Anyone else looking forward to this?
A recent gameplay vid with some dev commentary: -
The game world is 3 times larger than that of the previous Forza Horizon. There's day and night driving as well as dynamic weather effects. There's a Kinect-based assistant in the game called ANNA, that presumably you can say voice commands to. You can start a car club that can have up to 1,000 members and it has seamless drop in/drop out online multiplayer (plus it uses Drivatars, as did Forza 5).
Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Moderator: Sigma
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - September 30th)
Launch trailer: -
I'm really looking forward to this!
I'm really looking forward to this!
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
The demo is out now on the Xbox One.
I'm really impressed with it. Graphically, when you play it, it looks the same as it does in the trailer above.
The map is huge too, although you only get to play in a restricted area in the demo. Accessing events is really quick. You just pull up at the start point of one and press X and you're in. The game seems like it will have a ton of content.
Here's a short clip of me playing it, although the video's only 720p (the game is native 1080p) and it's compressed to shit by the Xbox One's Game DVR: -
I'm really impressed with it. Graphically, when you play it, it looks the same as it does in the trailer above.
The map is huge too, although you only get to play in a restricted area in the demo. Accessing events is really quick. You just pull up at the start point of one and press X and you're in. The game seems like it will have a ton of content.
Here's a short clip of me playing it, although the video's only 720p (the game is native 1080p) and it's compressed to shit by the Xbox One's Game DVR: -
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Looks like a good time.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
This seems to be the racing game I always wanted from the demo.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Demo was cool and left me wanting to play more. Will probably wait for a sale before picking this up though.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I pre-downloaded the regular edition as Amazon were selling £50 Xbox Live cards for £40 so it gave me 20% off. It's a pain having to wait until October 3rd to play it though, knowing that the game is already downloaded and ready to go, especially as it unlocks 3 days earlier for people in the US.
I tried out the online free roam mode in the demo too. It seems pretty cool. Quick and almost seamless. You choose to go online and it starts searching for other players while you're still driving around in single player mode, then there's a short cut scene and you transition straight over into the online mode. I'm not 100% sure how it works as I only had 1 go at it, but there were about 10 players in the game I played and 1 of them was acting as a host, setting up races and challenges. When the host sets up a race, a little notification pops up at the top of the screen and you can hold down X to join in, in which case there's another short cut scene and then you're all lined up on the starting grid ready to go, or if you just ignore the notification you can keep doing your own thing, so you pretty much play it how you want to play it.
I tried out the online free roam mode in the demo too. It seems pretty cool. Quick and almost seamless. You choose to go online and it starts searching for other players while you're still driving around in single player mode, then there's a short cut scene and you transition straight over into the online mode. I'm not 100% sure how it works as I only had 1 go at it, but there were about 10 players in the game I played and 1 of them was acting as a host, setting up races and challenges. When the host sets up a race, a little notification pops up at the top of the screen and you can hold down X to join in, in which case there's another short cut scene and then you're all lined up on the starting grid ready to go, or if you just ignore the notification you can keep doing your own thing, so you pretty much play it how you want to play it.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
^Nice deal. I am mad because one of our big chain store was running a special a couple of weeks ago buy one Xbox Card get the second 25 percent off. I forgot to go back to pick a few up and of course I want to get a few games and add ons but now hate paying full price. Which brings me to how is D4?
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I started playing D4 last night, but I quit out of it as I didn't really have much time to play and I didn't want to start getting too into it.
Because I've only played it for a few minutes, I can't really give you any proper impressions, but I liked what I saw. As I have my Xbox One set up in a spare room at the moment and I sit quite close to a computer monitor, I played it with a controller, but I think this might actually be one game that is better with Kinect. As it's a point and click adventure game, basically, when you use a controller you're using the left stick to move a mouse pointer around the screen and it's easier to just hold out your arm and point directly at things. The story started to get its hooks into me right from the beginning, so that's a good sign.
