My entrypoint to the Forza series was Forza Horizon 4, an arcade racing game. I didn’t expect to like it. I don’t typically enjoy racing games, but I must have had it recommended to me, so I gave it a spin. Immediately I fell in love.
The goal of Forza was to make car fans into video game fans, and video game fans into car fans. I don’t know that it wholly worked on me, but I sure do enjoy zooming around in cars with silly decals. My wife drives a Ford Escape, and I was able to spraypoint one rose gold, cover it in gaudy decals (including one spelling out WIFE in cursive), and now she loves to drive the “Wifemobile” around looking for hidden barns.
When Horizon 5 came out, I gave that a spin, expecting it to be more of the same. It was, more or less. But it was also amped up. There were more casino spin wheels, constant flows of cars, endless events and races popping up. The set pieces were grand (race up the volcano! Monster truck rally! Lego Mustang vs real Mustang (actually, that might have bene 4 as well)), but it was a bit more stimulating (read: overwhelming) than the previous.
So I decided to go back to the original and see where it all started.
Where it all began
I knew that the scope had grown. The first game took place in Denver (actually all of Colorado, I learned), while the most recent entry covered all of Mexico. In between, we had Spain, Australia, and Great Britain.
I was surprised by a number of things!
The Radio
There were only 3 radio stations! Horizons 4 and 5 both had ~5 radio stations, and the notable omission here was the classical channel.
And, series mainstay Horizon Pulse was missing classic DJ Amy Simpson. After hearing her in 4 and 5, I assumed she had been there from the start.
Headlights and destructions
Enemy cars flash their headlights at me when I’m zooming towards them. I can’t do that in the later games! But, I also can’t honk at them! The button where honk will eventually be is explicitly labeled “unused” Wild omission!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the rewind feature (oops I hit a wall) has been here the whole time. I sort of expected that to have come in later!
Drivatars and pacing
The game feels more personal and smaller. There is a concrete story, as I’m advancing in the ranks, earning wristbands and gaining popularity. But I’m also fenced in, mostly relegated to roads. In 4 and 5, I can drive anywhere, including offroading through signs and fenceposts that stop my car dead in the original. I can only imagine how liberating 2 (or 3, or whenever) will feel when they introduce that freedom!
It’s not just the cars that are penned in. The combos seem smaller, and everything feels a lot less… well, like a mobile game. Or a casino. Later games feature spinning wheels of prizes that are (pleasantly) missing from this original entry.
And then there’s the drivatars. These are a focal point of later games, avatars of your friends that learn how they drive and race around. It’s common to see my friends’ names pop up in a race or on the English countryside. Not here! My rivals have names, are fully voiced, have personalities and motivations, and trash talk me. I love it! Driving with my fake friends is neat, but there’s something so refreshingly personal about having specific rivals.
The cars
There seem to be fewer cars per manufacturer this time around, but boy howdy are there a LOT of manufacturers! I expected the opposite, a handful of makes with many models. Very wide, rather shallow. Some of my favorite “casual” cars are missing, but we’ve got a lot of muscle cars at the like.
The cars don’t even have license plates! The car breaking physics are also very limited compared to later games. Sometimes I’ll get an animation of my bumper falling off, but there it is, still attached, like a tooth poking through once the baby tooth is shorn.
There are some lasting damage decals (depending on the car), but this is something the later games really amplify, your ability to roll a car and drive around looking like you just lost a fight with a telephone pole or two.
Me
Later games are so customizable, I can pick my name, pronouns, voice, outfits, prosthetic limbs, and more. Here, I’m a specific (unnamed) guy out of the box, with no say in any of that. It’s sort of odd, since it’s not customizable that I also don’t have a name. The later games swing so far in the other direction, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of fully voiced names. Here I am stock, out of the box “mystery driver”.
I was surprised in Horizon 4 the first time someone called me Alex (it had read it from my profile automatically), and I just assumed that was the protagonist’s name. When it happened again in 5, I realized something was up (and discovered the nickname feature immediately after).
Design Labs
It’s a tradition in every Forza game that I design my wife a hideous car dubbed THE WIFEMOBILE. It uses all her favorite colors, resembles the car she drives, and has WIFE plastered on every surface in a gaudy cursive font. I was pleasantly surprised to see the decal editor in this game! I was sure it was a later addition. There’s some clunkiness (can’t paint stock tires, can’t change tires from the paint shop, can’t see all tires without clicking into each brand one at a time… tires are a pain!), but there IS a “copy all decals from other side” button. Unfortunately, they come in mirrored with no way to flip, so that’s a non-starter.