The Forza Horizon series blasts off in the twilight hours of the Xbox 360's life time, creating a trend of alternating Forza releases that loosely continues to this day.

Starting up Forza Horizon after playing dozens of hours of 4 and 5 on the Xbox One X and Series X consoles feels like stepping back into the past - the 30fps frame rate and clean 720p imagery make it feel very 2012. Controls are a little less responsive due to the lower frame rate, and everything from car movement and track design feels like it maximizes the hardware's capabilities. It's a little bit more Burnout Paradise in its open world design than later Xbox One era titles, but the restrictions help focus the experience. Its minimalism comes as a benefit, with Horizon being incredibly straightforward compared to its gargantuan successors. There's a lot to be said about good, clean racing on well designed tracks.

The structure also massively benefits from its milder ambitions - earning points by winning races in order to unlock new races just feels so much more grounded in this game than it does in later titles. You're allowed to set your own progression pace - later Forza Horizon titles flop new races onto you all the time after finishing current ones automatically, obscuring your sense of progress on the map. This game allows you to earn points and trigger the addition of new races at your leisure, which makes it feel all the more flexible in its relationship with you.

It's an incredible game to revisit or play for the first time at any time. Truly an exceptional work of craftsmanship.

O jogo de corrida definitivo. Forza Horizon é sem dúvidas a melhor experiencia em um jogo de corrida que eu já tive, história, jogabilidade, gráficos para sua época, trilha sonora..

Algo que eu gosto muito aqui e que infelizmente se perdeu nos Forza seguintes é o sistema de progressão, você começar com um carro fraco e ao longo do jogo ir evoluindo com os dinheiros das corridas é algo muito gratificante e recompensador.

Uma pena ter saido da loja do Xbox, porém se tiver a oportunidade e gostar de jogos de corrida, jogue sem pensar.

Forza Horizon is the inverse of Horizon 4 for me. Where everything I liked and disliked about that game has been flipped with this. There's a sparse linearity to the progression here. It's just race and unlock wristbands. Likewise a sparseness to the map itself. There's virtually no off road racing in this game, no destructible environments to the point of making a checkpoint or way marker useless by way of rumbling across the terrain. I think it's pretty telling that the last three games in the series feature an SUV on the cover alongside some sort of supercar. In contrast, Horizon 1 is pretty much all highways, all coated in a warm, autumn Colorado sunset. It reminds me a lot of NFS Hot Pursuit 2010, just minus the police and a lot more infectious and fun to play. There's an actual story and characters in this game and a genuine reason to race in events. I enjoyed beating the shallow arrogant villain racers, especially Darius Flynt (what a name). It's something the Horizon 3 and 4 really lacked. I thought the festival atmosphere made the most sense too, felt like the most realistic actual festival setting - basically Coachella with race events for some reason (the concept itself is still fairly unbelievable). Features a small, but manageable car list that actively encourages and necessitates variety in which cars you race.

All good things to say in comparison to where I think the series evolved with Horizon 4. But saying all that, I still find this game to be empty and utterly sanitised. The driving physics are still rad and pretty much the same. It's a fun game to play, but it still feels a bit too easy. And I'm hypocritical, but I find the strict adherence to road racing a detriment to the fun. It's not really an open world racer. It's an open world menu screen where you can drove to whichever track event you want to participate in. It's a good blueprint for what's to come, sadly I think they went too far with it and kind of lost whatever identity they were striving for. I also don't find the car presentation in this game to be that appealing, something it shares with Horizon 4. The cars barely feel like they exist. Just a bit dated. Fun. But really just a sanitised, slightly better Need for Speed.

Review largely assembled from my notes. Video review coming, someday.

All right, it’s on. Been thinking to play this for years, and got it for free on XBL before it got delisted from the marketplace.

I’m enjoying it so far, and already excited to see how they improve in subsequent entries. This one is inspired. So many fun details scattered about like speed traps, discount signs to smash, and barns to find. The different bonuses and awards you can stack up by driving stylishly are nifty.

