Forza Horizon 4: Lego Speed Champions, I've cleared the brick challenge board, everything is done in that expansion pack so I guess now is a good time to start talking about how I overall feel with the game, as I played for 70+ hours, but I'm far from truly "beating" the game as it's a big game and the Lego Speed Champions is only a small part of it.
Man I love the driving in this game. Probably one of the most satisfying experiences. There's a huge roster of playable cars, from the exotic supercars to the weird cult cars and trucks, and all of them are tunable and upgradable, so if you feel like your car is too slow, you can upgrade it to be like, super fast, depending on what it is. Tuning can get very complicated as it has its own dedicated sub-menu and I don't have quite the grasp on it yet, so I typically just play with stock tunes, auto-upgrades from the garage, or tunes I've downloaded from other people, that's enough to get me where I need to be in the game. How do I explain driving? Well it's very realistic, not as realistic as Forza Motorsport, but more realistic than, say, Burnout Paradise. You're strongly encouraged to go with a balanced build because every stat matters in the game. Yes, you actually need to pay attention to acceleration and handling when racing, because you'll go fast, it takes quite a bit to fully reach top speed, and you're come across plenty of 90 degree turns and turns you can't exactly clear...and yes you need to let go of the gas pedal and brake or otherwise you'll fly offtrack and into trees and shit. There's a lot of impact going off-road and it can really mess you up depending on the car you use. Offroad vehicles such as those used for dirt and cross country races resist offroad features a lot more and keep in control, making them ideal for such scenarios. Your cars are additionally separated by class, meaning if you use a slow truck, you'll compete with other slow trucks while if you use the fastest hypercar available, you'll also be pit against other hypercars.
The open world structure is fairly standard. You drive from point a to point b, and you partake in multiple challenges throughout the vast open world, such as dirt racing, street racing, cross country, and drag strips. There are also mini events such as danger signs, speed traps, speed zones, drift zones, and trailblazers. One gripe I have with trailblazers is if you fail to complete the objective, you have to restart from the beginning gate, which can take you at least a minute to get back to, so yeah, large waste of time and can be inconvenient to get back to. There are bonus boards and barn finds to scour the map for and break. No, Microsoft, I am not paying 3 dollars for the ability to reveal all secret boards, barns, and beauty spots in the game, especially not when there are free online maps that tell you where these things are anyway.
Customization is amazing for your car, you get a huge amount of customization right off the gate the moment you obtain any vehicle (paint jobs and vinyl decoration is especially robust), but your driver has barebones physical customization (you choose from very few presets with no way to change their facial appearance and whatnot) so you don't care what they look like nor how they dress, especially since you barely see them out of the car anyway, and they're barely visible in the car. Really, driver customization such as useless clothes (of course comes in hats, shirts, pants, gloves, shoes, and other useless accessories) and emotes are there only to pad out wheelspins, which are otherwise a valuable source of income and hosts some exclusive cars, and due to its slot machine-like nature, I'm never a big fan of them.
Difficulty is extremely customizable, and it's more than just adjusting CPU difficulty. You can opt to turn various assists on or off, such as rewind, braking assists, steering assists, and road markers that let you know when to slow down and speed up. Increasing the difficulty increases payout but you don't need to race against harder CPUs to get a decent payout. It's fairly easy for the most part but some parts can get difficult, such as three-starring the little objectives as well as racing on higher than Pro difficulty and winning first in some events.
The game comes with good music but I really find myself listening to only Horizon Block Party (the R&B and rap station) and Horizon Timeless (the classical music station) for the most part as I find the other radio stations to house...pretty forgettable music? Trust me, I gave them a chance but I cannot remember how anything in Horizon Pulse goes or Hospital. And you will find music repeating very quickly but I don't mind, the music is varied enough where I don't get tired of it.
The online experience is pointless and I refuse to touch anything PvP related in this game so I won't be talking about, say, Adventures or Elimination or whatever. I strongly just prefer playing this game offline and not playing with other people. Requiring a Microsoft account to play the game is also pretty shit. But hey, every mission in the game DOES have a co-op option available and that's a great thing. A shame I never played co-op but I want to play this with my sister at some point and do some co-op races together and we both explore the world. I can even help her with the LEGO missions.
Also, fuck trees they can all die off the face of this planet and I'll be happy.
Anyhow great racing game, I'll be happy to play Forza Horizon 5 in the future.
