With consumers’ attention spans reaching an all-time low, where they often act like goldfish moving from one trend to another in lightning fast succession, it’s hard for developers to keep a franchise going for more than a few entries. With the Forza franchise now on its 10th outing (Forza Motorsport 7), it’s easy to see why Forza Horizon 3 was on many players’ top lists for 2016, as it doesn’t struggle at all keeping the series alive.

I can honestly say without a shred of doubt that this is one of the best looking games this console generation, and I played it on a standard Xbox One without the 4K enhancements. I found myself stumbling to turn on the windshield wipers or grab for sunglasses regularly due to the impressive visuals from the background and weather effects, often forgetting I was playing a video game. From the detailed car interiors, the reflections bouncing off of the body of the cars, and the highly detailed beading effects from the water, this is the standard future games will seek to achieve and likely never accomplish. This is nothing short of car porn, sure to evoke a strange feeling in any car aficionado’s pants.

If you’re new to the Forza Horizon series, it’s much like the standard Forza Motorsports titles, but feels a bit more arcade centric. While you can still tune your rides visually or mechanically as much or as little as you see fit, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of cars to make this enjoyable. The previous entries have made the player a willing participant in the Horizon festival, but this outing has you running the show. That said, there’s a huge wealth of customization options for how and when you race. Almost every event can be completed with any car, against any types of cars, with as many laps as you want. You can even save preferred settings for future races or share them with friends. The only exception to this is the Bucket List challenges, which task you with completing various objectives using specific vehicles, such as hitting speed checkpoints, racking up points in drifting challenges or simply racing point A to point B. Adding the option to create championships, as well as hitting all of the speed checkpoints, jumps, and XP boosting signs hidden throughout the vast Australian setting, there really is a lot to do here. Did I mention you can complete almost anything in co-op? Because you can, in addition to all of the online options available to you.

There are a number of difficulty options and modifiers that can be toggled between races to ensure that you are always being challenged, with regular reminders or offers to change the settings in the event the game gets too easy or difficult for you. These make the title super accessible, especially for those of us who like to keep our foot on the accelerator nonstop. Despite each car controlling differently, the settings will help keep a mild standard between them, as some vehicles are more apt to spin out than others. The game does not belittle or penalize the player for using these outside of reducing the amount of credits and XP received for each action completed. These are needed to unlock additional perks, which provide various benefits to the player, as well as for purchasing new cars or fast traveling around the island.

The island is massive, with a number of regions that give the player a wide variety of locales to race through, including beaches, jungles, and cityscapes. Progressing through the festival will unlock the option to select new areas to race through, which can be completed in any order the player chooses. Freedom like this is unheard of in most games, especially of the racing variety. Normally you would be forced to battle it out in some of the less exciting cars to get your feet wet, but here you can jump into a number of high end super cars right off of the rip.

My one and only complaint is the inability to skip the voice over laden tutorials that never seem to stop. Yes, they do provide added insight into what you need to focus on in the game, but they are unnecessary and being unable to skip them is inexcusable. The same information could be conveyed in a short on screen display. While the loading times are not overly long, I found these to be tiresome and they limited the amount of time I could play in one sitting.

If you’re in the need for speed or simply want to run around in the mud exploring the landscape, Forza Horizon 3 won’t disappoint. With its amazing visuals and wealth of content, the title will keep you busy for hours upon hours.

9 out of 10

Pros

• Amazing Visuals
• Wealth of Content
• Huge Roster of Cars

Cons

• Overly Long Tutorials That Can’t be Skipped

Forza Horizon 3 was developed by Turn 10 Studios in conjunction with Playhouse Games and published by Microsoft Studios. It launched on PC and XB1 on September 27th, 2016 for $59.99. The game was not provided to us for review on XB1. For more on Forza Horizon 3, check out the game’s official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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