Because I've only played it for a few minutes, I can't really give you any proper impressions, but I liked what I saw. As I have my Xbox One set up in a spare room at the moment and I sit quite close to a computer monitor, I played it with a controller, but I think this might actually be one game that is better with Kinect. As it's a point and click adventure game, basically, when you use a controller you're using the left stick to move a mouse pointer around the screen and it's easier to just hold out your arm and point directly at things. The story started to get its hooks into me right from the beginning, so that's a good sign.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Some review scores: -
IGN - 9/10
Eurogamer - 9/10
Destructoid - 9½/10
Polygon - 7/10
Crave - 9½/10
CVG - 9/10
Looking good so far.
IGN - 9/10
Eurogamer - 9/10
Destructoid - 9½/10
Polygon - 7/10
Crave - 9½/10
CVG - 9/10
Looking good so far.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
My editor-in-chief dug it and gave it a 92, so yeah, apparently this is a cool racing game.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Which website/magazine do you work for man?
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I am a Senior Editor over at Gaming Illustrated (gamingillustrated.com). It is a local site started down here in Southern California, and I've been writing there for a while.Sigma wrote:Which website/magazine do you work for man?
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Nice! I'll give it a proper look over the weekend. I remember you mentioning before that you worked for a gaming site, but I couldn't remember which one it was.None wrote:I am a Senior Editor over at Gaming Illustrated (gamingillustrated.com). It is a local site started down here in Southern California, and I've been writing there for a while.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Cool. I usually keep it relatively quiet since I don't want to seem like a weird spammer or promoter on here.Sigma wrote:Nice! I'll give it a proper look over the weekend. I remember you mentioning before that you worked for a gaming site, but I couldn't remember which one it was.None wrote:I am a Senior Editor over at Gaming Illustrated (gamingillustrated.com). It is a local site started down here in Southern California, and I've been writing there for a while.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I'm loving this game!
Graphically, it looks great. I can often notice when a fast moving game is running at 30 FPS, but for some reason with this I can't. The feeling of speed you get in the fast cars is superb too.
They've brought things from Forza 5 over to this game that the previous Horizon game didn't have, such as car customisation and upgrades. The game can be customised in all kinds of ways, so you can play it almost like a sim (in the way the car controls), or you can turn all of the assists on and keep the difficulty on medium and it's quite arcadey. The higher the skill level you select and the more assists you turn off, the more XP you earn.
The single player game is packed full of content. There are dozens and dozens of events across different classes of car. If you see a drivatar driving around and you get close to it, it'll pop up the skill level of it and you can choose to challenge it in a quick race for a reward. There's even events that remind me a little of Crazy Taxi, such as having to closely overtake 20 cars in a set time. There's hidden barn finds (cars hidden in barns that you can add to your collection), speed traps, barriers to break that give you extra XP etc. I also really like how you can earn XP by driving in a certain way, such as building up a chain by drifting, closely overtaking cars etc. and that chain breaks if you crash and you lose all of the XP. They've taken great elements of different racing games and brought them all together while adding some ideas of their own.
I like the voice controls in this game too. Your cars have an on-board computer/sat nav called Anna. When you say "Anna" a little menu pops up, then you say one of the words on that menu and so on, so for example you can say "Anna....nearest....garage" and she'll set the route to the nearest garage for you. You can even ask her for a suggestion of what to do next. It's such a little thing really, but it's nice to be able to do it while you're still driving around without having to go into the world map, which obviously takes you out of the game while you set your destination.
I also like that when you level up, you get to spin a wheel that gives you a bonus. It's a total gamble, so you may just get some extra credits, but there are cars on the wheel too, so if you're really lucky you can win a high end car for free. There's also a skill tree where you can unlock additional perks, such as getting a 20% XP boost when you drift.
