Super Adventures in Delisted Racing Games Part 3: Forza Horizon 3

This week on Super Adventures, I'm reviewing one last racing game you can't buy digitally anymore. First I played The Crew, then I played Need for Speed: Undercover, and now this one's a Forza game. Most of the Forza games are gone now, but I'm checking out Forza Horizon 3 specifically because I grabbed it just before it was delisted and then never quite got around to trying it.

The logo looks like it's saying "FIII" for Forza Horizon 3, but it's actually "FM" for Forza Motorsport, the main Forza series. It would've been such an easy edit to change it to "FH" but I guess it makes sense to have one logo for the whole franchise. (The E in The Crew isn't a 3 either).

---

Developer:

Playground Games

|

Release Date:

2016

|

Systems:

Win, Xbox One

---

Forza Horizon 3 was released in 2016 and delisted in 2020. Hang on, let me double check those numbers... yeah, they're correct. The game was only sold for exactly four years, before being replaced entirely by its sequel.

Mainline Forza games are the Xbox's answer to Gran Turismo, they're all very serious simulations, but the Horizon games are the fun spin-offs which have the spirit of the classic Need for Speed games. The ones that let you drive expensive exotics across a variety of picturesque settings.

Wait! I completely forgot to mention last time that Need for Speed: Undercover has a speedbreaker move that gives you a few seconds of bullet time to make impossibly graceful turns. (I forgot to use it as well.) This is relevant to Forza Horizon 3 because the game doesn't have any super powers like that. In fact, it doesn't even have nitro to my knowledge, which is incredible. I thought nitro was mandatory in racing games by this point.

I played The Crew and Need for Speed: Undercover with the graphics on full but I'm letting Forza Horizon 3 manage its visuals dynamically, so it can potentially look better than this. I think it looks pretty damn good though, especially for a game that's almost ten years old now. If you click the screenshot you'll get a downscaled 720p version of the original image that shows it off better.

You can just about see a blue line on the left. That's my (optional) racing line, which tells me where to be and when to brake. But it's not the boss of me, I do what I want. In fact, I'm the boss in this game, as I'm the one running the Australian Horizon Festival.

The game even lets me pick which character I want to see sitting silently in the car! I didn't get anything like this in The Crew or Underground, or even the earlier Horizon games to my recollection. This is as far as customisation goes however. Though I do at least get to choose a name for the race organiser to call me over the radio.

I love games that call you by name, though I always feel sorry for the poor voice actor who had to read out every possible name on the list to make the feature work. And there are a lot of names. I guess this is one of those situations where an AI generated voice wouldn't be so bad. Just for the name though, nothing else.

The plot is: there's a festival in Australia and you have to drive in lots of races to build hype for it. The more fans you win over, the more you can build the festival up, and the more races are available. It's a woman called Kiera who's doing all the actual management work, but she calls you up occasionally to ask which location you want built next or what you want to upgrade.

I really love the vibe of this game. It's so upbeat and colourful and joyous. The art design is fantastic, the scenery is always beautiful and the people on the radio are friendly and jokey without being obnoxious. Though your mileage may vary there.

The map is apparently 60 km², so the game's got a relatively small world compared to The Crew's 4921 km² scale model of the US. In fact it only has the one city in it, and the roads started getting a bit familiar to me. The designers really tried to pack in as much variety as possible though, so the Twelve Apostles rocks have been moved a thousand or so miles so that that they're just down the road from the Gold Coast.

Hang on, there's a Gold Coast in Need for Speed: Undercover as well. So that's a weird coincidence.

Undercover also had icons all over its map to mark races that I could drive to, but I could just tap the 'next race' button to get started instantly. Doing that in Horizon 3 tells my AI assistant Anna to set up a route so I can drive all the way there myself, so it's a bit more time consuming. There is fast travel, but there are two catches: first, it costs 10,000 credits each time I use it, and second I can only jump to festival sites. I build new festival sites as the game goes on, but I get the impression that the most I'll ever have is four. The map's not that small!

It's not so bad though to have to actually engage with the game's open world. Especially as it's full of signs near the road that I can smash to get a discount on my fast travels.

Horizon 3 has the traditional hot air balloons to prove its worthiness as a racing game, but it also does a few things you don't see too often. Like I can drive across the beach and through shallow water. It probably isn't doing my car much good, but that's fine as cars are indestructible. Well, they are on this difficulty, I don't know what's hidden in the options.

You can definitely turn off the driving assists if you want to make life more difficult for yourself. I don't know if it ever goes full simulation, but even with everything on default the cars aren't quite as well behaved as they are in The Crew or Need for Speed: Undercover. I feel like they're always at risk of losing grip and spinning around on the spot if I'm not careful, though they generally don't. In fact, I've been doing pretty well in races.

