I’ve been playing racing games for over 20 years, with my favourite series being the simcade PGR games. So, I want to love fh4 but I just can’t. I simply don’t get the handling model or the physics, despite playing and regularly winning winning pgr, mario kart, fzero, burnout, project cars, dirt, mcree, grid and many other games in hard modes. There’s just a complete lack of connection between me, the car and the speed I’m going. I literally crash into any corner greater than 45 degrees. Ive tried everything but nothing works. The game just seems imbalanced between its arcade overtones and realistic urges. Basically, you need to know your cars to halve any chance of winning - do you understand the impact of fwd and rwd? Do you know which car is better than another? No? Well, the game simply does not cater for you. This is why I don’t understand people saying it’s an arcade style game. It isn’t. In addition, the checkpoints are a pain, missing one online destroys the race, there’s no progression of any meaning and online is a mess with impacts. It’s such a shame for me that I feel this way, cause the game gets a lot right, especially the environment and the thrill of bombing around some beautiful locations.
Maybe it depends on your type of input fro driving the car.
I’m using a keyboard because that’s what I’ve always used.
What do you use?
If I miss a checkpoint, I just rewind.
Completely disagree. The handling model and driving mechanics are among the strongest parts of the game, they hit the sweet-spot between realism and fun so that each car feels different and at least vaguely realistic, but without being overly punishing. PGR was my favourite driving series before and I’d say the dynamics are very similar indeed (I use auto gearbox, but otherwise no assists and simulation steering on a normal Xbox pad).
Which camera are you using to drive with? I ask because the one thing I do agree with in your post is that most of the game cameras are dreadful at conveying a sense of speed. I can only drive with the bonnet camera or bumper camera as these give a tangible sense of speed, anything else and I also find it very hard to judge braking points and cornering speed.
I agree with you, espicially in fh4 feels really good to drive when grip builds are mutch better than they was in fh3. And i love that you can tune to car what is something that cant do in real arcade racing games. And forza games are bit harder to learn drive right when comparing something like nfs but also mutch easier than real racing simulator games.
Personally, I think the best way to enjoy this game is with ALL assists off. That goes for Horizon and Motorsport. Sure it may be difficult in the beginning but if you wanna constantly place on the podium, it will be more beneficial. I use the chase far camera so I can catch the car if it slides out too much but on long straights I do switch to dashboard. I LOVE that new camera angle. I dont use clutch but definitely manual. Assists on tend to hold the vehicle back
You say you win in Project CARS of all things yet have trouble with Horizon because of its perceived realism? Are you even serious? lol
(BTW, don’t even dare put Project CARS, GRID and Colin McRae games in the same sentence as Mario Kart)
The whole reason why I regularly play FH4 amidst all the Fortnite crud and other flaws is the unparalled gameplay, which IMO was developed further from FH3. ForzaTech is such an accessible engine that it’s just too difficult for anyone to match its quality these days.
I’m not comparing mario kart to pc2 - I was simply listing racing games I’ve played. And my issue with fh4 if I wasn’t clear in op was it pretends to be an arcade game when it isn’t. At least pc2 states it’s a sim and runs at 60fps.
For me this game has exactly the right combination of arcade and simulation for an open world racer. It takes some time to get used to it but is also very forgiving.
Turning corners in FH4 depends entirely on cars around you in online mode. Try and take a corner properly and Lambo Lenny is going to crush you into the wall because they twnd to go full speed straight for the wall, hoping to make a “clean” turn through it.
Handling the car takes tuning and a lot of time putting it through every possible scenario you think you may encounter, then adding a few more just to be safe.
This is going to anger some, but a awd conversion helps as well, especially since almost every race is a rain event.
Breaking is important in turning. Don’t be a Lambo Lenny, learn how to adjust and use the breaks.
The choice of vehicle is important as well since not all of them behave the same way on different suurfaces.
Tires, most overlooked aspect of the game in my opinion.
Far too many times do I encotnter people with street racong tires in dirt races. That works wonders until you hit the dirt section, you go from Lambo Lennie to out of control road rager in less than ten seconds.
If you struggle with tuning your cars I would suggest Youtube for tuning videos. There’s quite a few good ones out there.
You played NFS, Pro Street was almost like Horizon in the tuning department, those grip tracks were a beast unless you could properly tune the car.
@PurpleAlien420 thanks for the reply, but many of the things you listed there to help improve my game are sim-heavy, not arcadey. Having to understand different drive and wheel types and fiddling round under the hood to such a degree is not an arcade racing game.
Going from something like PGR to FH4 is like trading your PS4 for an Xbox One. (I’m kidding PS lovers, don’t shoot me)
PGR is pretty much a jump in and go game. If you’ve never played any Forza game, then it’s a completely different animal to PGR, as the physics sway a lot more towards the simulation side. People only call it an arcade game because the cars in Horizon are easier to slide (and probably drive) than they are in Motorsport.
It’s by far the best racing game I have ever played but as a person with a disability I find the cross country discipline unnecessarily difficult, even on the easiest settings.
I can understand at least some of that. The core of the game is fairly sim even as more arcadey stuff gets added with each new one. I’d like it even more on the sim side but it’s not for everybody.
But some practical advice … that idea to use the behind the wheel cam is a great one for a sense of really driving, a good downloaded tune is easy to drive so you don’t have to know much detail (other than when in doubt choose AWD in this game), and if you are using the racing line and are braking too late, it could be because the line usually tells you to brake too late. If you do use it, start braking a little earlier than it suggests. It’s really useful when getting a feel for the game but the real braking zone is what’s shown plus about 10 feet.
It doesn’t really pretend to be an arcade racer, but it is undeniably more arcade-ish than its Motorsport counterpart (which some people have said is too arcade-y, itself). Personally, I find it to be the best handling racing game series with Motorsport being a close 2nd (though I would say that Motorsport still does the best job of making me feel like I’m actually driving with a controller).
Once you step outside of the realm of Forza you realise just how good the games feel on a controller; so many developers haven’t nailed that feeling. The only games that come close from my experience with them would be DiRT Rally, F1 2017, F1 2018 and Gran Turismo Sport.
Definitely. I played The Crew 2 when the demo was available and I never got a feeling for the car or road at all. No comparison to Horizon.
And there is the same on the other end of the spectrum. Playing stuff like Project Cars or Ar-setto Corsa with a controller just feels wrong. Imprecise and I constantly felt that I could do so much better but the controller held me back. FM7 and F1 2017 (didn’t play 18) are my favourites of responsiveness, precision and conveying a feeling for the car/track. GT Sport still has this rather sluggish feel I always get in Gran Turismo. But this mostly comes from my dislike of the Dual Shock controller. Symmetrical sticks are just not my thing.
Project cars was really awful to play with orginal controller setups but after founding in reddit better controller settings it feel mutch better but it still feels that want allways use elite controller instead of normal xbox controller. I like in forza that you can easily drive well with orginal controller but every time when i really want to set possible time i switch on elite controller. Assetto corsa isnt even meant to play without pedals and steering wheel.