Forza Horizon Rally Expansion DLC Overview - VisceralBishop's Blog

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Forza Horizon Rally Expansion DLC Overview Stuck

Posted on December 19, 2012 at 04:42 PM.

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Forza Horizon released back in late October and in our review we praised the both the gameplay, structure of the career and the atmosphere surrounding you. One thing we did dislike, though, was the fact that there were not a huge amount of event types. Now, Playground Games has released an all-new DLC pack featuring Rally cars and stages, adding some variety to the mix. Since ex-Codemasters employees -- the makers of the fine DiRT series -- worked on Forza Horizon, it makes since for this to exist.

Rally Festival:

Gone are the wristbands and in their place is a brand new rally car for you to use on numerous dirt roads. You do still earn points that help you reach the Rally Championship, but there are no A.I. rivals trash talking you prior to a race now.

When in the Horizon Rally races, you can not drive in the open world, as this new DLC is a separate option on the main menu. You now choose what events you want to compete in very similar to how you choose the street races in the main single player. The service area provides you with the autoshow, garage, paint shop, etc. instead of you driving to it or fast traveling.

Five cars are included; the 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX STi, 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR, 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth, 1982 "Group B" Lancia 037 Stradale, and the 1992 Toyota Celica GT-Four RC ST185. If you are a season pass holder you also get the 2003 Ford SVT Focus. You can easily tell the developers tweaked the handling of the cars to make sure racing in these rally events felt right, and they definitely achieved that. You never feel as though you don't have control of the car when going over a jump or around a corner. There are also no other cars on the track when racing, which is in just about every other rally game due to the narrow roads. The times of each A.I. driver will show up on the bottom of the screen, with positions being on the right-hand side.

For those that listen to music and not the game when playing Forza Horizon, you might not want to do that this time around. You now have a spotter, or co-driver, and he does a pretty good job at letting you know what type of turns and objects are coming up (such as rocks, ditches, etc). He is obviously not needed as you can win without him, but he does a little more than the spotters you hear in the DiRT games.

Rivals mode does carry over to the Rally Festival. If a friend has bested your score on a particular stage, you don't have to replay the whole event to defeat their time. By just hitting "X" on the event lanyard, you can easily do that and show them who the best rally racer is.

Not as many new cars as we hoped for with only five, but there are plenty of stages to keep you occupied. Not to mention the gameplay is still smooth and insanely fun. Add in the improved handling for the rally races and you get some great additions to Forza Horizon.

Multiplayer:

Not only can you race in rally stages offline in single player, but you can also compete in them via competitive online multiplayer. Two different playlists are available online -- Social Rally and Veteran Rally. In Social Rally everybody plays with default difficulty settings. Veteran Rally allows you to choose what assists and difficulty settings you want to enable and disable.

Unlike in the Rally Festival, you do see your competitors cars, but don't worry, collisions are always turned off in rally events online. You will simply see other people's ghost car so you know exactly where they are on the track. The developers also give you a little more leeway if you are behind in an online race. The usual 30-second timer that is given to you to finish before you get a DNF is now set to one minute during rally races.

The multiplayer is still as solid as ever, with no real connection problems. With no collisions, that means that the occasional car jumping all over the place on the track is gone, which was rare to see anyway. There were also plenty of lobbies for the new DLC online, even though it is in a separate playlist. So there are plenty of people participating in rally races online.

Final Thoughts:

We do wish more cars were available -- but still -- there are plenty of events to compete in. They are delightful to play. If Forza Horizon is a game you still enjoy playing, then this is something you must pick up. It adds more hours of entertainment to an already stellar game. As previously mentioned, more cars would have been nice, but most people will find one car they fancy and stick with it anyway. When it comes to the new stages, they all provide something a little different, so you never feel disinterested. It's always nice to see DLC for a racing game that doesn't just add cars, and of course, it's also great when it's just as fun to play as the main game.

Learning Curve: It does take a few races to get used to hitting the brake just a tad more than you normally would, but other than that not a huge learning curve for the new DLC.

Visuals: Those same vibrant, colorful environments, this time with a little more dirt than pavement. The game says it early on and it is true, expect still see some stunning scenery as you continue racing in Colorado. Some of the tracks will have roads that will look and feel similar, but you do race on roads that were inaccessible in the main game.

Value: Asking 1600MSP ($20) means it better be a satisfying and entertaining experience when playing through this new DLC. Luckily, it is. This new expansion adds enough new things to be worth that high price.

Bottom Line: Forza Horizon is one of the best racing games this year. Add in the Rally Expansion DLC, and you get a vast array of content for you to play through. It's just as gratifying as the main single player experience and that's something we absolutely love.