One thing I like about the game is you can sometimes get a huge lead... or fall way behind. It doesn't give the other drivers a speed boost to stay on your tail and keep things tense. Well, okay it probably does have some rubberbanding but I couldn't tell it was there.

Look at those beautiful weather effects! I drive better in cockpit view, it just suits me more, and it's even nicer to be inside in the warm when it's pouring with rain outside.

Races have you driving between checkpoint flags, but I also have that driving line to follow, so it's rare that I've gotten lost and gone off track. The few times I did miss a checkpoint I recovered quickly thanks to the miracle of rewinds! They can't save you from being a rubbish driver in general, but if you miscalculate a turn and go skidding sideways into a wall you can erase that mistake and try again.

Something else that separates this from those other two racing games is that I don't have to come first. It certainly helps, but the game seems satisfied as long as I finish in the top three. This works for me, as a third place win gives me a reason to replay the race later.

The game loves to torment me after races with this Wheelspin slot machine game. It's just a wheel of prizes, including cash and cars, and it never ever lands on the cars. Well except for here, when it landed on a Horizon Edition BMW M3. But this basically never happens!

This particular car has a special ability that boosts my drift skills, though honestly I think I'm beyond help when it comes to drifting. Drifting events, where you have to skid around a track to earn points, have always been one of my least favourite challenges in racing games, and I absolutely suck at them here. I couldn't even earn half the points I needed on the easiest challenge after three or four attempts, I just haven't got that skill.

The slot machine might be stingy, but the game itself has actually been very generous with the cars, often giving me a selection of free or discounted cars whenever I finish a few races.

Need for Speed: Undercover didn't give me much incentive to drive anything but the best car in my garage. The Crew complicated things by giving me different classes, like street and off-road... which were just variations of the same vehicle that had to be bought separately. But Forza Horizon 3 actually requires different specs of car for different races, so even though I've already got a beautiful Lamborghini Aventador in my garage, acquiring a Volkswagen Beetle actually means something. Well okay, the game doesn't seem to have any Volkswagens, but you know what I mean.

Everything in your garage remains viable no matter how far you progress through the game. This also means that upgrading your car doesn't put you at risk of obliterating the competition; you're always getting a fair race.

See, if I'd turned up with the Aventador when everyone else is driving Chevy Bel Airs I would've looked really stupid!

The game defaults to having the names of my opponents above the AI cars, but I turned that off right away because it draws from your friend's list and it creeps me out. I remember the first time I played a Horizon game, it was a demo of the fourth game and I was kind of confused to see half my Xbox friends driving around. Had I started a multiplayer mode? Did I accidentally connect to someone else's game?

If I see my friend's name in a game I'm going to naturally assume it's my friend, that's why we have names. So I don't like that.

Another social feature that's a little weird is that new cars you buy default to having a custom paint job created by a user. You can choose to give it a standard manufacturer paint colour instead, or make up something yourself, but it's not the default choice.

One thing I appreciate about this is that if you get a car that's been in a movie you can pretty much always find the appropriate look in here, and the paint jobs are often pretty impressive. The editor is apparently way more powerful than it seems to be whenever I try using it myself.

You can also change the bodywork and the tuning features the game has are crazy. In fact, I'm not even looking at the tuning options screen again in case I go mad.

The player character can be upgraded as well, with new abilities like owning a camera drone, or having more money. Personally I like spending my precious perk points on wheelspins so I can watch it not give me a new car again.

You can only choose boxes that are adjacent to a skill you've already unlocked however, so I'm planning a route that takes me towards what I want.

Speaking of boxes, the UI is very, uh, modern. This definitely isn't the most straightforward menu I've seen in a game, but at least they put tabs for the delisted Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels DLC to continually remind me that I can't ever buy them! There were also video adverts, just to annoy me even more.

The game has an auction feature where you can sell off cars, so that's interesting. I think it's still running, but I've no interest in finding out. I think I'll leave the 'marketplace' tab alone as well.

The game doesn't just have the standard selection of circuits, sprints, drifting etc, it's also got Danger Sign activities, where you basically see how far you can jump from a ramp. The Crew had these as well, but Horizon 3 doesn't stick them in the middle of the damn road so you activate the challenge accidentally while you're driving around.

