I might have said in the monthly update that this game caught my eye owing to the worlds it allowed to be explored, but I knew straight away that there wouldn’t be any massive landmasses here. It’s a simple mobile game ported to consoles with cross-compatibility between all devices the game is on. You really think a world – in fact four worlds – on the scale of Forza Horizon would be here? I knew that would never be the case, but it still looked to be a fun and chaotic time.
My first play of the game was exclusively in the offline mode, where I blasted through the tutorials and got to grips with the events on offer within the arctic world. It was here where I spent most of that first hour earning enough to finally get the vehicle I’d had my eye on since watching the trailer – the Mini-like Micro. There’s a lot of vehicles in the game, along with a few customisation options, but I’ll get to the economy of things later.
As you drive around the world, there’s a counter counting down from thirty seconds. Once it hits zero, an event will start. For races, you’ll get warped to the starting point (unless you opt out by honking your horn), but other events will seamlessly start where you are. Those races challenge you in offline mode to beat the timer, with the same going for find the ring events. Coin collection, stunt competitions, and tag will give you a target to beat. Beach ball bash (as I name it) challenges you to pop the ball by damaging it enough.
That’s the offline mode. Since it’s considered an online game, you’ll get the most out of the game by being online. This is where those events become true competitions. Get the most damage on the beach ball, be the first to finish the race or find the ring, beat everyone else’s score on stunt competitions, coin collection, and tag. Those events are joined by king of the crown, king of the hill, and cops and robbers. Those events are also fun to play, with them being the most competitive of the lot.
That’s what I discovered on my second day of playing – where I unlocked most of the other locations. To go with the arctic are forest, canyons, tropics, and moon. The tropics is a smaller location and less interesting than the rest, as this is where the tank battle arenas float in the sky. Tank battles has its fun, but loses some of the competitiveness when people can leave and enter a fight whenever they want.
The same is true of the other events, but tank battles feels closer to a serious event than any of the others. For one, the tanks can only be used in this event. There’s a separate levelling system than the base game where points matter. You can easily drop a level if you’re doing badly. The fact you can only get into a battle by choosing a tank at the tropics’ garage also suggests such. And you can always play against AI in offline mode should you wish to train up a bit in using said tanks.
Speaking of the base game levelling system, this is where I’ll get into the economy of the game. You start with one vehicle, with a few others available to buy from the off. In the offline mode, every event you complete will net you $2500. No matter how difficult the events get from beating them continuously, that is all you’re getting per event. Such encourages you to jump online, where the payouts are more generous for high winning positions.
New vehicles are unlocked by earning achievements and maxing out a vehicle’s stats. Those stats are speed, acceleration, boost, and handling, with each vehicle having a different pool of stats along with a weight category. You could raise the stats by driving around, or you could just pay up some of your winnings to fast-track to maximum. The price for doing so is lowered depending on how much you’ve already levelled the vehicle, but you’ll need to be doing this for every vehicle in the game – of which there are 47.
You won’t need to collect all the achievements to unlock all the high-end cars (only one requires you to get near full completion), though those end-game vehicles will be asking you to find all collectables within one of the worlds. The rings are easy enough to find, as they’ll be glowing green ready for you to find, at which point they’ll white out. There’s ten of those in each of the worlds (except for tropics), along with ten logos in all of the worlds (including tropics). These are harder to find, as they’ll be hidden between objects, at the outer ring of the world… pretty much anywhere you wouldn’t normally be going.
The only thing that’s bad about the game is that the net code is wildly inconsistent. At times, you’ll be in lobbies that are full and things will be smooth. At other times, other players will be jumping around when there’s only three in the lobby. When such jittering occurs, strange things can happen. In a game of cops and robbers, the cops turn robbers into cops by hitting them. I was seemingly turned into a cop by nothing. There was no-one around me and hadn’t been for a good while.
You might think it worthwhile turning crossplay off, then. Doing so, however, would mean having fewer people to play with. Numbers are already looking low, and I suspect most players would be on mobile – most of who probably would keep crossplay off to not have to deal with anyone using a controller.
I’d recommend the game to anyone who wants a bit of chaotic vehicular action in a multiplayer setting. The offline mode is a fun time as well, though won’t be as fun as the online mode. However, with the possibility of the online mode being short-lived (unless you’re on mobile), it would be wise to be cautious and assess whether you’d enjoy the solo experience – unless you intend to repeatedly blow the AI into oblivion in tank battles.
