Forza Horizon 4 Review (rategod)
A racing nirvana elaborated in detail, maniacally tuned and full of content for all machine lovers. We would only look for mistakes with a magnifying glass in hand.
It's interesting that it took the developers from Playground Games quite a while to decide to place Horizon in their homeland, the UK.
After the game wows you with its typically bloated introduction, where all the seasons change within ten minutes, the introductory five-hour familiarization session begins. During it, you will learn how unlocking new plants works, what you need to do to increase your popularity, try out the role of a movie stuntman, buy your first house and, in short, somehow naturally understand the laws of this world.
After those roughly five hours, however, another change will occur - the Horizon festival will break out in full. At that moment, the game will start to follow instructions from the central server, which controls the changes of the seasons. The change occurs every week, is accompanied by a short loading and brings with it a fundamental transformation of the visuals and gameplay. And although thanks to the shared world you will meet other players on the roads and you can simply challenge them to a duel, there is still a full-fledged single player as before.
Changing the seasons is yet another step towards creating a more believable virtual world. As an introduction, I bought a BMW M5 (E60) and parked it next to my new lakeside house. It was just autumn, colorful leaves were rolling on the ground and the surrounding landscape could not have represented the English countryside better – melancholy moors, winding roads on the hillsides, flocks of sheep grazing in the meadows… and then winter came. And I found out that the lake near the house had frozen over, so I could go across it to the opposite shore, which of course was not possible in the summer.
The developers from Playground Games know well how to keep players entertained. The race alternates with the race, mixed in with side activities (like the well-known search for wrecks in barns) or driving mini-games, thanks to which you become, for example, a movie stuntman.
The races themselves are then divided into several categories. There are classic urban circuits, "illegal" night sprints, off-road races, cross-country tracks and a few others.
Horizon 4 still brings a kind of "life simulator" to the festival, but it's a rather grandiose name for a few minor additions. In reality, this means that you can dress up the character, you can see him in various cutscenes, and last but not least, you can also buy cottages, houses, villas, and if you save up a seriously large amount of money, you can get Edinburgh Castle.
There are also two large DLCs in the game.
The first major expansion is aptly named Fortune Island. There's sure to be plenty of riches in the new map inspired by the islands in the north of Britain, but only if you're lucky. The new island will throw you into strong storms, the lightning of which will literally throw trees under your wheels. But once the skies clear, you'll be rewarded with breathtaking aurora borealis, new cars and a new (drift) story.
The second major expansion for Forza Horizon 4 is another of the series' interesting collaborations. Once you could beat the clock on the famous Top Gear circuit, sit in Hot Wheels cars and now a new piece of land in Britain will be transformed into Lego.
DLC Lego Speed Champions adds a new area to Forza with a desert full of dinosaur skeletons, a beach with pirate ships, an amusement park, a city, and a new racing circuit. Everything is in the spirit of Lego. Lego vehicles are also a matter of course.
A total of 250 challenges await you, from regular races to many jumps to breaking Lego creations. Completing the challenges earns you Lego bricks, which you can use to improve your new house, thereby increasing your garage capacity, and this in turn gives you access to new Lego vehicles.
Fun, adrenaline and rewards are dosed with incredible efficiency, and at the same time, the developers successfully avoid problems in the form of loot boxes, grind and similar "conveniences". In this respect, Forza Horizon 4 is almost old-school, and that's a good thing. There is still something to discover, there is still something to spend money on, and the game generously supplies you with more and more rewards for completed races or performed tricks. 95%