TheForzafranchise was synonymous with a simulation-style racing experience for a long time, similar toGran Turismoon PlayStation. However, whenForza Horizondebuted in 2012, Playground Games proved thatForzacould expand into what had become modern car culture with near-perfect ease. The driving mechanics still retained its simulation style driving experience, but eased up the realism just a tiny bit to allow for the campy nature of the game’s world design and race progression.
There’s something about the character and focused nature of the firstForza Horizongame that subsequent sequels just haven’t been able to match. Obviously the influx of brand new cars and doubling the content in later entries is an expected upgrade over the first game, but in a lot of ways, futureHorizongames have been an exercise in excess over focused content. There’s nothing wrong with a racing game having a huge collection of available cars, but subsequentForza Horizongames have been too focused on quantity over quality in many regards.
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Encapsulating Modern Car Culture Perfectly
Obviously, looking back atForza Horizonin 2020 does make the game seem very dated. Dubstep’s no longer as much of a craze as it once was, and a lot of the brand new cars in that game are either concept car relics or at least eight years old. However, even if the firstForza Horizonwas largely a product of its time with the cars/music in the game,Playground Games was at its best in 2012.Horizon’s fictional version of Colorado was a blast to drive through, and the contextualization of the “Horizon” car and music festival added an element of wonder bolstered by the excellent opening song of Language by Porter Robinson.
That’s part ofwhatForza Horizondid so well compared to its later counterparts.Horizonsets the stage in an exciting and wondrous introduction that retains that same positive spirit throughout the rest of the game. All of the story events and cutscenes are perfectly campy and never taken too seriously. Even the rival characters set up some friendly competition between players and other festival goers.Forza Horizon’s ambiance and atmosphere was it its best here, celebrating modern car culture at a music festival that felt lively and full of strange but entertaining characters.
Horizon’s Colorado Is Still a Blast to Drive Through
Even to this day,Forza Horizonhad some of the best world design and driving lines throughout the wholeHorizonsubseries. Racing through the canyons in Red Rock, or zooming over the Finley Dam, some of the best racing lines in the whole subseries came from Playground Games' fictional Colorado. Whether it’s the winding roads through small town Colorado in an all-wheel-drive car, or zooming across highways in your favorite supercar,Forza Horizon’s map was simultaneously huge and refined.Future entries likeForza Horizon 4had bigger maps with more terrain, but had a ton of verticality and not much variety in the actual roads themselves.
Progression was also at its best in the firstForza Horizon. The whole “Horizon” festival had different tiers based on which bracelet you received, and players could get higher tier bracelets after finishing first in enough races and gaining enough reputation. Gaining reputation and attaining new bracelet levels actually felt like progress was being made, whereas futureHorizongames made everything more open-concept.Forza Horizon 4was especially guilty of this, asinstead of focused races with specific car classes, players could enter those types of events with whatever car they were driving. The freedom was nice, but not enforcing any kind of class variety made races monotonous.
Forza Horizon Was Concise, Focused Open World Racer
Perhaps the biggest problem with futureHorizontitles is that they added content for the sake of additional content.Checking the map inForza Horizon 4is a confusing affair of sifting through various race icons littered throughout the fictional UK map. The game’s open concept of progression hurts the most when it’s unclear what race should be done next.Forza Horizonkept it simple: do official events to gain reputation and progress to the next bracelet, do street races for more money/credits, and do the limited stunt races for both. That was it, there wasn’t an overload on content that basically made any semblance of progression through the game meaningless.
FutureForza Horizongames have stepped up the qualityin terms of visual presentation and car collection immensely. Obviously the firstHorizongame, despite how well the visual design still holds up, pales in comparison toForza Horizon4andMotorsport. However, the reliance on player freedom and its plug-and-play race design just makes the game less interesting. Having a focused and clear progression, a silly but noticeable semblance of story, and intelligent world design is what makes the firstForza Horizonthe best in the series.
Forza Horizonis available now on Xbox 360 and via backwards compatibility on Xbox One.
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