So, it’s not technically on Steam, or even part of my backlog, but it has consumed so much of my gaming time over the past few months, and is the most fun I’ve ever had with a racing game, that I’m going to write about it anyway: Forza Horizon 3 and expansions.

Forza Horizon 3 begins with you arriving in Australia to take charge of the Horizon car / music festival, and starts things off by racing in a buggy down mountainside hills, across streams, and through forests, against a jeep suspended from a helicopter. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is, and this game revels in that. The game includes speed traps (top speed at that point), speed zones (average speed over a road segment), drift zones, stump jumps, and specific challenges, in addition to big showcase races such as mentioned above that pit you against increasingly ridiculous (and awesome) challenges. But, surprisingly, there’s also quite a good racer underneath all those arcade trappings. Horizon 3 nails the arcade / sim sweet spot.

Plug in a racing wheel (mine is a newly acquired Logitech G29 with pedals and shifter, which I love), turn off all the assists, and Horizon 3 becomes a surprisingly capable simulation. It’s not as realistic as Project Cars and similar full sims - and the tracks are designed for longer straights, fewer and wider turns, and faster speeds all around - but it absolutely rewards good racing lines, smooth driving, weight transfer, and proper application of breaks and throttle, while punishing mistakes such as carrying too much speed into a turn, slamming on the brakes, or getting on the gas too fast by realistically sliding off the road or spinning out. The races range from small circuits to long A-to-B treks, and the locations range from small town to urban city, from rain forest to Australian outback, and run across pavement, dirt, and sometimes even people’s back yards.

Horizon has a delightful rewind system, great for those struggling with the arcade hijinx or just getting into realistic racing. After making a mistake, such as missing a jump or bungling a turn, you can rewind the game and try it again. You do sacrifice any Skill points you may have earned prior to rewinding (also lost upon crashing), which are used for leveling up and unlocking in-game bonuses, so there is incentive to avoid using it, but there’s usually no limit on how often or how much you may rewind so the game is very forgiving.

The game is also generous. The base game includes 300+ cars spanning vintage classics, modern street cars, exotics, rally, and off-road. You’ll find everything from a Honda Civic to a Lamborghini Aventador, Ford F-150, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Ariel Nomad, McLaren P1, or a Hummer (VW is a notable absence, though Porsche makes an appearance). Each car handles differently, and it’s a pleasure to drive each one and see how it feels on the road. Each car can also be modified and tuned, if you so desire, and you can also download mod sets and tunes submitted by other users. There are more cars available via DLC packs, but there are so many already in the base game that I would only bother with the DLC if you really want to own everything or if there’s a car you absolutely want to have.

The game also rewards you constantly for just about everything you do - you can do races, complete stunt events, or just drive around and you’ll still be rewarded. There’s a reward for racing cleanly, and a reward for smashing into everything. The map is quickly filled with various races, stunt events, and points of interest. The game just wants you to have fun with whatever you do.

In addition to being varied, the Australian location is also beautiful, and it’s a real pleasure to just drive around the in-game Australia and take in the sights (when you’re not weaving between traffic at 100+ mph, anyway). Though I did notice that the cockpit camera has some issues with lighting at dusk and dawn making the world look too dark, particularly in the shaded forest areas.

The game runs great, and my PC with an i5, RX 480 4GB, 16 GB RAM is able to run the game at 6032x1080 (triple-screen) at 60 fps on Medium settings or ~45 fps at High settings. I experienced some stability and crashing issues, seemingly related to the game’s server, around the end of last year, but those issues have been almost entirely resolved since, and crashes have become rare. The game does love to gobble up memory, however, and even with 16 GB RAM I have to close out of Chrome and other programs to avoid running out.

Blizzard Mountain, the first expansion, is a curious thing. It can range from really fun to really miserable, seemingly without reason. It starts you off with a breathless drive down the snowy mountain in a souped up rally car as you slide and jump past trucks and SUVs, but if you’re not careful the expansion can quickly go downhill in a bad way.

The setting is a small snow resort at the base of a mountain, complete with snow men on the sides of the road, and has you drive across snowy roads, frozen lakes, and through deep snow. It’s again lovely to look at, if not as immediately eye catching as the original location, and can be a real blast. There are a variety of races, and the stunt events from the main game also carry over. Unfortunately, it can also be a real pain.

Blizzard Mountain increases the difficulty by making the AI drivers much more aggressive, while the AI difficulty setting itself seems to have very little effect (there’s a little difference between the lowest and 2nd lowest setting, and almost no difference from 2nd to highest). Looking online, I saw many users complain about how difficult they found the expansion, while a few found it to be much easier. The snowy terrain favors drifts and power slides, and the choice of car makes the biggest difference in whether you will succeed or fail. The game warns you that cars without snow tires will handle poorly, but not that rear-wheel drive cars will cause you to spin out almost constantly (which is realistic, but seems not to affect the AI at all). Driving one off-road race in a rear-wheel drive car was an absolute misery that saw me coming in last, while driving a different all-wheel drive car of comparable performance in the same race saw me easily come in first. Unlocking everything on the mountain now requires accumulating stars - with 1 star awarded for finishing a race, 2 stars for finishing 1st, but the 3rd star requires finishing 1st while completing an added challenge such as getting a certain score by the end or completing a certain number of drifts, and that 3rd star can prove very difficult to acquire.

But nowhere is the bizarre difficulty as apparent as when driving the Subaru Impreza WRX STI rally race car. The game includes two models of the car, the #75 and #199. The cars appear identical in everything aside from their appearance, as they should, but racing them on Blizzard Mountain proved to be night and day. In the #75 car, I struggled to come in 6th, having to lower the AI difficulty to the lowest to have a chance of winning. In the #199 car, I would reliably come in 1st every time. Same exact car, but with two radically different results.

As such, Blizzard Mountain may be lots of fun as you engage in hill climbs, slide through snow covered descents, and other races best suited for rally and off-road vehicles. But, if you chose your vehicle poorly, it can be as miserable and unforgiving as the harshest winter.

Hot Wheels is a silly, joyous, and wonderful expansion from start to finish. The Hot Wheels tracks slot in unbelievably well with the Horizon framework and are an absolute blast to drive on. They’re brilliant orange pieces of joy. The very first introductory race had me literally grinning.

It borrows the Blizzard Mountain framework of having stars as rewards for challenges, however the bizarre AI difficulty that plagued that expansion seemed to have been left on the mountain. And while the 3rd star may still be difficult to acquire, the expansion is much more generous about unlocking races and events such that you never feel like you’re forced to try to get it - it’s reserved as a challenge for the hardcore rather than as a requirement for progress.

The tracks themselves, set in a cheerfully sunny city surrounded by a beautiful blue ocean, are delightful - with sharp banks, speed boosts that hurtle your car down the track at incredible speeds, jumps, loops, twists, and some surprises I won’t mention. Just driving across the tracks is a pleasure, and there’s one in the middle of the map that was so fun to drive across that I literally went over the same segment, back and forth, half a dozen times for the pure joy of it.

The new Hot Wheels cars with their wacky designs didn’t really appeal to me - as I have no experience or affection for their real-world toy counterparts, and some of their cockpit views were unfortunately small and obstructed - but regular cars worked just fine, and you can take your whole collection of cars across the crazy tracks.

Hot Wheels is wacky, silly, wonderful, and an absolute joy. It may not appeal to those looking for a more serious experience, but the kid in me loved every bit of it.