In terms of the "world population" I think they've got it just right. It's a mix of straight up AI cars and drivatars (AI cars modelled on the driving characteristics of real players), but the roads don't feel too empty or too packed. There's also weather and day/night cycles for the first time in Forza game. I think the game looks at its best when it's raining. Oh, and your drivatar will earn credits for you when you're not even playing for real, just like in Forza 5.
There will be car packs available to purchase, but you earn credits pretty rapidly, so you don't have to wait long before you can buy a high end car - in fact, you get given a Ferrari right near the start of the game. I think they've got that part of it just right, as you still have to save up for quite a while to buy a Bugatti Veyron, but they haven't put micro-transactions in there and made earning credits a real grind to tempt you into paying real money.
When the game first started I was a little disappointed that there were only 3 radio stations, but more unlock as you reach new cities. I've unlocked a further 2 so far - a Hospital Records station and a Ninja Tune one.
I've not played much of the online stuff yet. You can jump into the online mode at any time, but each city also has a car club and if you drive up to it, you can jump into online modes there too. I tried a quick race and came last, lol. It was very quick to get into an online game though, and there wasn't a hint of lag (the game uses dedicated servers).
If I was to criticise anything, it would be that sometimes I found it hard to see where to go when doing an off-road race, even with the racing line turned on. When there's a lot of bushes/foliage in the way, it can be tough to see where to go sometimes. Also, I swear I've seen AI cars miss checkpoints once or twice without being penalised, while if you miss one as a player you have to go back - the game does have the rewind system from past Forza games though, so if you do miss one you can just quickly rewind. There's a damage model, but it's not that severe. For instance, it's not like the Burnout games where if you have a head-on smash, you get a short cut scene where you see your car being wrecked. Your car does suffer some damage, but it's basically like a tank - I'm not really sure that's a criticism though, as if every time you crashed into a tree or another car head-on you saw a cut scene and your car was wrecked, it would probably get annoying. It's certainly not a realistic damage model though.
Based on what I've played, I think this is one of the best racing games ever made. If racing on real tracks is your thing, it might not be for you as it's certainly not a sim racer, even though with the right settings the cars drive in a sim-like realistic way, but it's so good in so many areas that it's really hard to find anything to criticise.
Graphically, it looks great. I can often notice when a fast moving game is running at 30 FPS, but for some reason with this I can't. The feeling of speed you get in the fast cars is superb too.
They've brought things from Forza 5 over to this game that the previous Horizon game didn't have, such as car customisation and upgrades. The game can be customised in all kinds of ways, so you can play it almost like a sim (in the way the car controls), or you can turn all of the assists on and keep the difficulty on medium and it's quite arcadey. The higher the skill level you select and the more assists you turn off, the more XP you earn.
The single player game is packed full of content. There are dozens and dozens of events across different classes of car. If you see a drivatar driving around and you get close to it, it'll pop up the skill level of it and you can choose to challenge it in a quick race for a reward. There's even events that remind me a little of Crazy Taxi, such as having to closely overtake 20 cars in a set time. There's hidden barn finds (cars hidden in barns that you can add to your collection), speed traps, barriers to break that give you extra XP etc. I also really like how you can earn XP by driving in a certain way, such as building up a chain by drifting, closely overtaking cars etc. and that chain breaks if you crash and you lose all of the XP. They've taken great elements of different racing games and brought them all together while adding some ideas of their own.
I like the voice controls in this game too. Your cars have an on-board computer/sat nav called Anna. When you say "Anna" a little menu pops up, then you say one of the words on that menu and so on, so for example you can say "Anna....nearest....garage" and she'll set the route to the nearest garage for you. You can even ask her for a suggestion of what to do next. It's such a little thing really, but it's nice to be able to do it while you're still driving around without having to go into the world map, which obviously takes you out of the game while you set your destination.
I also like that when you level up, you get to spin a wheel that gives you a bonus. It's a total gamble, so you may just get some extra credits, but there are cars on the wheel too, so if you're really lucky you can win a high end car for free. There's also a skill tree where you can unlock additional perks, such as getting a 20% XP boost when you drift.
