Forza Horizon
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Forza Horizon drives today into a much better place
Hey, Timothy, remember when we talked about wanting a modern Knight Rider game but with a sultry-sounding lady car? Well, Timbo, it looks like someone's been paying attention.
Must See HDTV (October 22nd - 28th)
While baseball's postseason moves on to its final round, football is just hitting its stride and NBA preseason action is just beginning to get interesting. This week Blade Runner gets yet another HD home release, there's one more presidential debate, and on Friday the maker of Pushing Daisies returns for a one-off / backdoor pilot attempt called Mockingbird Lane -- check out a teaser after the break. Look below for the highlights this week, followed after the break by our weekly listing of what to look out for in TV, Blu-ray and videogames. I, Robot (3D) A 3D Blu-ray release isn't uncommon these days, however I, Robot has a fresh twist: it wasn't in 3D in theaters, ever. Fox has made the interesting decision of converting the flick in post and releasing a 3D version exclusively for the home. Fans of the 2004 Will Smith flick can snag a $24.99 Blu-ray 3D set, but if you pre-ordered at Comic-Con, it comes with a bust of the robot character, Sonny. We'll have to wait and see if this trend takes off (Fox says it has more titles in the pipeline), or if people prefer the standard original releases. ($24.99 on Amazon) Forza Horizon The Forza series has brought its brand of sim racing to Xbox consoles for several generations, but this latest version takes all of its underlying technology on a trip to the arcade side of town. You won't be doing so much tweaking under the hood this time, but there's still a healthy selection of cars plus options for night and off road racing to keep you interested. Joystiq was impressed enough by its "massive toy chest of hyper-accurate Hot Wheels" to give it four out of five stars, racing fans can check out a demo on Xbox Live now. ($59.99 on Amazon) World Series Baseball fans, it all comes down to this. For the championship in 2012 the Detroit Tigers will face TBD in an epic battle that kicks off Wednesday night. Either St. Louis or San Francisco will be representing the National League in the World Series, but we'll have to wait until tonight's game to know which one. The days for the games are already locked in however, so clear your schedule as needed.
Forza Horizon 'Rally Expansion Pack' kicks up dirt December 18
Forza Horizon will veer wildly off the beaten path with a new DLC expansion due December 18. The "Rally Expansion Pack" adds off-road rally racing to Turn 10's racer, including "deeper ruts, higher jumps, and new surface types to explore."Unlike in real life, it'll be fun to drive in these unsafe conditions because the game provides you with virtual, rally-tuned vehicles and a helpful co-driver. So you're not just out there ruining your own car in some mud.The Rally Expansion Pack will cost 1,600 Microsoft Points on its own ($20), and will be included at no additional cost as part of the Season Pass.
Forza Horizon review: Baby, you can drive my car
There's no dearth of hardcore simulation racing games out there. They cater to die-hard, petrol-drinking motorsport enthusiasts, but what about that other, less intense breed of car enthusiast? Some may dream of being Rubens Barrichello, but many others want nothing more than an open road and a mid-engine anything.Forza Horizon is a game for someone who knows the difference between a Lotus and a TVR, but may not know what PSI is most appropriate for slick tires on a sub-70 degree morning. It's a game for people who DVR Top Gear on BBC America, but not the Monte Carlo Grand Prix or Barret-Jackson auction coverage on Speed TV. In essence, Forza Horizon is a massive toy chest full of hyper-accurate hot wheels. Oh, and dubstep. There's a lot of dubstep.%Gallery-163548%
PSA: Forza Horizon demo is go go go, also new screens and dev diary
The Forza Horizon demo is now live on Xbox Marketplace, waiting for you to buckle up and drive it like crazy. All of which means the game is now on the horizon, releasing as it is on October 23. Alright, we promise that's the last 'horizon' pun we'll make*.
Forza Horizon demo pulls into Xbox Live October 9
Forza Horizon launches on the Xbox 360 October 23, but a few weeks before then you'll be able to get behind the wheel early with a demo on October 9. Available free to Xbox Live Gold subscribers for the first week and everyone else after, the Forza Horizon demo will feature a few missions, several of which will be Rivals mode-compatible – you'll be able to compare demo deeds with your Xbox Live friends.A section of Forza Horizon's sandbox map will be unlocked in the demo and all those who download then purchase the game on October 23 will get a custom 2013 SRT Viper GTS "designed to highlight Forza Horizon's 'gone-gold' status."
Forza Horizon gets a Season Pass, $50 for access to all DLC
Microsoft has announced a Season Pass DLC plan for the upcoming Forza Horizon, the latest entry in the racing series that is set in a virtual representation of the state of Colorado. The Season Pass will cost $50 USD (or 4,000 Microsoft Points), and grant access to the game's Expansion Pack set to arrive in December.Season Pass holders will also nab each of the six car packs as they're released over the next year, as well as five exclusive Season Pass vehicles and a batch of launch day rides. Turn 10 will reveal all of these cars gradually on its Twitter feed. The Season Pass (which represents a 17 percent saving on all of this content) will be available for purchase on October 23, right when the game turns the key for launch.In addition, we've got tracklists for each of the game's three radio stations, all churning out tunes during the in-game "Horizon Festival." Have a look at the songs, after the break.
