Games Season: Forza Horizon 2

   It's been a while since I played a racing game, and even longer since I really got in to one, probably PGR4, which apparently I last played in 2009. This however has taken over that mantle and even though I've now finished the main game, there's still more to do and I'm definitely going to go back and do at least some of it.
   It's an open world racer (I remember Test Drive unlimited doing this first (badly)) which means you can drive around, seeing sights, doing side mission (side races I guess really) and generally messing about. It's set in a fictional section of Europe involving France and Italy, which does add to the nice look of things too. There are a lot of tournaments though. There are 6 locations you go around to do the races in, with 9 main car categories and 26 (I think) sub categories of car. That means there's 26 tournaments of 4 races each in 6 locations making some 624 tournaments races in total. And to finish the main story you only have to do 60 races (as well as a huge 20 minute final) which leaves me with a further 524 tournament races yet! So, that's why I'll go back and do some of it, but I can't imagine I'll be doing all of it.
   How does it play then? It's definitely an arcade racer over a sim and it has lots of fun off roading and none of the courses are crazy difficult (It can get tough during the rain mind you). You get xp for skills like drifting, drafting, over taking, jumps and loads of other stuff, which combine to help you unlock perks like cheaper cars from the showroom and more xp per skill. There is a further xp gained from winning races and such that gives you a chance at a 'wheelspin' (I see what they did there) much like Wheel of fortune but instead of real, tangible prizes you get in game credits and cars. It's a fun way of getting rewards and you can pretend you're on a TV quiz show while it's happening.

   The AI cars are interesting as they are done from 'driveatars' (I see what they did there also) which are based on what other players of the game did in the same races and free roam situations, or so they say... Right, so it's a great theory, but either I'm the only guy in the world who plays racing games like a mentalist, overtaking other cars by ramming them in to walls, cutting all the corners and so on, or they are highly modified from what other people have actually done. I'd be tempted to say that they merely don't use the data from people who play like me but I keep getting free credits from where my Driveatar finishes in other peoples races, so that Can't be true (also, most people online seem to drive like me, but more on that later).
   Now, car selection. I always compare car selection in games to that of gran Turismo 1 and 2, due to the fact that at the time they were released they were both revolutionary and I was really in to cars (despite being about 10). We all know GT is famous for having a load of cars and FH2 (Forza Horizon 2) has something like 170 (with more available through DLC (which, BTW they are pushing so heavily that you'd think this was a free to play game where they had to sell DLC to make money (It isn't))) which isn't bad at all, especially when you can tune your cars and put on liveries of your own designs, from simple paint to insane designs which you could spend hours on. You can then upload these designs to the world for other people to use themselves on their own cars as well as showing up on the driveatar of the person in question. Now, no question this is great for people with creative minds of lots of time on their hands but I just can't be bothered. On top of this the cars are obviously split in to sub categories that each tournament involves, and even though some tournaments will give you the choice of 20+ cars, there are some which only have 3 or 4 cars to choose from and you have to think maybe they could have combined a few of these categories to give a wider array of cars in them and cut down a few of the crazy amount of tournaments at least.
   Speaking of GT1 and GT2 there are plenty of cars for me to enjoy based on that, especially in the 90's rally section where you can get mid 90's Imprezas, Lancers and Deltas as well as the likes of Skylines and Minis (there are loads more but I can't think of off the top of my head). Unfortunately though the car that I found the coolest in my childhood, the Ferrari F40 is disappointingly slow and barely makes 150mph (I guess I'm not getting those in game credits back).
   There are other things besides tournaments, like barn finds where you can find 10 beaten up wrecks in barns and get them restored and add them to your garage; speciality story events like racing against cargo plains, the stupidly named 'Bucket list' where you do 'dream' car things like drive a McLaren F1 really fast and other smaller things such as xp boards and speed traps which are all nice things to mix it up a bit from just the tournaments. Then there's online.

An example of the bizarre livery designs people will spend hours making

   Online seems okay in theory, obviously people online are a lot more challenging to race against and there are some neat road trip based concept races and mini games like Virus mode (Timesplitters fans rejoice, it's the same thing). There are problems though. I got quite a lot of lag and the cars do not match up great. There are 6 categories of car in the game (performance wise) you see, D,C.B.A.S1,S2. Each has a rating system and as with all things online people have the highest possible performance setting for each tournament, something I didn't appreciate, so my car somewhere in the mid A range got slaughtered but the opposition which were all inches away from being S1. It's not that I have a problem with this, it just seems like you really have to commit to playing online by spending loads of credits on the right upgrades for the right cars. I'll just stick to single player then I guess, though I can appreciate what the online has to offer for dedicated players.
   There are a few issues mind you. of the 26 categories of car, 5 of them are muscle cars, which we all know suck. Also, the host of this tournament and guy that holds the loose story together is the epitome of the word 'douchebag'. Add to this the typical in game boring radio stations (with no funny adds either!) and somewhat annoying menus and there are some minor frustrations in it.
   Overall though, it is a fantastic racing game that may well replace my use of FIFA as a game on the side to play when I want a break from whatever game I'm actually playing. I'm not the racing genre's biggest fan though and there always seems like there's something missing for me in a racing game and that I want to do more. Maybe shoot someone, have a cool story, be able to punch someone off their bike or have a bit of humour in it. I'm not saying I can't appreciate how good the racing is, but I'm going to have to give in an 8/10.