes. Bars were high enough to make the reach easy with only a some lean, although the rake of the front fork coupled with the position of the bar gave the odd sensation of feeling like you were riding out in front of the bike, but with no fairing to provide wind protection. It was one of the weirdest sensations I had felt before and took a little getting used to, but once the sensation passed, the bike was fun and comfortable.

As I mentioned before, power is good and tractable, even without all of the fancy electronics. Handling is light and tossable, in part due to the fully wet weight of just over 400 lbs with a half tank of fuel. Mix that 155 bhp and 85 lb-ft of torque with the light weight, tossable chassis, and you have a truly fun bike to ride on the back roads but still have super power for running all day on the freeways. However, I could not really see anyone using this bike for extremely long rides given the lack of wind protection.

Overall, I enjoyed this bike a great deal, but I this is not a bike that I would opt to purchase for my own riding, which is made up of mostly longer touring rides and this bike lacks the wind protection for that sort of riding. But if you are looking for a powerful, capable, and nimble street bike for backroads strafing and can afford the cost, this is a fantastic bike. As a second bike, I would love to own one.

Test Drive: 2011 Ford Mustang V6

Two words: major disappointment.

Yes, it has more than 300 bhp.
Yes, it returns phenomenal gas mileage.
Yes, it looks great inside and out.
Yes, it costs less than $25k to start.

BUT (and this is a big but), if you are a real driver, then you, like me, will be disappointed. Why you ask? There are so many things that this car gets right and the reviews that have come back make this car seem like the best thing since sliced bread.

Now do not get me wrong, for most people, this car will work out just fine. They will enjoy the power, gas mileage, interior, and affordable cost. The motor is great - adequately torquey and strong with a smooth build-up of power. It returns an amazing 31 mpg if you get the automatic and a still surprisingly good 29mpg if you opt to shift it yourself. And this is where the first gap in this car's armor appears.

That 6-speed manual transmission is garbage. Utter and complete garbage. The shift throws are notchy, imprecise, and short all at the same time. Every effort to shift quickly resulted in the sensation of rowing a stick through a container of rusty bolts, binding with nearly every tiny bit of movement. Any attempt to shift quickly and the stick fought back every step of the way. Like I said, utter garbage. Combine that with a clutch that had no real feel and you get one of the worse transmissions I have ever experienced. Pretty sure that I have only ever driven one that was worse and that company nearly went under in the last few years.

But if you skip the manual transmission, you should be okay, right?

Well, sure, if you only drive in straight lines. But go to take a turn, and you discover that the optional Performance Package with the heavier GT's springs, have ruined the steering feel of this car. Rip a couple of turns and you will curse yourself (or Ford's suspension engineers) for even bothering with this car as there is absolutely no steering feel. It is as numb as a meth-addict after their latest hit. What should have been a great platform is completely ruined by a poor suspension choice.

So as long as you get the automatic and skip the V6 Performance Package, you should fine, right? Well sure, but then there are a number of other equally good options that you should consider, many without the retro infused interior and exterior design. There are cars that are more performance oriented and some that are more comfort oriented, but at the end of the day, there are just flat out better cars out there.

Test Riding the MV Augusta F4 and Ducati Streetfighter

A special thanks to Duc Pond Motorsports of Winchester, VA for setting up the awesome demo day. It is rare to get a factory demo ride and even rarer for an event to be run this well. Although our time was short, I was able to sneak in test rides of two really different, but amazing bikes. The demo route was about 20 miles long, but a good mix of back country roads and high speed bursts on highways giving a good impression of the capabilities and comfort of the bikes.

My impressions will be split over two posts. With the Ducati below, and the MV Augusta impressions arriving later in the week.

MV Augusta F4 First Impressions


Let me just start off by saying that even though I do not ride super sport bikes on a regular basis, and despite the contortionist friendly riding position, I loved every minute of my test ride on this bike. Everything about this bike was so well sorted and usable, it is easy to see why people who give the lesser known of the Italian motorcycle makers a chance often become believers for life.

The motor feels immensely capable, with good thrust down low, but really breathes well in the upper RPM ranges and issues a beautiful noise through the organ pipe exhaust system protruding from under the tail. The swell of power is at once usable and tractable and the traction control system is ever present, but not the slightest bit obtrusive, allowing you to get aggressive with the throttle, but keeping you from lifting the nose unnecessarily.


On the road, the bike feels light and handles well, quickly and easily transitioning with every input, feeling almost telepathic in it responsiveness. The wide flat tank allows plenty of space to tuck in out of the wind during the straights and the well positioned clip-ons offer excellent control. At a stop, the bike does feel a bit tall and a little top heavy, but once in motion again, it is well balanced and extremely nimble. Ready to spend the day with you strafing the corners of your favorite canyon road.


This bike is deceptively easy to ride and it is easy for even a relatively novice rider to find themselves suddenly quite comfortable with this 186 bhp superbike and while getting up to speed is fun and impressive, so is engaging the binders and bringing the bike back down to realistic speeds. With a solid feel and easily modulated lever, I was able to quickly and confidently late break down from 70+ mph to exit the freeway.


My only complaint about this bike, as I would complain about virtually any superbike, is the rider positioning, especially in the legs. I am not a particularly tall individual and with a 31 inseam, I am able to get comfortable on most bikes, but it took a while to find a position that did not cause some pain in my knees and hips. However, once situated properly on the bike (and once my joints became accustomed to the riding position), everything began to work well and I was able to ignore the riding position and get back to enjoying the ride.


So if the opportunity ever presents itself for you to ride the MV Augusta F4 (we will be looking to acquire one for the clubs stable in the future), you should absolutely take advantage of it as this bike will make you wonder why these guys are not just as popular as Ducati.