The Crew did a better job of making me feel like I was driving around real places, though Horizon 3 is at a disadvantage because Surfer's Paradise is such weird looking city that I assumed they'd made it up for the game. It also features the desert town of Coober Pedy, which in real life is notable for the occupants living underground. It's also notable for being a filming location for a bunch of movies, and the spaceship Hunter Gratzner from Pitch Black has been sitting there for over 20 years. It's right there on the town's Wikipedia picture in fact. So I was a bit disappointed when I couldn't find it in game.

Something else I've been struggling to find are the hidden barns with special cars inside. Every now and then the game will stick a purple circle on the map for me to search in, and then I end up driving round and round the same bit of countryside for what feels like hours looking for this bloody building. You'd think it'd stand out from a mile away, but apparently not!

It's not hard to see why they chose Australia for this game though, as this is some picturesque scenery. The game is downright beautiful, and it's always fun to drive around. Except for when I'm looking for barns. Or driving all the way back to a festival site to switch cars because I'm too cheap to pay the fee. And when I'm doing drift challenges...

Okay to be fair, I've been playing the game for about six hours now and I haven't felt like my complete inability to master drifting has been much of an impediment.

Also Barn cars may be a pain in the ass to find, but when the door opens to reveal the last of the V8 Interceptors from Mad Max it is a joyous moment. Now I've got to go off and do something else while I wait for Warren to restore it. I did just unlock a perk that gets me money for photographing new cars, so I could do that...

Forza Horizon 3 is a different experience to the other two games, as it's got no real story, no police chases, no takedown missions, nothing like that. Though you do race trains and speedboats occasionally, so it's got a bit of The Crew's spectacle, along with the map full of icons to complete. The game's got its frustrations and time wasting, but I can see myself racing around sunny Australia for a long while.

In fact, Forza Horizon 3 might be my absolute favourite racing game of all time, the absolute peak of the genre, as I'm struggling to think of anything I've enjoyed more. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) maybe? Forza Horizon 4? I guess I only ever played the demo of that so it's hard for me to rate it too highly. How much is the game going for these days anyway?

Wait, what the hell? They've just announced that Forza Horizon 4 is also getting delisted by the end of year! I haven't even finished whining about Forza Horizon 3 getting delisted and they're already getting rid of the next one.

I suppose it shouldn't really make any difference to this article as it's about games you can't buy anymore, not games that you're not going to be able to buy in the near future... but screw it, I'm buying Forza Horizon 4 right now and I'm going to go and write about it. Even though it means that I'll have to redraw the article banner a bit.

---

There you go, totally seamless.

Alright, I've already covered three racing games and now I'm onto game number four. It's sad how all these games with licenced cars and music are disappearing from digital stores, leaving titles like Ride 'em Low, Street Racing Syndicate and Garfield Kart to represent decades of racing game history. Oh, plus Split/Second, that was actually a good one.

Developer:

Playground Games

|

Release Date:

2018

|

Systems:

Win, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

---

I'll skip the game's logo image and jump right in as this article is long enough already.

Forza Horizon 4 pretty much plays exactly like Forza Horizon 3, as it's all about driving around to the different icons on the map, finishing races, rushing through speed zones and flying off stunt ramps. It still has the confusing menus and the car customisation, and so on. The vibe is still joy, and I still love the music and the atmosphere. It's still got that aggressive positivity and it still feels like everyone that talks to you is either a TV presenter, a DJ or a GPS.

There is one pretty huge difference however...

The game takes place in Britain instead of Australia! That means all the races from Horizon 3 are just gone, you don't get any of that content in this game. And you presumably don't get anything from this game in Horizon 5 either as that takes place in Mexico. All the Horizon games are very pretty, the scenery is always beautiful, but they're distinct sequels, not updates, so every time they delist one of them everyone who missed their chance to buy it really are missing out on something.

Part of the reason why Forza Horizon 4 might be my favourite is because it feels like it takes place a few miles from where I live, with familiar looking street signs and scenery. Oh, that reminds me, you can get houses this time, which provide you with perks and fast travel points... for a price. Fast travel still costs money, but not nearly as much as the 15,000,000 CR castle does.

It'll take me a while to get that even with the double race reward bonus I got from buying the Ultimate Edition of the game with (almost) all the DLC. And I will have to earn the credits fairly, as that reward bonus is the only advantage that real world money will buy. There's only the one currency, your actual cash is no good here... thankfully.

Oh, this is the The Halo Experience Showcase btw. There was a bit of a Halo race in the last game as well, but showcases are big scripted events where you have to race a train or a jet fighter or whatever, so this one's a bit more elaborate.

The game also introduces Horizon Stories, which are a series of races based around a theme, with a lot more dialogue going on during the action. I liked the Top Gear one, which lets you play as the Stig, and the LaRacer one, which lets you drive the top 10 of classic video game cars (no Lotus Esprit though).

