DSP member/alum featured in Forza Horizon video

[pk500]

Any chance there would be an active group here racing online with this? If yes that would influence my purchase decision. I miss online racing with friends.

I hope so. Staying power remains a question with this, and every new game. But I hope there will be a solid group of DSP dudes racing with this title for a few weeks after release.

[Teal]

You know you've got it bad when you have all these games waiting to be played...


...and all you want to do is play the Forza demo...

[Pete1210]

I'm also enjoying the demo. Now I'm not sure whether to get this or NFS:MW. No way I'll have time for both.

[vader29]

I just spent 15 minutes driving back and forth past one of the speed traps trying to get a higher score on the leaderboard, so yeah I'll definitely be picking this one up.

[Teal]

I'm also enjoying the demo. Now I'm not sure whether to get this or NFS:MW. No way I'll have time for both.

They're going to be markedly different games, so I'm getting both.

[Pete1210]

I'm also enjoying the demo. Now I'm not sure whether to get this or NFS:MW. No way I'll have time for both.

They're going to be markedly different games, so I'm getting both.

Good point. I'm just not that much of a racing game fan to pick up and play 2 games within one week. I like to focus on one game per genre. Right now its NBA for sports, Borderlands 2 for shooting and I'll mix in a story based game, one at a time.

Burnout has been my favorite series so I was leaning towards NFS:MW, since its being devoped by Criterion this time. Only holdback on that one is I'm not convinced it'll be that much different from Burnout Paradise (which I still have) to warrant a day one purchase.

Forza Horizon reminds me of a game I already have and maybe got 1/3 of the way through, Test Drive Unlimited 2. If I'm going to drive around alone I could be just as happy going back to that. Online racing potential, which I do miss, would be the deciding factor on picking up a new release driving game.

By the way, both of these games, Horizon and NFS:MW are still eligible for the $10 credit and $20 MS points with pre-order at the Microsoft store. I do need some points, so that may also push me into a new racer.

[TheTruth]

As I drove free-roam around the back roads last night, I thought a "tag mode," in which one car was "it" and had to be tagged by other cars, would be really fun to play online.

Arcade-ish as hell, but so what? It would be fun.

Midtown Madness! That game was a blast online! Still wish MS would do something with it.

[dbdynsty25]

Forza Horizon reminds me of a game I already have and maybe got 1/3 of the way through, Test Drive Unlimited 2. If I'm going to drive around alone I could be just as happy going back to that. Online racing potential, which I do miss, would be the deciding factor on picking up a new release driving game.

Easily the series I put the most time in as far as car games go on this generation of hardware. TDU an TDU2 are fantastic games and I still pop in 2 from time to time just to find some more undiscovered roads. If Horizon is an updated version of that, I'm definitely in. Downloaded the demo last night but haven't had a chance to play it yet.

[pk500]

As I drove free-roam around the back roads last night, I thought a "tag mode," in which one car was "it" and had to be tagged by other cars, would be really fun to play online.

Arcade-ish as hell, but so what? It would be fun.

Midtown Madness! That game was a blast online! Still wish MS would do something with it.

Absolutely. I had more smack-talking, altered fun playing that game with randoms than any other on Xbox Live.

[mixdj1]

IGN gives Horizon a 9/10

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

Forza Horizon is what happens when you assemble a crack team of talented racing game veterans, plucked from a bunch of the UK’s finest driving developers, and shove them all under one roof and set them loose with Microsoft’s money.

This supergroup of racing devs is called Playground Games and its staff hail from some of the UK’s best and brightest racing studios; Codemasters, Bizarre, Criterion and many more. Playground Games' job was to take the incredible resources of the Forza franchise and create an open-world spin-off of this generation's leading circuit racer.

The results speak for themselves. Forza Horizon is the open-world racing game that open-world racing game fans have always wanted.Think Test Drive Unlimited but with the nuanced handling and carefully crafted cars of the Forza franchise mixed with the confident presentation fans of Codemasters' racers are accustomed to.

...

THE VERDICT

If you love Forza 4, this is the perfect companion. If you love cars, this is essential. The school of thought may be that it’s hard to push racing games this late in a generation, but Playground Games hasn’t just moved the needle here. It’s buried it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the open road beckons. And racing developers of the world? Playground Games has just put you on notice.

[webdanzer]

As I drove free-roam around the back roads last night, I thought a "tag mode," in which one car was "it" and had to be tagged by other cars, would be really fun to play online.

Arcade-ish as hell, but so what? It would be fun.

