So it turns out you can only get up to 18/20 of the Barn Find cars in Forza Horizon 3 because two of them were only available for a real-life week each. 100% career completion is not possible if you did not play then. Argh. This is what I loathe about the modern online-gaming world; I hate event-specific lost-forever type situations. #Forzathon, an in-game event that cycles every week and gives you themed challenges and a rare car (unpurchasable from the in-game marketplace), quickly went from "cool! Variety!" to dread and good ol'-fashioned FOMO, getting me fatigued on a fantastic game because I felt like I compulsively
have to keep logging in. (At least you can still buy those rare cars off of other players for a massive markup, usually.)
All in all, though, Horizon Australia is still a ludicrously gorgeous and, more importantly,
fun place to be. Surfer's Paradise, Byron Bay, the Outback, and the Yarra Valley (all, of course, far closer to each other than in reality, creating a bizarre but awesome diorama-style effect; you know how you can see Hyrule Castle from anywhere? That, but with gleaming skyscrapers, floating balloons, mountain ranges, and coastline) are fantastically varied and offer genuinely different driving experiences. Surfer's Paradise has city streets, Byron Bay is a good mix of tarmac and sand, the rainforest is... well, rainforest, and the Outback is as you'd expect (with the plus of long highways and airfield runways making great drag strips). The additional locales don't just tack on new places; they actually offer truly new experiences. Blizzard Mountain lives up to its name (and, actually, despite being an expansion, it ALSO is visible far, far in the distance in the main map if you know where to look, and was visible before it was announced). Hot Wheels is 100% what you'd expect.
Like with the main game's very calculated, awe-striking first impression, Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels both go hard from the get-go; the former has you in a rallycross car (Ken Block's Focus because of course) being towed through the sky by a helicopter as
soaring, beautiful music plays while the snow-blasted land comes into view, and Hot Wheels... well. Let's just say the Stunt Track Driver fan in me actively shrieked with joy at the sight of it. And by that, I mean all of me. I stood up at my computer and just stared. I will admit they both kinda plateaued a while after there, but it was well worth the price of admission. Blizzard Mountain scratched the extreme rally itch, while Hot Wheels was just the exact dumb, gleeful, over-the-top nonsense I always aim for. It's just... happy. I like that. (It's also mind-bending to have to try to keep actual realistic physics in mind while driving on giant plastic loops and jumps.)
I dunno how to put it, but the best part of the HW expansion for me was that it was very modern. Current cars,
current music, but still the same glee and silliness I loved in the late 90's. There was a feeling of "oh. Huh. It isn't gone, it isn't a relic of that era". That was nice.
I'm left wondering if I want to bother with Forza Motorsport 7. I'm very tempted. I quite like being able to choose driver outfits - this DOES matter to me, quite greatly - and I like the inclusion of the NASCAR content, old-school F1, Formula E, and the Ice Charger from Fate of the Furious (I don't know why, but I absolutely adore that car; the bulletproof riveted windows and EMP in the back probably help). But compound the issues of Horizon 3's online stuff with yet another game and keeping it all on asphalt tracks instead of allowing for total silliness and it's a bit less appealing. I grabbed FM6: Apex (it's free, and I quite highly recommend it), a slice of FM6's content for PC, and I really do like it. Was blown away by how a simple change like puddles can radically alter racing lines and strategy. But I've still not played every variant of only
six tracks, so shelling out the cash for 32 seems a bit... needless.
Plus, I've been sinking far more time into Forza Motorsport 4. This is regarded as the fan favorite, and it's not hard to see why; a lot of stuff here hasn't been done as well before or since. Working your way from city cars to full-on Le Mans prototypes, with a vast repertoire of courses and cars catering to each. It's a game where you can be going bumper-to-bumper in priceless supercars one minute and be hooning a supertuned Nissan Leaf through the Alps the next. There's a whole lot of fictional tracks compared to the more grounded and (mostly) real-world roster of later titles in the series; I'm okay with not having Daytona (a 2.5 mile tri-oval in Florida) if I have Sunset Peninsula Raceway (a 2.5 mile tri-oval in Florida). I don't mind losing Watkins Glen if I get Fujimi Kaido (think Initial D and then stop thinking). It lets you take your journey as seriously or as stupidly as you like, allowing brilliant fine-tuning and teenager-doing-donuts-in-the-parking-lot horrors alike. Only thing it's really missing is oval racing AI that actually presents a challenge.
And this. It doesn't have this.
So, beyond that, mostly just some Lego Dimensions. Finally got Finn. I talk about dumb fun; little beats the joy of recreating that iconic scene in Mission Impossible where Ethan Hunt sneaks into an embassy with his crack team of experts, including a bass-playing vampire, a very fast hedgehog, a Powerpuff Girl, and some kid with a sword. As a game, it may not be polished, but it absolutely completely pulls off what it advertises, letting you kinda mash the whole toybox together in absurd fashion. And, honestly, I find the time/dimensional travel stuff fun to overthink, for a game not concerned with lore or continuity. (It actually makes the 2016 Ghostbusters story work brilliantly, seeing as how that series technically does revolve around battling beings trying to open rifts between dimensions to begin with.) And I will say, as I thought it was a next-gen exclusive thing, I was quite joyous when I found that on the Xbox 360 version, you still can use Finn to unlock a certain other character. Anyhoo. I think that about covers it since last time. Wall-of-text y'all again soon enough.
