That’s where we differ; everything triggers the completionist impulse in me. When I went to London a decade or so ago, someone told me that all the coins had part of a knight’s armor on the back of them, when you arrange them properly you had a full knight in armor with sword. So I had to find every coin to complete the set. It’s just how I’m wired.
Bit more footage.
The campaign organization they’ve shown recently seems to show a nice organization of things. Hopefully it helps.
I like the sandboxy feel of Horizon. I think it’s supposed to be chill, not stressful. You can do an event, or you can not do an event. You can just tool out a car and go look at the sights.
I’m really into that. It’s a bit like Assassins Creed Odyssey, in the way that you’re in a place you wanna be, and you also get to fight people. In this case you’re in a place you wanna be, but you also get to drive the hell out of a car. It’s like a digital vacation.
The one thing that keeps bothering me is their machine-learning-AI-whatever-the-hell.
It just ultimately means that the AI all drive the same. I greatly prefer racers where the AI has more of a scripted personality, so you have the dopey one that slams into the sides, and the clever one that knows how to take a corner, and the evil one that will t-bone you on a turn.
It makes racing games feel more real to me.
Yes, it seems they have done a separate Campaign tab, and that ‘story’ content is a bit more structured
Yeah, and I find that stressful. I get the paralysis of choice.
I’m the same. I kinda like having something there to pull me along - “Hey, go do this now”. With games like FH4 where everything is just ‘there’, I have no incentive to actually go do it. This might simply mean I don’t really want to be driving, I just want to be progressing.
I don’t mind this, but they don’t really ever present the game to you this way. You get led by the nose through your first year then just dropped into the world and there’s not really a decent introduction to how to play after that. It would be useful if they said: if you like road racing you can follow the road racing series; if you like cross-country there’s a series for that; if you like a narrative there are questline serieses etc.
There’s also very little incentive to actually do that stuff except just to race. All the top-end cars are roughly equivalent. It would be nice if you could unlock game (vs cosmetic) content by racing.
They do tell you that during the first year though. They make you do a road race, a cross country or dirt race, and a narrative stunt driver story mission during that first year, giving you a good cross section of what you can do.
I don’t have a problem with how they introduce the various types of events.Its very much about the ongoing structure and incentives for me. I want to progress from “bad” cars to “good” cars, or basic parts to racing parts, over dozens of hours, not for it to be thrown haphazardly at me. Lock things behind gates. Give me a reason to do a given chain of events that isn’t just here’s another car that’s just like the other supercars I already have
I like how the events will require a certain class / rating because then I can look and see what I have and upgrade it to whatever rating I need to. It ensures that I continue to periodically use some of the slower vehicles in my garage, instead of just defaulting to the same ridiculous Class X car every time.
But of course you can also just set things up the way you want, and nothing is ever really off limits. Do whatever you want and if you get the money, feel free to buy that Shelby Cobra or Aventador you’ve been eyeing.
I greatly prefer this to Gran Turismo’s “Grind races in this shit box for a couple hours to get something marginally less shitty” model. To me, Forza Horizon 4 is the ultimate open world racing game, and the best racing game ever overall.
After much searching and such, I have determined that Race Driver GRID (2008), Dirt 4, and Wreckfest are tops for this. Project Cars 2 (and 3?), possibly WRC 10, and F1 2021 fit the bill as well.
Wreckfest? The game where you drive lawnmowers into other lawnmowers until they all blow up except yours?
THERE ARE ACTUAL CARS IN IT TOO YOU KNOB. We’ve told you this. Geez.
I know, I just like ridiculing it. I think I made it to the 6th or 7th event. To be fair, only 3 of them involved ramming into things until I quit out and uninstalled.
Your loss mate.
To me it’s a given that anything you do for the first 30 minutes to 2 hours in a videogame today is just the tutorial. Red Dead Redemption 2 felt like it had about 10 or 20 hours of tutorial.
Horizon is clearly aimed at a very young demographic. I think that’s why everything is so busy, and loud, and hey look, a slot machine! 50 points for breaking a fence!
They took the dial labeled “stimulus” and turned it to 11.
You’re right though, they could be clearer on the concept.
Personally, that’s part of what I love about it. I despise content gates and I don’t like too much linearity, especially in an open world. Why make an open world if you’re just gonna look for ways to close it off?
Horizon never asks me to do anything except have fun with what’s there. That’s my jam!
I’m the exact opposite of @Ginger_yellow in that I really don’t wanna be driving boring cars I don’t like, or doing races I don’t enjoy, just to earn my way into ones that are more interesting.
I get the paralysis of choice though. You have to be zen with an open world game. There’s always so much stuff in these games that’s only there for padding, I’m not sure you should aspire to play all of it.
For me it’s about driving cars from my past. As a brit there are loads of Fords, Peugeot’s and other brands from back in the day that you can soup up and race round in.
1 super car is much like another but going round in a 1980’s Countach or Testarossa works for me.
A little more structure would help as it can feel too overwhelming but I am still playing it today which I cannot say for many game
I’m the same when it comes to stuff like the licensing requirements in the GT series. Screw that noise.
Yes! I mean, I’ll drool over a McLaren Senna in reali life, but in game I’m smashing around in a 1981 Volkswagen Scirocco racing other Hot Hatches.
I think I’m the polar opposite of their desired market, in that I enjoy the wide range of cars but mostly drive all the crap ones.