Midtown Madness! That game was a blast online! Still wish MS would do something with it.

Absolutely. I had more smack-talking, altered fun playing that game with randoms than any other on Xbox Live.

I still think Flatout Ultimate Carnage is a great, great beer and driving game. Crazy, destructive races, the silly mini-games, really fun demolition derbies....

I'd be up for that anytime. One of the most under-appreciated racing games of this generation.

[pk500]

Played the Horizon demo more last night, just trying to beat Rivals times, driving around and admiring the Colorado scenery. An hour flew past in what felt like 15 minutes.

I dig this game. The demo is a winner. I think my $40 in Best Buy gift cards will be gone next week.

[Naples39]

I also liked the demo, and I could see it being quite fun to get a 6 or 7 person DSP, but I don't think this is a $60 game for me. Maybe when it's one sale, or a b2g1f deal.

[Pete1210]

I also liked the demo, and I could see it being quite fun to get a 6 or 7 person DSP, but I don't think this is a $60 game for me. Maybe when it's one sale, or a b2g1f deal.

Pre-order at Microsoft store comes with 1600MS pointt and a $10 gift card. So that's $30, If you use the points and GC.

[Teal]

As I drove free-roam around the back roads last night, I thought a "tag mode," in which one car was "it" and had to be tagged by other cars, would be really fun to play online.

Arcade-ish as hell, but so what? It would be fun.

Midtown Madness! That game was a blast online! Still wish MS would do something with it.

Absolutely. I had more smack-talking, altered fun playing that game with randoms than any other on Xbox Live.

TAG MODE!
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/z4dj ... g-gameplay

[pk500]

Epic!

[toonarmy]

IGN- 9/10
Gamespot- 8.5/10
Game Informer- 8.5/10
G4- 4.5/5
Giant Bomb- 5/5
Destructoid- 9/10
Eurogamer- 9/10
Polygon- 6/10
Xboxer360- (9.4/10)
Gamesradar- 4/5
VGRevolution- 8.4/10
VentureBeat- 8.3/10
Aussie-Gamer - 5/5
IBTimes- 9/10
Pocket-Lint - 4/5
Gaming Examiner- 9.5/10
Atomicgamer- 9/10
Official Xbox Magazine UK- 9/10
Planet Xbox 360- 8.7/10
Gamereactor- 9/10

Damn this game is getting a lot of praise and looks awesome. I still have my MS Wheel. I'm sooo tempted to get a 360 again.

[pk500]

Damn this game is getting a lot of praise and looks awesome. I still have my MS Wheel. I'm sooo tempted to get a 360 again.

The Forza Horizon demo strikes an ideal balance of realism and fun. Heavy emphasis on FUN.

It's truly a sim-cade game.

[J_Cauthen]

I also liked the demo, and I could see it being quite fun to get a 6 or 7 person DSP, but I don't think this is a $60 game for me. Maybe when it's one sale, or a b2g1f deal.

Pre-order at Microsoft store comes with 1600MS pointt and a $10 gift card. So that's $30, If you use the points and GC.

I followed your lead on this Mike95; thanks for the tip! I'll definitely get $30 worth of use out of the incentives

As for the demo, I find that I'm able to control the cars fairly well using the Microsoft Speed Wheel, even with my left hand in a cast. The biggest problem the cast causes me is lack of touch with the left trigger (brake).I use automatic with the speed wheel, even before I broke my hand. Pushing the action buttons for shifting just feels awkward.

When using the Speed Wheel, I set the outside deadzone to 62. It defaults to 95. I didn't find the steering was responsive enough, at least for the way I use the Speed Wheel (elbows resting on my legs), at the default setting. I left the inside deadzone at 1.

Finally, there is a way to turn of the "hidden" Stability Control in the demo. I found this on Forza Motorsports.net's Forum:

"What you do is change the difficulty to expert (maybe anything but easy- I'll get to that later), then just make the individual assists and settings how you want them. This seems to remove the hidden STM assist, which can really be intrusive and annoying.

If you want to test out the difference, just set the difficulty to expert (you can turn off the clutch if you need), find a long, wide stretch of highway, and in third gear sway left and right to drift on alternating sides (Choku-Dori, for the drifting literate). You should be able to maintain speed and continue indefinitely. Now set the difficulty to easy, then change all of the individual assists and settings to what they were previously. Try to Choku-Dori at the same speed and in the same gear, and you'll find that it's impossible to keep enough speed. This is due to the hidden STM assist that seems to be turned by the "Easy" difficulty, which the game starts you with. If you're like many people, you didn't bother switching the difficulty level before customizing the assists and options to how you wanted them.

