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The third exhilarating installment to the top open-world racing game franchise from Microsoft's Playground Games

The third exhilarating installment to the top open-world racing game franchise from Microsoft's Playground Games

Vote: (36 votes)

Program license: Paid

Developer: Microsoft Studios

Works under: Windows

Vote:

Program license

(36 votes)

Paid

Developer

Microsoft Studios

Works under:

Windows

Pros

  • Incredible graphics
  • Very tight controls
  • Countless tracks
  • Open-world driving

Cons

  • Demanding system requirements
  • Upgrades are only bound to a single car

Forza Horizon 3 is an open-world racing game that doesn't have any absolute set goals beyond what you want to hold yourself to. You're free to explore and drive around to your heart's content, though the most interesting parts of the game require you to unlock certain events to get into.

By entering races, you'll be able to earn money and experience points. Your XP counter shows how much experience you have with a certain vehicle. Driving in the free world mode doesn't give you that much in the way of XP, but it's a great way to practice. This is especially true for any new vehicles you might have just recently acquired and so far been unable to figure out all of the details of.

After you've gotten a handle on the best way to tackle certain machines, you'll want to find events to participate in. Of course, you're free to tear around in fields and kick up dust as much as you want. If you don't mind a lack of progress when it comes to leveling up cars, then this mode can be a lot of fun.

Eventually, you'll probably want to turn into a professional driver. Before going pro you'll need to challenge the AI opponents to races. They'll usually accept your challenges on the spot, which is an excellent way to earn money.

Since completing these challenges essentially consists of just driving around, you won't feel at all like you were being forced to grind for material. In fact, this is probably going to constitute the core gameplay for most players.

Over time, you can get enough money in this way to upgrade your vehicles with special kits. Head over to the garage to install them and customize the paint of every machine you race in. If you have a favorite real world race team, then you'll probably find that there's more than enough of a palette here to recreate the experience of it. On the other hand, plenty of gamers have fun simply designing their own paint layouts.

Unfortunately, you're going to need to buy separate upgrade kits for each vehicle you have. A kit never works for more than one car. That makes the grinding process a little more difficult for those who want to end up with a garage full of vehicles that all have equally impressive stats.

You may want to restrict yourself to just a few cars at first, since unlocking everything in Forza Horizon 3 can take a very long time. On top of this, you'll want to have a pretty competitive machine to drive so you can unlock everything else.

Money earned in one vehicle stays with your team, so you're free to spend it on any of the other cars that you have in your garage. That frees you to keep driving a leveled up car while you're working on unlocking upgrades for vehicles that are currently too slow to race competitively.

Eventually, you might be lucky enough to happen on some barn finds that give you special cars to race. If you've ever heard of anyone who found an old REO in a barn, then this is your chance to finally do the same thing albeit in a virtual world.

You might also have a chance to put together a bucket list of racing challenges that you want to compete. A convenient dashboard tells you how close you are to finishing these.

As you grow your collection, you'll earn the opportunity to hire drivers who can complete these challenges for you. While the AI drivers aren't exactly perfect, they can help you get through the single player campaign much more quickly. This gives you more time to simply tear up dirt tracks and have fun.

Even though its not meant to be a realistic simulation of an actual official racing series, Forza Horizon 3 has a highly developed graphics engine that does make everything look much more realistic than you might expect. That should keep you coming back even if you eventually get an opportunity to unlock everything.

More than likely, you should be able to enjoy the multiplayer missions that much more when you're done gaining XP and money as well. Once you get vehicles that are as fast as those that everyone else is driving, this mode becomes so much more fun than it is at first. Players who stick with the game and don't give up are going to enjoy it the most, as it gets move involved as they gain additional experience.

Pros

  • Incredible graphics
  • Very tight controls
  • Countless tracks
  • Open-world driving

Cons

  • Demanding system requirements
  • Upgrades are only bound to a single car