Be Excellent To Each Other

I understand. I thought I'd just about seen it all until I played the demo of Test Drive Unlimited, which blew me away. The sheer size and detail of the world was unbelievable, as was being able to encounter other players while driving around. Alas, the SUVs weren't added until the sequel, but much of our time in the demo was spent either trying to hit top speed on a straightaway, trying to see if we could coax our Diablo up a hill or then slide back down the other side without hitting any rocks.

It was a bit like being a kid again, playing like that. Many kids (myself included when I was younger) play the objectives to death but then use the stuff the game provides for their own imagination play.

I never got into TDU but thinking back I seem to remember finding the handling of the cars not to be very engaging, so yeah Forza Horizon. Sold.

Well this is going to get a season pass. Guess how much... go on.

A massive 17% saving over buying them all separately!
I think i'll pass.

What is this "season pass" stuff I keep reading about?

Like a complete DLC preorder.

Best to avoid. I'd rather pick and choose the decent stuff rather than tie myself into whatever rammelly old shit they pump out.

I agree with Jonarob.

Demo now live.

I'll be checking it out.

For sure.

The joys of working from home today: DEMO GET! Not playing it though.

This is fun! Thunks:

Are there challenges? There should be challenges.

No idea how the multiplayer integrates. Ooh, apart from when you complete races, the time gets uploaded and shared with your friends as a "rival". When you drive around there's cars with names above them, who are obviously participants to the mass jumping around at the beginning. Hence I tried to force them off cliffs at every opportunity. No idea if you turn up as a driving aboot person for your friends like in Test Drive, though. I have suspectings that the multiplayer would involve a lobby and races around courses.

Oh, you get an unlock for an car in the full version by playing this, too.

So, this then.

It's basically turned into Generic Racer #24, complete with "street" branding, in car voice telling you how amazing your race was, pointless open world driving bits to get between generic race on uninspiring track #67 followed by generic challenge on uninspiring track #89 etc...
However, the handling when you are racing still feels mostly like proper Forza, so it is a step above the others due to that.

It's certainly not a day 1 purchase for me.

It's like they've taken Forza and given it a cheese filling and then dipped it in hot, molten cheese. Surely there were enough open world type games already without Forza having to have a go?

I felt that the demo was a bit over-stylised, and I'm way not cool enough for a festival bro. Doesn't seem to have the fun element of burny pee, it's taking itself too seriously.

I'll probably grab a copy, but not until it is super cheap.

Yeah, insta-yawn. I wasn't even blown away by the scenery at all. It felt like a never ending Maple Valley.

Shame to see comments like this.

I enjoyed the demo, don't get me wrong. But all of the cut scenes and mission briefings were quite cringe inducing. It's the whole festival setting that I didn't like . . quite frankly it just got on my tits.

I did like smashing an Evo around some sweeping roads. Looking at the map there seems to be plenty of other bits of map to open up and explore. But unlike Burny Pee, I wasn't looking at every bit of scenery wondering whether I could barrel roll off it or smash through it.

I'm not sure how soon I would get irritated and bored of it though. I think that it would have to have pretty great multi-player to bring it up my list of games to buy.

Yeah, it's not bad as such. It's just mildly ironic that all the extra fluff they have put in to spice it up has made it feel incredibly bland.

BEST.

GAME.

EVER.

I also found the presentation offputting, although the actual driving was nice. But then night came, and I was driving around in the dark in my Lancer, not in a race but just cruising, and suddenly, despite the different scenery, I was reminded strongly of Tokyo Extreme Racer. And I loved me some TXR.

The major offputting thing to me (apart from the jumpy techno shits), was the apparent size of the world. In Test Drive Unlimited, it'd take an hour in a fast car to get around the island. The map in this looks tiny in comparison.

Quantity != quality, however. I don't want a big map for the sake of it. I'd rather the map was sized appropriately for the game, IYSWIM. Can't judge that until the game itself is out really.

True, have to wait till people I trust have played it properly. What I could see of the map just seemed to be one big, long samey course though. Where are the different environments, in town races, cities, docks, etc... It was all flat out all the way in brown country for the little I played of it.

TDU's Ohauhahhahoohooo is realised in painstakingly beautiful detail.

Stop judging this game based on the demo. That's being really unfair, you know.

That's in relation to just one point that you made, regarding the map.



Modern gamers don't have time for big game worlds! They want to finish the game the day they get it and then complain that it was too short and then trade it in!

