Am I missing the point of this? If I buy a car game its to race. This looks like a mini-game from Grand Theft Auto. Yes, it's pretty. But, what do you do, exactly? I remember Gran Tourismo and sinking a hundred or two hours into RACING. Licenses, used cars, new cars, trophy cars, modding, adjusting all the parameters of suspension, transmissions, etc. Is Forza not that sort of game?
Here I will take a shot at this. Mind you, it's free with gamepass at 9.99 on Tuesday. People playing bought the ultimate edition which includes tons of cars, VIP car pass and events, and the two seasonal DLC's.
It's an open world racing game with lots of fun things to do. I will list what I know of but I am sure there are more.
1) Racing. You have off road racing, street racing, racing against other players on the fly, and also against AI.
2) Stunt driving. In this game, in the demo, you are hired by a movie director to perform stuns for their movie. Jumping over trains, jets, breaking through barriers, going through fire, etc. It's all pretty hilarious fun. It is more than just what I described as they always have very original "Holy shit" moments throughout the game.
3) Speed traps. Trying to go as fast as you can in a car to get clocked as fast as possible.
4) Barns. Part of the game is trying to find other cars hidden in barns. Which you then get to drive later and alter and play with.
5) Car customization is ridiculous. You have an enormous amount of flexibility in not only how your car drives, but how it looks. Paint jobs, decals, tires, rims, license plate, all the way to how the horn sounds. And tons of options on where you want that placed on the car. You can also share those with other players.
6) Demolition. Part of the fun is going around destroying things. For example, to unlock fast travel without paying money you have to knock down all the specific bill boards.
7) In this game, seasonal changes with Spring, Fall, Winter and summer - all each having their own driving mechanics.
8) Coop and online play is fantastic from racing to just messing around trying to destroy each other.
There is a TON of content I am missing ,Just when you think you have seen everything, there is something new from a game play type perspective.
Forza 3 Horizons is free on gamepass, so if you have an Xbox One, S or X, or a PC with Windows 10 you can get gamepass and play it to see if you like it.
Once I played Forza 3, I hate to say it but I kinda fell in love with it. Not so much yet if I am going to blow 99 on it to play this weekend, but it comes out Tuesday otherwise for Gamepass. For 9.99 for a month, you can play quite a bit of it (And everything else included in GP)
I would say give it a shot if you like anything to do with racing in other games. There is a lot of narrative. It's kind of like you are the guest star in a fast and furious movie without the movie drama plot and just the fun. The game looks gorgeous as well. And the racing gets VERY addicting.
It's also just a very cool and casual game to jump into and screw around in.
Seasons will be fantstic this time around. Ice turns to water and back and forth and open up new places on the map to race on and explore. And all the gameplay options open up over time. I lost 3 hours once just customizing a car to look like a Viking football hemet lol it was awesome.
Radio stations as well. For example: With the Hot Wheels DLC (Epic) you drive hot wheels cars on stunt tracks and some of the scenarios are hilarious. Like dodging a T-Rex.
In this version, they even have a Halo level lol