{"id":95,"date":"2016-10-03T23:41:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T03:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=95"},"modified":"2016-10-03T23:41:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T03:41:23","slug":"game-ramblings-22-forza-horizon-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=95","title":{"rendered":"Game Ramblings #22 &#8211; Forza Horizon 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forzamotorsport.net\/en-US\/games\/fh3\">More Info from Turn 10<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Genre<\/strong>: Open World Racing<\/li>\n<li><strong>Platform<\/strong>: Windows 10 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/store\/p\/forza-horizon-3-standard-edition\/9nblggh4rq31\">Microsoft Store &#8211; Digital Only<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Also Available On<\/strong>: Xbox One<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, I like Forza. \u00a0Of the now 11 games I have for the Xbox One, 4 of them are Forzas. \u00a0It goes without saying that I was looking forward to this one. \u00a0This was also a bit of an experiment for me, as it&#8217;s the first of the new Xbox Play Anywhere titles I&#8217;ve gotten, so it was going to set the tone in how I considered those purchases going forward.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s get this out of the way. \u00a0The PC port was rock solid. \u00a0Visually it didn&#8217;t look that incredibly different than the Xbox One version, but that was already a fairly solid looking title on its own. \u00a0What it did get right are the details. \u00a0It has really solid 21:9 aspect ratio support, which a lot of PC games still don&#8217;t get right. \u00a0It has\u00a0both really solid quick configure video settings for more casual users (including a really solid dynamic visuals system to keep framerate steady), as well as highly configurable settings for your higher end users. \u00a0Even on ultra, getting 60 fps was not a problem. \u00a0Also of note, they added a bunch of wheel support with promises to continue adding more. \u00a0Having played some with the Logitech G27, I wouldn&#8217;t necessarily recommend it, but it was definitely worth a laugh. \u00a0So, that out of the way, the question then is how good is the actual game?<\/p>\n<p>The racing itself is about what is expected of a Horizon title. \u00a0The cars\u00a0still have a pretty solid feel to them, with the actual steering, breaking, etc still feeling relatively realistic, even if it tilts more towards the arcadey side of things when it comes to drifting. \u00a0Different classes of cars are very obviously in different performance tiers, and it&#8217;s obvious to tell the difference between the handling and acceleration dynamics of various vehicles. \u00a0To some extent the amount of damage that vehicles can take, even with simulation damage on, is somewhat outlandish, but given the gameplay it feels pretty appropriate without being completely over the top. \u00a0That said, AI drivatars are still somewhat rubberbandy, and definitely exist\u00a0purely to provide a mark of in-race progression, because they generally have a tendency to run their line to a fault, even if you are already in the middle of the race line. \u00a0Overall though, the speed of races, and continued hilarity of the cross country events provides an experience that stays fresh as you proceed through each event.<\/p>\n<p>The progression system of Horizon 3&#8217;s meta game has definitely\u00a0seen some improvements over 2. \u00a0Whereas 2 had you going through a fairly linear path of championships back to back, 3 really pushes the open world to the forefront. \u00a0The name of the game is gaining fans, and gaining more fans allows festival locations to be upgraded, unlocking events, PR stunts, and ultimately the Horizon showcases. \u00a0Because everything you do inherently gains fans, you are much less locked into a core path. \u00a0One minute you may be doing a race, then hopping to a Bucket List, or looking for speed traps and jumps. \u00a0You also aren&#8217;t locked to vehicles for non-championship events, so I was changing vehicles at a much higher frequency than in 2. \u00a0Overall the game provided a much better play as you want it experience than past games, despite the fact that the first 2 titles were already fairly open in their progression.<\/p>\n<p>I guess if I were to end it with anything, it&#8217;s that this is probably a good game to jump into if you&#8217;re at all a racing game fan. \u00a0If you&#8217;re purely a PC gamer and haven&#8217;t played a Forza game, this would\u00a0fall in line with recent Need for Speed games, or the older Burnout Paradise as comparable games that have made it to PC. \u00a0If you&#8217;re a console gamer\u00a0the list is pretty similar. \u00a0Really, if the idea of plowing through a field doing 180 in a Ferrari, all while mowing down bushes and jumping off a cliff into a river sounds at all appealing, you&#8217;d probably dig this one. \u00a0Yes, that happens. \u00a0Regularly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Info from Turn 10 Genre: Open World Racing Platform: Windows 10 (Microsoft Store &#8211; Digital Only) Also Available On: Xbox One So, I like Forza. \u00a0Of the now 11 games I have for the Xbox One, 4 of them are Forzas. \u00a0It goes without saying that I was looking forward to this one. \u00a0This &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=95\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Game Ramblings #22 &#8211; Forza Horizon 3&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21,62],"tags":[63,23,25,64],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc","category-racing","category-xbox-one","tag-forza","tag-pc","tag-racing","tag-xbox-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/97"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}