I've experimented with the difficulties between "Easy" and "Expert", but if they have STM enabled it is nowhere near as intrusive. They may have been trying out a multiple setting STM like they use on GT5, with all but "Easy" using milder STM and perhaps "Expert" using none, but that's just speculation. Regardless, this trick makes the FH demo feel much closer to FM4, although it still doesn't seem to be quite the same (especially the rumble and force feedback!) Hopefully an STM option will exist in the full game, but until then this trick can make the game much more satisfying."

[webdanzer]

From Michael Barnes' review:

http://www.nohighscores.com/2012/10/16/ ... #more-9474

You’ve got to drive to each event. And if the event you want to participate is all the way across the map, you might have to drive ten minutes to get back over to it. Or you can fast travel by spending 10,000 of your hard-earned credits. Don’t want to waste your time or your in-game money? The game will gladly sell you scrip at one dollar (real money) a credit to fast travel. Granted, you can complete PR challenges at each fast travel outpost to reduce the cost, but the fact that the game even offers to take your money to perform a routine time-saving function is simply disgusting. Cars can also be purchased with scrip if the grind is too long- and the game is designed and paced so that it is long and it creates demand for an accelerated development curve. You can even buy time periods of double points if the trickle is too slow for you. These are freemium marketing and monetization strategies applied to a $60 retail game. It’s a game that willfully wastes your time to make you want. This kind of “service model” should not be OK with you.

This crap sucks. Seriously, paying for fast travel so you can get to races on the other side of the map??!!

[DChaps]

From Michael Barnes' review:

http://www.nohighscores.com/2012/10/16/ ... #more-9474

You’ve got to drive to each event. And if the event you want to participate is all the way across the map, you might have to drive ten minutes to get back over to it. Or you can fast travel by spending 10,000 of your hard-earned credits. Don’t want to waste your time or your in-game money? The game will gladly sell you scrip at one dollar (real money) a credit to fast travel. Granted, you can complete PR challenges at each fast travel outpost to reduce the cost, but the fact that the game even offers to take your money to perform a routine time-saving function is simply disgusting. Cars can also be purchased with scrip if the grind is too long- and the game is designed and paced so that it is long and it creates demand for an accelerated development curve. You can even buy time periods of double points if the trickle is too slow for you. These are freemium marketing and monetization strategies applied to a $60 retail game. It’s a game that willfully wastes your time to make you want. This kind of “service model” should not be OK with you.

This crap sucks. Seriously, paying for fast travel so you can get to races on the other side of the map??!!

It does suck, but don't all the EA Sports games basically do the same types of things? Grind through a process to get something for free, or purchase it with real money. Even Rocksmith allows you to buy your way to unlocks of amps, etc., if you don't want to work your way through. This Forza Horizon example seems extreme though. It would be like Madden or NCAA forcing you to sit through a half-time show, unless you were willing to pay to skip it. Lame either way.......

It is interesting to note that I have not seen any other reviews mentioning this microtransaction stuff.

[Pete1210]

From Michael Barnes' review:

http://www.nohighscores.com/2012/10/16/ ... #more-9474

You’ve got to drive to each event. And if the event you want to participate is all the way across the map, you might have to drive ten minutes to get back over to it. Or you can fast travel by spending 10,000 of your hard-earned credits. Don’t want to waste your time or your in-game money? The game will gladly sell you scrip at one dollar (real money) a credit to fast travel. Granted, you can complete PR challenges at each fast travel outpost to reduce the cost, but the fact that the game even offers to take your money to perform a routine time-saving function is simply disgusting. Cars can also be purchased with scrip if the grind is too long- and the game is designed and paced so that it is long and it creates demand for an accelerated development curve. You can even buy time periods of double points if the trickle is too slow for you. These are freemium marketing and monetization strategies applied to a $60 retail game. It’s a game that willfully wastes your time to make you want. This kind of “service model” should not be OK with you.

This crap sucks. Seriously, paying for fast travel so you can get to races on the other side of the map??!!

I read another review which says fast travel opens up for free as you progress in the game. Probably designed it this way to encourage exploration when you start out.

I also liked the demo, and I could see it being quite fun to get a 6 or 7 person DSP, but I don't think this is a $60 game for me. Maybe when it's one sale, or a b2g1f deal.

Pre-order at Microsoft store comes with 1600MS pointt and a $10 gift card. So that's $30, If you use the points and GC.