The game world is gorgeous, and from what I can tell, it’s not obnoxiously big. Trying to keep stuff a little intimate, for an open world driver (not a bad thing). I’m playing on Series X and 4K, so it looks fantastic. It loads so fast that I can’t bask in the pretty pictures or read any of the text.

So far, the driving is fun. I might have to crank up the difficulty. I ended up waffling between Medium and Hard difficulty depending on the race. I definitely skewed more Medium as I got towards the end. The physics are definitely not simulation, and I appreciate it. Handling is more forgiving, and it allows you to do some goofy stuff and recover instead of punish you.

I’m DIGGING the music. Great selection. Teleporting me straight back to my senior year in high school 😂

The whole conceit of the festival is realized really well, and setting it in Colorado fits perfectly. Can’t wait to see what other stuff they throw at me. They fleshed out so much detail. The festival setting itself, the banners and barricades, the posters with bands performing, the outposts and events marked with colored smoke, the colored wristband on your avatar in cockpit view, the rivals at each level that you have to face-off with, the radio stations constantly bantering about festival hijinks, the special events (Mustang vs. Mustang is a particularly memorable one), the crowds cheering you on, the popularity meter, everything reinforces the setting and central conceit. The game repeatedly points you back to what you are doing and why you’re here, which in turn makes everything you do feel purposeful.

The HUD/interface gets a little crowded and overwhelming at times, but I have a feeling I’m going to get used to it and get better at deciphering what flashes up and what I can disregard. I know I can tweak some of that too; so maybe I will.

I have a screenshot bone to pick. There are two resolution options for saving screens: sub 1 megapixel, and something like 8 or 9 megapixels. You can’t save them in the high res anymore, since the servers are shut down. The low res is pretty blurry on the 4K TV. I could screenshot the 4K photo mode preview in-game with the system screenshot, but you can’t take down all the HUD elements telling you what buttons do what in screenshot mode. So that ruins that. 😑

The auto HDR is exceptional. The One X Enhanced treatment too. Game is near flawless looking ten years later. Every once in a while, there’s a bit of a hiccup with shadows or reflections, but the few things I noticed came and went in the blink of an eye. And I don’t know what blemishes were endemic to the original 360 version as opposed to what gremlins may have arisen when updating it and playing it on new hardware and auto HDR.

Part of what I’m about to say could tip my hand that I’m incredibly behind on the cutting edge of gaming as a whole, and there have been four more Horizon titles made on progressively more powerful hardware, but I’d believe you if you told me Horizon came out two or three years ago. It looks that good.

Absolutely love this game. So much to do and see. So many hidden places just waiting to be discovered, nothing there to reward you except the view and the feeling of discovery. Driving around and just exploring is its own reward, and their rendition of Colorado is breathtaking.

Final impressions of the game as I’m reflecting on it. There’s more I could do, but I definitely gutted the majority of it. I left a few main events undone, along with more that I didn’t take 1st place, but I’m okay with that. I did enough to beat the game, finished with a boatload of credits that I could go back to someday to buy more cars, but not right now.

Interesting to see just how much of modern Horizon is already in place in the first title (the majority of it really).

Colorado is an... OK location in my opinion. Having dabbled a lot in later games, it feels like a combo of the mountains of Mexico and the motorways of the UK but with none of the charm of either, but it's still nice enough to race around. Although the environment not being destructible (i.e. not being able go knock down wooden fences) is very irritating so I'm glad this was changed in future entries.

I miss 60FPS, but load times on Series X are great thankfully.

Also, having a definite ending and credits is really nice, wish future titles stuck to this!

Anyways, I marathoned most of this game in one sitting. It's 5am, I've been playing since 7. I'm off to collapse in a puddle.

Excellent game.

Very nice to see the beginning of the series before it was bloated and they just handed you supercars left and right. Progressing slowly through the car ranks was very fun!

Docked a point because the world wasn't that exciting. Colorado is probably my least favorite locale they've used.