Games

Forza Horizon 4
Popped in to change a setting and decided to take a drive up to Edinburgh — doesn't take long (the open world map is big, 52 square miles, but far from life-size), but then I ended up just driving about and such things (I did all of one race), and suddenly it was over an hour-and-a-half later. I'm sure that will get boring eventually... but I went back to the game later and spent another couple of hours in it, so not yet!

And then something weird happened. I reached the point where you unlock more stuff — like so many games nowadays (it seems to me, from what I've heard/experienced), it leads you carefully for a little bit, then decides you've learnt the basics and so opens up more. Except because of, um, how I acquired the game, it comes with everything that was available to unlock, all DLC content, etc. And so rather than just a little more progress, I was flooded with stuff. I don't think everything is unlocked — it looks like completing races, earning points, etc, will make still more stuff accessible — but whereas before it offered a couple of options to choose between for what to do next, and stacking up points eventually unlocked the next level and season, all of a sudden I was Level 17 (I think I was Level 2 or 3 before), and the map was covered in options, and notifications kept flashing up with stuff I'd unlocked, and I had enough points to basically jump to the next season every time something in the game might trigger that. And the game crashed several times, I think overbunded with everything it was having to process! (It eventually settled down and seemed to run fine again, thank goodness.)

That explosion of content and progess was... kind of exciting, I guess; but it also felt like I was being rushed past the 'training wheels' phase, and I kind of liked that gradual progression and uncovering stuff. For example, once you've completed the 'training' part — which introduces mechanices and options, but also progresses you through a full cycle of seasons over a couple of hours of playtime (according to reviews) — the game changes season every week. So rather than linearly moving on whenever you complete/earn progress (and you can rack up points by just driving around as much or little as you want, so you'd have some control), if the week you're in is Spring and you want to see something in Winter, you've got to wait up to four weeks for it to cycle through. It's a neat concept, but potentially frustating. And in terms of unlocked races and whatnot, I'm sure everything remains revisitable, so I haven't literally missed it; but, for example, I did one event in Autumn and was pushed straight to Winter, then did one thing in Winter and it was straight to Spring. I don't think it's meant to work like that! I think you're meant to, sort of, be guided along a bit more gradually, then eventually set loose.

Ah well, it is what it is. At least having access to so much stuff is, as I said, kinda exciting, and I can pick and choose whatever I want to do from a vast array of possibilities. And there is a lot to work through!