Hey guys! I hope you will read and help me to spread a word about “the issue”, share your opinions and discuss mine.
So, let’s begin.
Horizon was something x-tra new, when it first came out on Xbox 360, graphics were amazing and the car felt real. Best driving game EVER. The atmosphere, beautiful landscapes, street racing etc. etc. with the highest quality physics and sounds.
Now we have Forza Horizon 2, which is even better - fancy graphics, a lot of cars (very!), true OFF-Road racing, more customizations, more races, more features and a lot of stuff to do. And music (just as in FH) fits perfectly, tbh, I listen to Bass Arena and Horizon Pulse in my car all the time (not in-game).
However, there is a thing that frustrates me or “grinds my gears”. Sometimes it gets me from the point of “enjoying the game” to “suffering badly from the internal wounds”. The reason is simple.
The world in Horizon 2 is quite big and beautiful, but it is dead. Roads are almost always empty, cities are small, the traffic is crazy (like your ex).
Lets start with the empty roads problem - it is always cool, when you can floor the gas pedal at a straight empty road. But when you get into the city, with two or three lane roads you expect to see some sort of a traffic, not one or two cars going nowhere. It kills the atmosphere, like no matter how long you have been playing it is always from 12PM to 5AM. You can’t race in the traffic when there is no traffic. I would prefer a one big city instead of multiple small ones, one big city with a lots of traffic, so you can just drive like a normal person or play super agressive douche on that big SUV, playing chess and endangering other people, maybe even stay in the traffic jam for a few mikes or maybe drive on the sidewalk to avoid it. I am not oferring to make a giant city full of cars, but making a large city with different traffic zones (like more cars in the city, traffic jams in the center, less cars in the hoods, highways with a live traffic etc.). You could even add a four-point switch in the menu - Light traffic (like it is now in FH2), Medium traffic (more cars in the city and highways, with country roads remain empty), Heavy traffic (lots of cars, but still drivable), Rush Hour (lots of traffic with traffic jams in the cities).
You may make a scripted models for traffic jams (like two or three for two or three places on the map), they will be activated randomly if you switch to Rush Hour and will dissappear and reappear with, for example, a few in-game hours cycle.
Small cities problem is quite connected to the previous one, as you are driving all the time around nature, astonishing landscapes and countryside. But there are no cities where you could have fun (ofcourse there are, but after a few turns and one straight line you will have to make a U turn and start all over again). There is no point in creating a lot of small cities, just make a big one and place other “checkpoints” in festival zones like it was in Horizon “ONE”.
The main problem which grinds my gears the most are the Drivatars and the Trafic itself.
Imagine!
You are a car enthusiast, pretty good at driving. You have won a lot of races lately, so your credit card is too heavy to carry it in your pocket. You go and buy a brand new BMW M Series, or an AMG, maybe Lexus or if you are really good at driving, you go and buy a Lambo. You tune your car, stence it, put nice rims on it. Then you waste an additional 20 minutes to paint it, so there would be no other cars like your.
Now finally you take it for a drive. What do you see? People turning RIGHT from the left lane, for no reason. What a surprise! No indicators, no logic, no sense of anything. Just a dull NPC, that drives like a suicidal idiot. But lets move on, you have avoided the crash (probably not, but still), you keep driving, soon you are out of town, you see a Drivatar going on a road in front of you, you want to chase him a little bit, to show your car and its superiority. All of a sudden he turns left into nowhere (on his brand new Ferrari or tuned JDM car) and now he is driving off road in the middle of the forest. What the puck? He must be very rich and dull. Nvm, keep driving. Oh, what is it? A beautiful town ahead. Better loose some speed to avoid any crashes. NO! The Drivatar on the G-Wagen just went kamikadze and rammed your car, despite you going not too fast and in your lane, the guy just thought he would be able to over take the slow-roller, whatevs. Maybe you should go slower. Now you are driving around 100 kph, BAM! What was that? Oh, two folks on hondas have decided to overtake you, crashed into the car on the opposite lane, causing a major accident which scrapped (yeah, sure thing, only scrapped) your car. Meh, I would get tired of this if I was you. Lets go 40, no no no, lets just stop on the side of the road and wait for that asshole on the Mustang to drive by. BAM! He just rear-ended you , despite the road being almost empty and you staying on the very side, not even interfering anyone.
Now tell me, how this can NOT ruin a driving game? What is a joy of driving in a world, where nobody respects cars or even tries to play as it was real. I can understand, that nothing bad will happen to a virtual car on the virtual off road track, but, srsly, what is the point of driving like an old-asian-blond-woman with a mental disorder. There is no fun in this. Please, hear me someone!
