When I first saw this on the dashboard I would have sworn up and down it was just a car pack. I knew it was free but figured they were just giving you the cars from the movie in the game. Still, I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to own some of those and I made plans to download it. I clicked the link and didn’t even blink until I wondered why it was taking so long. Well, a 15GB file is either one massive crapload of cars or there was something else going on. Unfortunately, Google fiber hasn’t made its way north of the 49th yet so 15GB still takes some time to download and install. Instead of looking into what I was actually receiving I shut my Xbox down for the night. The next day a friend of mine at work clued me in to what I had actually downloaded. Fast and the Furious isn’t a car pack, isn’t an add-on, it is a standalone expansion for Forza Horizon 2...and it was FREE!
Walkin’
I was shocked. Playground Games had dumped a new set of storylines loosely tied to the movie onto the streets and maps of Horizon 2, provided some amazing vehicles to drive and,as an added bonus for you achievement hunters out there, Fast and Furious is complete with a full set of new achievements worth 1000 points!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFjxplJMISA[width=650,height=366]
If you have played Horizon 2 then you already know the locales and how the game works (if not check out Sarcasmo’s review of Horizon 2). You may remember how it starts when the cocky English dude asks you to drive the Lamborghini Huracan to the festival from the docks in Nice. That is the same way Fast and Furious starts but instead of cocky English dude you get Ludacris and, unfortunately, you don’t actually get to participate in the festival. The festival is still happening around you, and Luda talks a bit about it, but you are there to do a job so the festival is off limits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANuOIMTjUJ4&feature=youtu.be[width=650,h...
Diesel Burnin’
That job is to win 10 cars the Fast and Furious crew needs for their next big adventure. In true Horizon style, the races are not all point to point or laps. You get a taste of all Horizon 2 has to offer such as off-roading, racing a plane or helicopter, speed trap qualifiers, plus barn finds and a few bucket list challenges as well.
What Playground games has provided is a decent chunk of the Horizon 2 game world. If I had to quantify it I would put my guesstimate somewhere around 25%. It equates to most of roads in the France section of the full game. Fast and Furious also delivers some new cars to play around with including the infamous Dodge Charger driven by Dom (Vin Diesel’s character) in the movies. You also get some hopped up versions of an old Barracuda, a newer Challenger, Nissan GT-R, McLaren P1, the infamous Bugatti Veyron and a few others to explore the world in. Exploring is one of the Horizon 2’s best aspects and in Fast and Furious it is just the same. I managed to find all 135 roads plus a bunch of old dirt roads leading through forests and plains and vineyards. I smashed millions of dollars’ worth of cars into millions of dollars’ worth of grapes because I could. I willfully destroyed farmer’s picket fences around their land for miles and to run up my score. I ran up and down long straight-ish roads for hours with different cars to try and beat Sarcasmo’s best scores and times! I even succeeded once or twice!
Rock and Rollin’
Now, both you and I know this game is a promotional tool for the movie and Horizon 2. There are some expected limitations and I ran into them quite often….literally. At the end of some roads there are gates where there usually are not. Unlike other elements, such as some fences, smaller trees and grapevines in Horizon 2, these gates don’t give. I always feel a little guilty smashing around these beautiful automobiles (and for living after hitting a gate at 340 kph) but after the first couple of scrapes and bangs what’s 42 more? I also found some lovely orange cones where I didn’t expect them to be and blew through them only for the game to fade to black for a second and come back with my car pointed in another direction. The equivalent of the aforementioned gate but without the guilt of ramming a rare P1 into an immovable object.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdbtIlkZ1aM&feature=youtu.be[width=650,h...
So, the scale of the game is limited, and that is to be expected. However you are also limited to the cars in your garage which amount to the 10 you need to win.
Finish Line
Again I feel like I need to point out that this was a free game and not a demo. Looking at the store it seems to be sold for $9.99, but even at that price it’s a steal! There is no denying it’s a short game, and with only 10 cars it does feel limited when compared to the full game. However, on the flip side you get a sizeable chunk of southern France to explore while driving some pretty incredible automobiles with the impeccable look, sound, feel and physics that comes with the Forza games. For the price, I would say that equates to a match made in heaven!
