The new Race To GOTY series is (well, apart from utter mystery in why do I keep doing this to myself) exactly what it says on the tin. There will be new entries, overtakes, disqualifications, uncompromising wheel-to-wheel. Game of the year title is the prize.
In today’s update, the action, the battle for the ideal apex hit, the revs, the smell of burnt rubber are all quite literal. Joining the shit-or-not reality show is, Forza Horizon 3.
Open playground. 300+ tyre-shredders. Countless challenges. Top Gear level of undying passion, tribute, and love for the one thing that turns men into boys. The car. Forza Horizon 3 – or indeed the Forza franchise as it debuts on PC this year – is nothing but pure, unadulterated car porn.
Not just that. Playground Games have, almost magically, managed to give their love for cars and the love for games a spot-on perfect fifty-fifty weight distribution before putting it on the road. It’d take tens of pages and possibly hundreds of synonyms to ‘fresh’, ‘modern’, ‘seamless’ or ‘versatile’ to describe what awaits one in the vrooming package. It’s uncanny.
But my mostest favouritest bit – and indeed the bit that earns Forza Horizon 3 the chance to race all the way to 2016’s line – are the showcase races. It’s when the game is not afraid to be blaringly stupid, in-your-face ridiculous. And if that’s not GOTY material, I don’t know what is.
