When it comes to arcade racing games, nothing does it better than Forza Horizon, and Forza Horizon 3 is no exception. This time the festival heads down under to Australia, and once again you are put at the helm of the finest race cars.
Developer Playground Games’ latest offering, while familiar, adds enough to keep things from getting stale. The familiar brings a host of new cars, customisations, well designed tracks, and a compelling progression system. From classic American Muscle cars to finely tuned Japanese cars, the garage is is varied, and caters to a wide audience of car enthusiasts. Forza Horizon 3 adds all new vehicles, including off-road vehicles, making the Australian outback even more of a delight to venture out into.
The world has been vastly expanded upon, and is packed with scenic vistas to discover, and more importantly, races to take part in. Making this even more compelling is the new co-op mode which is as seamless as it gets. Jumping into a game with friends is easy, and any progress made in an online game syncs with your offline progress. However, given how much fun the online component is, there’s hardly any reason for you to not play with friends.
Car customisation and personalisation has been greatly improved, and a lot of depth has been added here. Giving your car the look and feel that you desire is hassle-free, and more than worth spending time on.
The huge Australian land mass is dazzling and absolutely fascinating. The visuals have been upped in a major way, and it clearly shows. On more than one occasion I caught myself slowing down to absorb the stunning vistas, enjoying the music thumping away in the background. The audio is stellar as well, with radios to choose from, and even the option to use music of your choice using the Groove music app.
The game has a baked in photo mode, which while nifty, takes an annoying amount of time to load. While it’s better on the PC, it’s still an annoyance nonetheless. The showcase races are still a blast, and make for quite the spectacle. However, they no longer have the same impact as in the first Horizon game.
Forza Horizon 3 is the best racing game you could be playing right now, and stands ahead of the competition by a mile. The freedom to customise and set out on the best of race cars feels nothing short of exhilarating. While I do wish that they had gone a bit more over the top with the arcade elements, the amount of fun I am having with this game diminishes any misgivings I might have with it.
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