Wednesday, 10 July 2024

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).

Saturday, 6 July 2024

Super Adventures in Delisted Racing Games Part 2: Need for Speed: Undercover

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still writing about racing games you can't buy digitally anymore. I was inspired by The Crew being shut down earlier this year, as it got me thinking about all the other racing games that have just disappeared over the years. Well okay, most of them are still in someone's game library, they still work (unlike The Crew), but you won't find them on the PlayStation store or on Steam.

It's a problem that affects this genre more than most because of all the licenced cars and music. Those licences have a time limit and when that's up the game can't be sold anymore. As far as I can tell, the first 18 Need for Speed games are all either gone now or never were, unless you can find them on disc, with only 2010's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit getting a remastered rerelease. And playing PC games off a disc has only become more of a pain in the ass over time.

Fortunately, I was able to buy a few of them before they vanished. In fact, I've already written about the first 10 years of Need for Speed games, going from Need for Speed to Underground, so now would be a good time for me to cover the absolute highlight of the sixth gen console era: the original Need for Speed: Most Wanted from 2005!

I can't be bothered going through the hassle of installing it though, so instead I'm downloading one of the most hated games in the series: 2008's Need for Speed: Undercover!

Thursday, 4 July 2024

Super Adventures in Delisted Racing Games Part 1: The Crew

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing racing games you can't buy anymore, not online anyway. In fact, you can't even play The Crew anymore as Ubisoft shut the servers down last March! They just took a game people bought with money and made it entirely non-functional.

I struggle to write about racing games as basically all you do in them is get in a car and turn left or right. Sure the process of winning races is a little more complicated than that, plus I can talk about the types of races they have and their various features, but if I go down that route I'll pretty much end up writing an instruction manual and no one reads manuals anymore.

But screw it, this is my last chance to write about The Crew while it's fresh in my memory, so I'm doing it. Plus I'm throwing in Need for Speed: Undercover and Forza Horizon 3, because it's easier to see what makes something distinct when you put it next to the things that it's similar to.

Semi-Random Game Box

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (C64)
The Speris Legacy (Amiga CD32) - Part 4 - Guest Post
The Speris Legacy (Amiga CD32) - Part 3 - Guest Post