Forza Horizon 3

[Art Blade]

is a racing game with open world free roam. Tons of licensed cars. I think 350.

Location: Australia

TerrZor recommended it to me but I was very reluctant because it isn't available on steam nor on physical media. Which means, you need the former "games for windows live" that now is the XBOX app on windows10.

When I watched his live stream, I was convinced and hooked 

I purchased some type of voucher. 69€ isn't exactly cheap, either. "It's because the code is valid for the XB1, too, that makes it expensive." Aha. I want a PC game and pay for a console game. More likely, the car licenses are expensive.

I was already shuddering when imagining the registration process and all that with MS. Turns out that they knew my email addy. So the old gfwl account was still active.. so I just logged in. I had never seen the UI of the XBOX app.



OK, so where do I redeem the code? The UI is overladen with advertisements, pictures of all kinds, gimmicks here, features there. My games.. solitaire. Cool. Home.. nothing. Profile.. oh, I can BUY a name change. Uncool. Store. Aha, that might be it. Best free games. Best pay for games. No code. Another way of entering the store. More pictures and reviews. I can't even buy stuff if I wanted. No code. Search function. More pictures and reviews.. but WHERE THE FLIPPING HECK does one redeem the blasted code?

OK, web page. xbox.com/redeemcode sounds simple enough. Log in with my MS account. They don't accept my password but do accept my username. OK, try again with email addy and password. "Something went wrong and we can't sign you in at the moment. Please try again later." Several attempts later, nothing.. 

Back to the app. This time I somehow got lost in the abyss of an online shop they call XBOX store and finally found a way to actually enter my code. The game is mine.. that's it?

No download speed, download progress.. nothing. MY task manager keeps track of the ongoing network activity so I know it's still downloading. A click on the properties of my game disk tells me how much less free available disk space there is. I do the maths and figure out the progress.

By the way, I have an unused SSD in my PC. It was for my old PC's windows. I formatted it and got some 125GB SSD free for that game, it requires at least 60GB. So far, I have been downloading 40 GB, some 20GB per hour.

I hope that loading times will be splendid using an SSD

More to come..

[Art Blade]

HA! my windows notification app notified me with some chimes that the game is now installed and that I should take a look. Less than 3 hours for a 53GB download.

OK, first time..

OH BOY

[PZ]

   3 hours would mean only a relatively small update for me, and definitely not an entire game

I'm excited to read your impressions 

[durian]

Internet speed in Germany is blazingly fast 
I overheard some American guy on a certain forum said it took a day (to be exact, it's around 21 hrs) to completely download a PS4 game 

69€ is a pretty steep price,  especially for a game that came out last year, whereas a new physical copy of the XBO version is just $48 on Amazon.  Eagerly looking forward to your reports, Art. 

[LowPolyOWG]

Ahh, the Forza games Well, the PC version have been troubled with issues on some systems at higher resolutions. Seems like the engine uses X1 memory management (not needed on a PC). I had 3 and 4 on the X360 and I enjoyed those games. Well, it costs 599 NOK (70$) for the base package here and it is indeed a shared title between Win 10/Xbox One. Car licenses? yes, I can agree, that definitely costs money. Those games are best played with a racing wheel and I guess you have one?

Honestly, MS has a looong way to go if they want to catch up with Uplay, Origin and Steam to get PC parity. Download progress is tracked through the Windows Store App You need to click on your Windows Store avatar next to the search bar. Then a drop-down menu will pop up. Click on the "downloads and updates". You should go into a page for current and pending downloads... Can't believe MS made it that way...

[Art Blade]

I've got a nice wheel, yes. But I'm playing with the XBOX360 controller 

The game looks FANTASTIC. 

Haven't found a screenshot key or button yet. I miss ALL of steam's features.. Actually, TerrZor and I were using steam voice chat in the background

Simply put: The game is fun, addictive, SUPERB looking graphics, driving is fun and can be adjusted, there are loads of driving aids that you can switch on and off.

Australia: New South Wales, to be precise. I think I ran over fragger at some point when racing along a beach..

[BinnZ]

 

Looking forward to more impression Art
Funny read about the download struggle. GfWL is sóóó 2016

[PZ]

Indeed  I have never been able to get into driving games, despite having several, but I do like to see the adventures of others 

[LowPolyOWG]

I think I ran over fragger at some point when racing along a beach..

Ouch, hope he's alive and well 

[Art Blade]

Last time I saw him again and he was well. Then I ran him over again.

No.. I wouldn't do that. But if fragger or any of you were playing the game and on my friends list, then I'd see your name, avatar and numberplate just as if it was one of you driving around. All the AI drivers use names of real players and the ones in your friends list apparently always show up when you're not playing co-op or public online. I saw TerrZor and he saw me

I found a way for staged screenshots as in single player you can stop the game with the menu and choose a photo option. I much rather take a screen capture from the running game using irfanView. I had to downsize it to shrink the file size. Here's a pic

Black jaguar hiding in the grass.
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

[LowPolyOWG]

Nice ride

[durian]

Nice car, nice view 
I haven't seen fraggerdeen today, I suspect you did run over him somewhere again
FC5 sets in down under could be cool.

[PZ]

FC5 sets in down under could be cool.

oh yeah 

[Art Blade]

Really, it would break my heart if I ran over fragger. But he's tough as nails, he would most likely break my car and clobber me over the head with a bottle of Cooper

[PZ]