If it depreciates in value as quick as the other Forzas, this'll be a tenner within two months.

I was judging the demo, not the game. Demos don't affect my game buying decision much at all. Reviews do.

I'll wait and see, but like everyone else it seems I was really put off by the presentation of it. The Gumball Rally/spoilt brats in fast cars thing is meant to be aspirational I guess but it's not floating my boat at all. I know that it's a racing game but if that bullshit is in my face all the time it will certainly grate.

Kind of funny to read how many people hate the festival bollocks. Because it seems everyone I know is against it (including me) yet they keep on putting that shite in. (See TDU2, although the developers were blatantly taking the piss in some parts with that.)

I suspect it is going to be less TDU/2 and more Burny Pee/NFS:HP Sauce. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I still think that the TDU concept is still to be perfected.



Er... no. Lots of it, and the bits are in the right places, but no.

*squabbles with *

Consider also the recent DiRT games which have been full on brofist hooting sessions, dude. The days of Sega racing games with bright, happy presentation and catchy original music are long gone.



Not so much a highly detailed representation as a believable one. It doesn't stand up to close scrutiny of each building but there's enough stuff there for it to feel like a real place. Likewise Midnight Club's LA, which really captured the feeling of being in LA and had enough stuff to feel believable.

9/10 at IGN.

Hmmmm...

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/10/12/f ... zon-review

9/10 at eurogame too

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... zon-review

"Forza Horizon is one of those games that tries too hard to look hip. Its characters and setting - a festival of music and motor racing - share the same sanitised vision of youth culture you see in ads for mobile networks. Its colour scheme is black with hot pink and every menu rests at a 15 degree angle. Achievements have titles like 'OMG' and '#WINNING'.
Perhaps it's trying to correct the famous lack of charisma of its parent series Forza Motorsport, from Microsoft's in-house team Turn 10. Or perhaps it's trying to cover up a strain of rank commercialism, since it's plastered in sponsor logos and invitations to buy tokens for shortcuts. An offshoot made by another studio - new UK outfit Playground - Forza Horizon comes across like a marketing drive first and a game second, tainted as it is with buzzwords like "brand extension" and "annual cadence".
Prepare to swallow your cynicism, however, because Forza Horizon is a quite brilliant racing game - one of the best of its generation. It's also a lesson in how to make that development model work to create something greater than the sum of its parts."

"The set-up has you arrive at the Horizon festival as a no-name newbie and rise through the tiers of competition - symbolised, in a neat touch, by coloured wristbands - while taking down arrogant rival characters and being flirted at by the cutie-pie organiser. It's bland fluff with some painful one-liners, but it's not given undue importance"

That bodes well as it seems the actual game underneath is very solid indeed, i'm interested again

http://www.igcd.net/vehicle.php?id=5064 ... width=2560



That looks familiar

That plane race is awesome.

Wonky menus and wobblycam stuff in the background is a bit ruinous for me. Battlefield 3 all over again.

Played and enjoyed the demo.

Beat Gaywoods offroad rival thingy.

I'll be buying when its cheep.

Enjoyed the demo muchly. I was always like "hey, I like TDU but wouldn't it be awesomes if the driving and graphics and cars were better?" And here it is will be buying for the outrageously high release price and pouring hours into it. I really hope there's some better tracks/environments than in the demo and I'm keeping fingers crossed that they kept the Do Your Car Up In Nerdy Detail feature. First play reminded me of NFS Pro Street which I liked. Yay all round.

I reserve judgement on the TestDriveness as I haven't seen if it's an MMORG.

My word, this is quite brilliant. Even the Festival stuff isn't totally hateful.

I award at least 890 bananas.

I kinda agree. I just find the experience a bit soulless. I think it's because the environment is bland in the extreme, brown brown brown, ooooh look a house! brown brown brown....

The game itself ix extremely polished and well made though and the actual driving and progression is pretty good, plus the festival isn't anywhere close to as bad as I feared.

I am so sick of the fucking commercial for it.

Despite my previous comments I bought this last week and must admit that I've enjoyed playing it. Agree with everything that Plissken and Trooper have said, the festival stuff isn't completely shit.

So yeah, pleasantly surprised. Will probably pour a few more hours in to as I feel like I've barely scraped the surface.

So far only one reference to a 'bro' too. Bro.

I could stomach "bro" as long as there's no "buddies"

In which case, please excuse my use of the word in the bargains thread directed at you.

Never! *sharpens rapier*