Game:

Forza Horizon 3 (2016)

Category:

Review

Duration: 8:59

34 views

1

Those of you who’ve played Forza Horizon 3 might remember spotting a snow-covered peak thrusting up into the sky, deep in the distant background. You couldn’t drive there; it was merely a decorative tease.Well, it isn’t anymore. Forza Horizon 3’s first paid expansion, Blizzard Mountain, has arrived, and has brought with it a driving experience like never before seen in the series.And it’s very, very good.The differences between Blizzard Mountain and Forza Horizon 2’s equivalent Storm Island expansion are immediate. Storm Island features wilder and windier weather than the standard inclement conditions in Forza Horizon 2 but the environment itself is largely similar to the main game. It’s really more of the same, with the rain going sideways.Blizzard Mountain, by contrast, is not more of the same. Or, at least, not in terms of the environment. Blizzard Mountain is, if you’ll excuse the pun, the polar opposite to Forza Horizon 3’s existing sun-scorched desert, pristine beaches, and dense bush. It’s icy roads, treacherous drops, powder-filled paddocks, and huge elevation changes.Visually it’s amongst developer Playground Games’ best work yet, which is some achievement considering much of the landscape’s nuance is largely hidden under a thick blanket of plain white. Gum trees are dusted in snowflakes and strips of asphalt glint beneath slush-filled wheel ruts. During clear, sunny days the light beams authentically off the snow. It’s similar in some ways to the stark brightness of Forza Horizon 3’s outback area but it trades the desert’s oppressive, orange-tinted heat for a noticeably cooler feel thanks to the terrific global-illumination system.The new weather effects (blizzards, because it’s not just a clever name) are astounding; trees rock violently, show swirls, and visibility is reduced to a few car lengths. At night, the effect is amplified. It’s a stunning spectacle to drive through, if a little nerve wracking in Horizon 3’s faster cars.Your car’s bodywork will be convincingly caked in snow as you drive around, and tyres collect snow in their tread. There’s a nice new effect for snowflakes hitting windscreens, distinct from the excellent rain effects from the main game. You’ll even find your driver is now sporting a suitably festive woolly jumper. There really isn’t any area in which Playground has skimped on detail.It’s definitely a shame the Blizzard Mountain world itself is a standalone environment rather than more elegantly weaved into the existing world (it would’ve been nice to see how the team would’ve blended it in, like The Crew’s world) but it’s not a gripe I’ve dwelled on much.The introduction of snow into the world of Forza Horizon 3 is much more than a cosmetic shift, too, because the driving dynamics are radically changed here in Blizzard Mountain. There’s deep snow to contend with off-road and some cars have a better time clawing through it than others; building momentum in it can be tricky. There’s a large frozen lake where gri
--------------------------------------------------
Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/12/22/forza-horizon-3-blizzard-mountain-review

Other Statistics