They've also added a Super Wheelspin, with three prizes per spin! Super Wheelspins are harder to get hold of than regular Wheelspins, they're a rare treasure, so you can imagine my joy when this one landed on a victory dance, a novelty car horn and some biker gloves.

Horizon 4 lets you dress your character up, though you can't buy the clothes. Instead they're unlocked as a reward, so I've been building up my wardrobe very slowly. It's fine, it's not like you can ever get out and walk around. You only really see your character when they're posing at a landmark or standing next to this giant screen.

You still get the skill points, but this time you spend them on the cars instead of your character, which is pretty crazy considering how many cars you can get in this game.

The Ultimate Edition gave me a head start, so I own over 100 cars already and that's just a small percentage of the total.

Fortunately the game has various restrictions for races, so you can have 100 cars in the garage and still have to pick between just 2 or 3 of them during a particular event. This means that I'm always happy to get a new vehicle, whatever class it is, and I'm not being encouraged to stick with my fastest car for the whole game.

There's always so much to left to get, so many icons to drive to, so many races to complete, so many goals to reach.

If you want a break from the typical you can choose your own routes to race on, or go meet up with the other drivers participating in the hourly #Forzathon challenge. The Festival Playlist features daily and weekly goals, and changes each in-game season. Keep coming back every day, join in with events, go on adventures, the racing must NEVER END.

Well, actually the last Festival Playlist will end on August 22nd, permanently ending your chance to get the associated achievements, but at least the daily and weekly challenges will keep going. (The final Festival Playlist starts on July 25th if you want to see what that's about).


CONCLUSION

---

Okay, I've established that all three four games have driving in them, but which is the best at the driving?

It's Forza Horizon 4. That's the best.

Actually, here's a better question, are these games good enough at the driving and distinctive enough to deserve to exist at all with so many new racing games in the world?

Yeah, I'd say so. In fact, I've been alternating between them, or at least I was until The Crew became literally unplayable, and I appreciated their differences. When I got tired of driving over to each race in Forza I could put Undercover on and hit the 'next race' a few times to do some rapid-fire racing. When Undercover's tedious unskippable cutscenes had me craving characters I could actually give a damn about, The Crew... came closer to delivering on that. And even though Forza Horizon 4 is an upgrade over its predecessors in almost every department it doesn't have any Australia, at all.

• Need for Speed: Undercover should still work fine if you own it and it's old enough that even the PC has a retail copy on disc... with all the DRM issues that come with it. It should've still been available on the Xbox 360 Marketplace as the store isn't getting shut down forever until July 29th, but the purchase button was missing for me when I checked. Go take advantage of some of the other deals while you still can though! Grab those Xbox 360 games before they're gone forever!

• Forza Horizon 3 should also continue working fine if you already own it or can find a console version on disc. I'm assuming it'll work on the Xbox Series S/X as well, though I haven't tried it yet.

• Forza Horizon 4 will continue to work and at the time I'm writing this it's 80% off on Steam! There should be more sales later in the year, though it's getting delisted on digital platforms on December 15, 2024 so don't drag your feet for too long. The DLC has already been delisted, but you can get most of it in Ultimate Edition. The exception is the free Mitsubishi Car Pack DLC, which is still available and has to be grabbed separately.

• The Crew is the only one of the games to straight up not work anymore. In fact, they've been taking it from people's Ubisoft libraries so you can't install it anymore.

This means that even if someone manages to figure out how to get new servers set up for it, like they did with Need for Speed: World, you still can't play your own copy.

There is still some hope remaining however. YouTube guy Ross Scott has started a campaign to fight for The Crew's preservation, which even comes with its own website telling you how you can help: stopkillinggames.com. It's not that The Crew was a special gem and a huge loss to gaming, he's using it as a catalyst to hopefully prevent companies repeating this with other games in the future. So if this campaign actually builds support, this half-forgotten abandoned racing game might become one of the most important games in history.

At the very least publishers could put "GAME WILL BE REMOVED FROM YOUR LIBRARY IN 2028" on the shop page in big letters so we know what we're getting into before handing over our £74.99/$89.99 for the Gold Edition. We should be informed when something is actually a 10-year rental. With microtransactions.

---

Speaking of titles that are probably going to get shut down forever at some point, just as I was finishing writing this article a free trial of a certain game appeared and I couldn't just not play it. So next on Super Adventures: somehow even more driving! Five racing games!

If you've got any thoughts about The Crew, Need for Speed: Undercover, the Forza Horizon series, or games you bought getting yanked out of your own library, you're welcome to leave a comment below.