I followed your lead on this Mike95; thanks for the tip! I'll definitely get $30 worth of use out of the incentives

Actually I did use this deal, but for another game (Black Ops 2). I will wait and get this or NFS:MW on Black Friday.

[pk500]

From Michael Barnes' review:

http://www.nohighscores.com/2012/10/16/ ... #more-9474

You’ve got to drive to each event. And if the event you want to participate is all the way across the map, you might have to drive ten minutes to get back over to it. Or you can fast travel by spending 10,000 of your hard-earned credits. Don’t want to waste your time or your in-game money? The game will gladly sell you scrip at one dollar (real money) a credit to fast travel. Granted, you can complete PR challenges at each fast travel outpost to reduce the cost, but the fact that the game even offers to take your money to perform a routine time-saving function is simply disgusting. Cars can also be purchased with scrip if the grind is too long- and the game is designed and paced so that it is long and it creates demand for an accelerated development curve. You can even buy time periods of double points if the trickle is too slow for you. These are freemium marketing and monetization strategies applied to a $60 retail game. It’s a game that willfully wastes your time to make you want. This kind of “service model” should not be OK with you.

This crap sucks. Seriously, paying for fast travel so you can get to races on the other side of the map??!!

Simple solution: Keep your money clip shut and drive.

EA knows its audience is filled with Monster-fueled ADHD poster boys, so it's capitalizing on that. If gamers with two-second attention spans are stupid enough to pay, no sweat off my gamepad.

[webdanzer]

http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/Rally_ ... _Announce/

$20 expansion for more Rally in the game. With all the crazy season pass, car packs, pre-order stuff, in-game micro-transactions, this title definitely moves Microsoft up to EA Sports levels in variety of ways to get your money.

It does suck, but don't all the EA Sports games basically do the same types of things? Grind through a process to get something for free, or purchase it with real money....This Forza Horizon example seems extreme though. It would be like Madden or NCAA forcing you to sit through a half-time show, unless you were willing to pay to skip it. Lame either way.......

Yes, I agree with you in that it is similar to what EA is doing with their sports titles, and I also agree that this is worse. As Zeppo argued against the 'grind' in EA sports games, though, at least there you grind while actually playing the 'meat' of the games. Here you're forced to waste time going between one meal to the next. Like you said, it'd be like having to play the pre-period warmup skates in NHL for a set number of minutes. (but you can pay to reduce the time!) Sure, you can still skate, put some pucks on net, but it's not really what you came for, is it?

Simple solution: Keep your money clip shut and drive.
EA knows its audience is filled with Monster-fueled ADHD poster boys, so it's capitalizing on that. If gamers with two-second attention spans are stupid enough to pay, no sweat off my gamepad.

Microsoft publishes the Forza games, but I understand why you would type EA with the type of shenanigans going on here.

I'm surprised you would defend this, PK, given your statements against the EA grind, some in this very thread. Introducing a 'delay' that keeps gamers from the meat of the game in a way that is unusual for the genre, and then allowing the gamer to skip it with currency (Either in game or out) frankly sacrifices the game experience for the user in order to buff the coffers of the developer. No other way to spin it, and as a time-limited gamer I would rather spend my time playing the game I just paid $60 for. Introducing free-to-play strategies into full priced games is bad enough, but ones that prevent me from playing the game I paid for are about the worst I can imagine.

Now, in this particular case, I'll sure the driving delay in practice will not seem to be incredibly odious. MS is smart enough to push the users slowly down that slope. It deserves to be called out, though, and I see it as another bad sign of where this hobby is going.

I'm sure EA is groaning at its missed chance for money now, though. When Burnout Paradise was released, it forced users to drive back to the beginning of events if they wanted to try them again. This became a sharp complaint on the internet, and the 'jump to start' feature was ultimately patched in. They must be kicking themselves for missing the opportunity to charge for it!

EDIT: Sorry, missed this:

I read another review which says fast travel opens up for free as you progress in the game. Probably designed it this way to encourage exploration when you start out.

Thanks, Mike! I really hope that is true! Even so, denying the users the ability to skip something but allowing them to pay to get out of it is pretty shady, no matter what they are trying to encourage.

[dbdynsty25]

If they really wanted to "promote exploration" then they should have handled it like TDU did. You can only transport to roads that you have found. If that's ten miles from the next event, so be it. Once you've found all the roads, you can transport anywhere you'd like without worrying about having to drive for ten minutes to the next event. That model didn't bother me at all.