Forza Horizon post-launch plan includes monthly car packs, first 'expansion pack' on Dec. 18
Turn 10 and Playground Games will aim to stock the Forza Horizon virtual garage with monthly car packs, design director Ralph Fulton has revealed. There will also be expansion packs, the first of which will launch on December 18."What we're really excited about is some expansion packs we have coming, the first of which will launch on December 18th and that will really extend the experience you can have in Forza Horizon," Fulton told Gamerzines. He also confirmed a demo would eventually come to Xbox Live, which seems fitting since it's a Microsoft-published game and also cars.
Forza Horizon dev diary races against the world
Forza Horizon takes things off the track into the wilds of Colorado, where for the first time in the series players will have to deal with traffic, sometimes even at night. Just for fun, we like to imagine that every SUV on the road is full of nuns on their way to nun school.
Taking the road less traveled in Forza Horizon
Forza Horizon marks the franchise's first foray into an open-world setting. It's hinged on a fictional racing festival in Colorado, where anyone can show up with their ride and chase the kind of immortality known only to Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. Playground Games, a new outfit composed of former Bizarre Creations and Codemasters folks, is developing the game under supervision of longtime Forza custodian Turn 10 Studios.Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt equates Forza Horizon to Coachella or Bonnaroo, a grassroots festival celebrating the culture and style of its particular scene. The Horizon festival provides the vehicle (sorry!) for gameplay, a smattering of different race types and challenges wrapped in a diverse campaign.%Gallery-163548%
Fame is always just over the Forza Horizon
Ralph Fulton of Playground Games was very insistent that Forza Horizon is not, in fact, an arcade racing game. It may take place in an open-world version of Colorado, may be free from traditional Forza career modes and may feature a youth-focused licensed soundtrack (read: dubstep), but the actual driving is built on Forza's physics engine.The problem with arcade-style racing games, according to Fulton, is that the appeal of racing different vehicles is lost due to the fact that all cars have to handle roughly the same in order to preserve an "arcade" feel. By using Forza's existing physics engine, Playground Games hopes to circumnavigate this problem and preserve the series' pedigree for for automotive accuracy.That being said, the only car featured in the demonstration I saw was the 2013 SRT Viper, and as it was a hands-off demonstration, I was unable to compare its handling with my experience driving similar cars in previous Forza games. What I can say, is that the Viper did more than its fair share of drifting around Colorado's mountain roads, and that it racked up wicked popularity points doing so. See, in Forza Horizon, you're not just driving around for the hell of it. You're driving to get famous.%Gallery-157065%
Forza Horizon to feature voice-activated Kinect GPS
Forza Horizon's take on Kinect integration will be a bit more utilitarian than the dynamic head tracking seen in Forza 4, allowing players to use voice commands to activate the game's GPS system and find their way through Horizon's open-world version of Colorado."We received two recurring feedback points while we were looking at this game," Playground Games' design director Ralph Fulton told us during E3. "The first one is really simple, people said 'This world so big, I found it really easy to get lost.' The second is kind of related to that, people said 'Sometimes I forget where I'm going, or what I want to do next.'"Forza Horizon's solution to this problem is a voice-activated GPS system that the player can use to find specific locations, such as the game's eponymous Horizon Festival ("GPS, Festival, Autoshow"), as well as ask more generic questions ("Where's my next race? Where's my nearest event?"). Once the Kinect registers the player's request, Forza's familiar line of green arrows extends from the underbelly of the vehicle, guiding the player to their destination.
Forza Horizon races onto 360 October 23 [Update: Trailer added!]
Turn 10's Forza Horizon will launch on Xbox 360 October 23, Microsoft just announced during its pre-E3 press conference in Los Angeles. Also, there was dubstep. That's the first of E3! Congratulations!
Here's the first Forza Horizon screenshot
Back when Forza Horizon was first officially announced by Microsoft and Playground Games back in March, all we had to gaze upon was a montage of desperately pretty cars and people, living the kind of life you'd expect someone with that kind of a car to live.Now, though, we've got our first real look at the game in the form of the screenshot above, which features the 2013 SRT Dodge Viper, some rocks, an extremely flat American highway and the same vignette framing we've come to expect from Forza in-game screenshots. Granted, this is but a single image, but from where we're sitting it sure does look a hell of a lot like a Forza game, which is reassuring considering that this is Playground Games' first spin behind the franchise's wheel.%Gallery-155619%
Forza Horizon spun off by Playground Games
The developers at Playground Games are about to experience the worst thing about developing a new game in Microsoft's Forza racing franchise. Once you announce it, you have to gradually withstand the pun-heavy headlines that result. Forza Horizon really is a spin-off, though.Set to launch in Fall 2012, when Forza Motorsport proper takes a break, Forza Horizon aims to adjust the tone of the franchise and inject some new, Turn 10-approved talent into the development pipeline. Microsoft has yet to share much on the game beyond a live-action trailer, which hints at a more playful, festival atmosphere for racing, but was quick to point at the pedigree of Playground Games.The company was founded during 2009 in England's Leamington Spa, starting with veteran developers from Codemasters (Dirt) and encompassing talent from as far back as Psygnosis. Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenwalt describes the announcement as a new "wing" for the Forza series. You may have seen it leaking over the weekend, at which point it was more of a huge spoiler.
