E3 2014 - Forza Horizon 2 Hands On

I’ll be honest; the Forza series has never been something I have spent a lot of time with. I did sink a great many hours in the most recent entry, but even that pales in comparison to what I have sunk into other games. So when Microsoft announced Forza Horizon a few years back I took notice and I am glad I did because it was good.

So we are now at the present day and Forza Horizon 2 is, well on the horizon and with all the new horsepower of the Xbox One does it add anything new. Before I had the chance to sit down and play the game I was able to spend 10 minutes chatting with the creative director of the game Ralph Fulton.
Ralph gave me a nice brief on what they wanted to achieve with the game, which was basically take what players loved about the first game and amp it up to 11. So it was with a little bit of excitement that I took a seat and jumped into the world of Forza Horizon 2.

The game is now set in the northern parts of Italy and the southern parts of France, which lends itself very well to some great driving spaces. In such a small section of the world you are treated to amazing coastlines, sun drenched plains and snow topped mountains. The race that I had saw me starting in a town and then barrelling across the country to another one. Sounds simple enough to be sure, but with open world right in front of you there are no barriers to tell you where to go.

At first I was doing pretty well, I stuck to the road and was moving up in the field. Up a head the checkpoint was just off to the left, I took my finger of the gas pedal and applied the break but of course as I was in a supercar the car does not just drift around a corner. I went barrelling off through a wooden fence, pieces of timber going everywhere and me bouncing off the bumps in the terrain. I was able to point the car in the right direction and started to make my way back to the road.

Just after I caught up with the other racers, I missed the next turn and went off the road into the trees. This caused even more problems because I was now in a small space and unable to correct myself, thankfully Forza Horizon 2 has just a solution, rewind. Yep the game now supports a rewind function that allows you to go back a set way to try and avoid the same mistake. Thankfully with this I was able to break earlier and avoid repeating my mistake.

I started to make great progress once I was on the asphalt, but it seems the game had other ideas. Yes, that brand new dynamic weather kicked in and a thunder storm started up and the rains came pouring down. All of a sudden I was lost, I had just finally learnt some control over the car and now with the road all wet, I was sliding everywhere. At this point my Burnout training kicked in and I started using the stone walls and cliff edges as assists to help get around those pesky corners.  The finish line was insight; I was sitting in 3rd and making a final dash for it. I crossed the line and breathed a sigh of relief, I thought if the game can make me this exhilarated and frustrated at once, then it’s a game for me.

Forza Horizon 2 is coming Xbox One and Xbox 360 this year.