In terms of the "world population" I think they've got it just right. It's a mix of straight up AI cars and drivatars (AI cars modelled on the driving characteristics of real players), but the roads don't feel too empty or too packed. There's also weather and day/night cycles for the first time in Forza game. I think the game looks at its best when it's raining. Oh, and your drivatar will earn credits for you when you're not even playing for real, just like in Forza 5.
There will be car packs available to purchase, but you earn credits pretty rapidly, so you don't have to wait long before you can buy a high end car - in fact, you get given a Ferrari right near the start of the game. I think they've got that part of it just right, as you still have to save up for quite a while to buy a Bugatti Veyron, but they haven't put micro-transactions in there and made earning credits a real grind to tempt you into paying real money.
When the game first started I was a little disappointed that there were only 3 radio stations, but more unlock as you reach new cities. I've unlocked a further 2 so far - a Hospital Records station and a Ninja Tune one.
I've not played much of the online stuff yet. You can jump into the online mode at any time, but each city also has a car club and if you drive up to it, you can jump into online modes there too. I tried a quick race and came last, lol. It was very quick to get into an online game though, and there wasn't a hint of lag (the game uses dedicated servers).
If I was to criticise anything, it would be that sometimes I found it hard to see where to go when doing an off-road race, even with the racing line turned on. When there's a lot of bushes/foliage in the way, it can be tough to see where to go sometimes. Also, I swear I've seen AI cars miss checkpoints once or twice without being penalised, while if you miss one as a player you have to go back - the game does have the rewind system from past Forza games though, so if you do miss one you can just quickly rewind. There's a damage model, but it's not that severe. For instance, it's not like the Burnout games where if you have a head-on smash, you get a short cut scene where you see your car being wrecked. Your car does suffer some damage, but it's basically like a tank - I'm not really sure that's a criticism though, as if every time you crashed into a tree or another car head-on you saw a cut scene and your car was wrecked, it would probably get annoying. It's certainly not a realistic damage model though.
Based on what I've played, I think this is one of the best racing games ever made. If racing on real tracks is your thing, it might not be for you as it's certainly not a sim racer, even though with the right settings the cars drive in a sim-like realistic way, but it's so good in so many areas that it's really hard to find anything to criticise.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I am trying to wait for Black Friday to get this game because it will be 25 bucks but you are making me want to get it now.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
How far away is Black Friday?
Here's the best skill chain I've got in the game so far: -
Not the best driving I've ever done though, lol.
EDIT - 2 other things I forgot to mention that are great about this game: -
It has car clubs, so you can create your own club and then up to 1,000 people can join it. Clubs can run their own events and the game will often show you stats of how you compare to other members of your club as you're playing. You can also launch either of the main online modes with just members of your club. There are club leaderboards too, so you can see how your club is doing compared to others.
The photo mode is excellent. You can hold up on the D-pad at any point to enter photo mode, then you can freely move the camera around and take photos. There are even rewards for taking photos, as well as certain challenges, such as taking photos of 20 different cars.
Here's the best skill chain I've got in the game so far: -
Not the best driving I've ever done though, lol.
EDIT - 2 other things I forgot to mention that are great about this game: -
It has car clubs, so you can create your own club and then up to 1,000 people can join it. Clubs can run their own events and the game will often show you stats of how you compare to other members of your club as you're playing. You can also launch either of the main online modes with just members of your club. There are club leaderboards too, so you can see how your club is doing compared to others.
The photo mode is excellent. You can hold up on the D-pad at any point to enter photo mode, then you can freely move the camera around and take photos. There are even rewards for taking photos, as well as certain challenges, such as taking photos of 20 different cars.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
This. Although if I see the game on sale for <$40 I would probably go ahead and pick it up.ThaJim2 wrote:I am trying to wait for Black Friday to get this game because it will be 25 bucks but you are making me want to get it now.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I caved and went ahead and got the game digitally because I had some Xbox credit. I also picked up D4 - my initial impression is that the controls get in the way of my enjoyment, but maybe that will change once I get more used to it.
