First Look: Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious

Note: This article was guest authored by Toronto blogger Danny Petsis. You can find this article and others on his blog.

On March 27th Playground Games and Microsoft Studios released a standalone game, Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious. Every XBOX One and XBOX 360 owner can download the game for free until April 10th.

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious is only free until April 10th but after playing for about an hour and a half I realized I won’t need much more time to complete the entire game and successfully unlock all achievements, netting the 1000/1000 score. The total amount of time to complete this game is about 3-5 hours depending on your driving skill. Most of the achievements are story related or task related; one achievement in particular entirely depends on your skills for combo chains as a Forza driver and a little luck to go your way to achieve a 50,000 point score.

The game itself is great. The graphics are what we have come to love from the Forza franchise and the sound of each car revving up or the side swipes your car makes with another just as you make your pass are incredible. Play with the volume turned up to really enjoy that crash into a wall, a tree, or through a European bistro. Once that crash is made, be sure you hit the (Y) Rewind button and retry the corner you took too aggressively.

Aside from the beauty of the sound, the scenery is breathtaking. With the ability to drive off the road and explore a lot of the European country side you find yourself looking around in the immediate areas or skyline. Although it doesn’t offer all the areas that Forza Horizon 2 does, it is a prefect slice of the the world to get your feet wet, and potentially push you towards purchasing the more complete and deep, Forza Horizon 2.

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious has a total of ten cars to unlock and use throughout your campaign and free roaming. Each car has its advantages and beauty bestowed upon it. You will find yourself either cycling through all the vehicles just to have a go at each one or stick with that one you love throughout your entire time in Fast & Furious.

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious did increase my interest in the new movie Furious 7 and even brought me back to replaying Forza 5 and Forza Horizon 2. It was a great plan to release the game free for a limited time; however, if the game was a little longer I would gladly pay the $9.99 or even more if we could get another 5-10 hours of game play.

With the game having such crisp sound and stunning visuals but such a short story mode, this felt like an extended demo more than a full game release.