I'll give my FH2 impressions later.
I'll give my FH2 impressions later.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I played this online with some friends earlier for the first time tonight.
We spent part of the time just driving around and chatting on headsets. You can still do some of the single player stuff when you're playing online, such as barn finds and breaking the advertising banners to get XP and stuff.
We also did a bunch of races. There were only 3 of us playing and we didn't set up a public game, but it was still a lot of fun to play. The net code for this game is superb. There wasn't a hint of lag. It's really easy to set up a race too. Whoever is the party leader just drives up to one of the normal race/challenge spots and enters, then they get to choose the class of car (including "all"), and everyone else in the game gets a notification at the top of the screen that they've been invited to a race/challenge and you just press X and fast travel to where it starts, then everyone picks their cars and the event begins. You can rent cars too, so if you get invited to race using cars of a certain class and you don't own one, you can just rent one. Renting cars is free, but they don't let you rent the best cars in each class. If you don't want to enter a particular race, you just ignore the notification and carry on driving about in the open world.
The bucket list challenges become co-op bucket list challenges when you play online, so 2 players take part in them at the same time. We only did a couple of them, but they were cool.
We did some drag racing on an airstrip too, which was more fun than it sounds even though you're just driving in a straight line. As you can tune and upgrade cars, it's a good place to compare different vehicles/setups too. The airstrip has a speed camera on it, so we were also challenging each other to see who could get the fastest top speed.
I had a blast with it. With 12 people, it will be wicked.
We spent part of the time just driving around and chatting on headsets. You can still do some of the single player stuff when you're playing online, such as barn finds and breaking the advertising banners to get XP and stuff.
We also did a bunch of races. There were only 3 of us playing and we didn't set up a public game, but it was still a lot of fun to play. The net code for this game is superb. There wasn't a hint of lag. It's really easy to set up a race too. Whoever is the party leader just drives up to one of the normal race/challenge spots and enters, then they get to choose the class of car (including "all"), and everyone else in the game gets a notification at the top of the screen that they've been invited to a race/challenge and you just press X and fast travel to where it starts, then everyone picks their cars and the event begins. You can rent cars too, so if you get invited to race using cars of a certain class and you don't own one, you can just rent one. Renting cars is free, but they don't let you rent the best cars in each class. If you don't want to enter a particular race, you just ignore the notification and carry on driving about in the open world.
The bucket list challenges become co-op bucket list challenges when you play online, so 2 players take part in them at the same time. We only did a couple of them, but they were cool.
We did some drag racing on an airstrip too, which was more fun than it sounds even though you're just driving in a straight line. As you can tune and upgrade cars, it's a good place to compare different vehicles/setups too. The airstrip has a speed camera on it, so we were also challenging each other to see who could get the fastest top speed.
I had a blast with it. With 12 people, it will be wicked.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
Sigma, are you planning on getting the Storm Island DLC? It looks cool but I have so much content left in the main game, I may just wait for a sale.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
I think I'm gonna do the same. I'm still hooked on Titanfall, so that takes up the bulk of my gaming time and I also have a lot left to do in the main Forza game.Hush wrote:Sigma, are you planning on getting the Storm Island DLC? It looks cool but I have so much content left in the main game, I may just wait for a sale.
Re: Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One - Sept. 30th - Demo out now)
A stand-alone expansion for this is coming out on March 27th. It's called "Forza Horizon 2: Fast & Furious" and will feature cars from the movies. You play as a driver in France who has to steal certain cars. It will be free to download from March 27th to April 10th, then after that it will cost $10. You don't need to have bought Forza Horizon 2 in order to play it.