Driving sims were all the rage – will Forza Horizon 6 bring them back? | | Sports

Me he spent the last week exploring Japan in a Porsche 911, seeing the sights, racing other cars and occasionally going off the road and through an ancient bamboo forest. You all know what’s coming… this wasn’t in real life, folks – it was in it Forza Horizon 6The latest installment in Microsoft’s open-world adventure game is set in realistic, real-world environments.

Review the game (which is on Xbox and PC, and coming to PS5 later in the year) reminded me of the fun and excitement that driving games can provide. It’s easy to forget, but this was the biggest brand in town from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Consoles were sold the way their games were good: the original PlayStation had Ridge Racer, the Sega Saturn had Daytona USA. After that came the fun of Colin McRae Rally, the chaotic destruction of Burnout, the realism of Gran Turismo. They were a bestseller at the time, heralding the future of true 3D graphics.

But then came the time to absorb world fantasy, first-person shooters and survival shooters Fortnite and Minecraft. The groups left. Mario Kart has been hung, of course, and currently the annual F1 and MotoGP titles, as well as hardcore sims like Assetto Corsa Competizione and iRacing. But the big-budget high-speed racers have reached their peak, well.

It’s a shame because, as Forza Horizon 6 shows, there’s a lot of fun in this genre. Driving sims are rare because they are, at their best, ambitious and interactive. Many adults who play the game drive a real car, so the experience is well known – that’s why from the end of the 1960s, driving games were an important part of the entertainment industry. At first this meant electromechanical oddities like Kasco’s 1968 classic Indy 500, which used a rearview mirror to show a simple road on a screen, but later came video games from Atari’s minimalist classic Night Driver to the 1980s legend OutRun. to go.

However, sports also offer a fantasy element. All drivers have ideal visions in our heads – the open road, a glorious sunset, a fast turnaround – that are often impossible to achieve. When Sega game designer Yu Suzuki created OutRun, this is what he wanted to capture: you are driving a Ferrari on the coastal roads, listening to cool music on the radio, a beautiful girl next to you. It’s not about competition, it’s about life.

It’s tempting to say that players moved on because technology allowed it. Racing games around became world racing games (Test Drive Unlimited, Burnout Paradise), which became open world like Grand Theft Auto, where you can drive and shooting people. But I wonder if there were also deeper cultural, and political, things at play. Driving in real life these days is all about rapidly rising fuel prices, traffic jams, pot holes and the growth of the car as a clean commodity: you need to find something as functional, economical and environmentally friendly as possible. Perhaps driving games are like road movies – they spoke to a generation that saw the car as a source of freedom and joy rather than a waste of money, waste and environmental damage.

All I know is that Forza Horizon 6 is a lot of fun, and the opportunity to explore the Japanese version of the mix has been amazing. Perhaps this will lead to a major revival of the non-professional driving game. Grand Theft Auto VI is too on the way later this yearand of course it will have racing and driving as part of its campaign and many group donations. I also believe that the independent mode, currently drawing a lot from the 1990s era of 3D polygon graphics, will come up with a hit that brings out the spirit of Ridge Racer and Daytona USA. Earlier this year, Italian developer Milestone revived its Screamer title, a neon-drenched retro arcade racer, with success. I think there will be more.

The fast-paced game isn’t dead – it’s just on the move, it’s reviving.

Toys

I really like games that combine one or more of the colors into new surprises – à la MythTitanium Court is Banned Solitaire – so I had to download it Amberspireand the Lunar Division. It’s kind of like a city-building game, except you’re building the city on top of a giant defense tower that’s been around for a long time, and you get useful information by rolling large dice across the land and seeing what comes next.

In this way, urban development becomes a matter of luck, rather than a task of wisdom, and this instability is exacerbated by the fact that at any time, there is also a roll of dice that can suddenly bring a storm of destruction to your stammering area. It’s an interesting concept with a horror story and natural elements. If you enjoyed SimCity, but were frustrated by your inability to roll the dice to decide the fate of your people like a mad god, this is for you.

Available at: PC
Estimated time: 10-plus hours

For you to read

• Haters with silly hats shut the crap out, look away now. Microsoft has changed it too Xbox: from now on it will be Xbox. On May 13, the incoming CEO Asha Sharma put the necessary changes to the fans through the reliable democratic process of the Twitter vote, and 64% of the voters were there, so we are. Xbox!

• Author and scholar Cameron Kunzelman examines the nature and meaning of nostalgia found on next year’s tour, Mixtape, on his blog, machine question.

• I am game-as-work time is up? Gamesindustry.biz appears the latest figures and I wonder if the industry can learn anything from Capcom’s success (and genius) in the role-playing games.

Worth clicking

Question Block

Question from a reader Jamie:

“I was telling my kids about Price of ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 my favorite game and I was wondering if there is a museum that can see or play these old machines?

There are many museums in Britain dedicated to computers. The biggest one is National Museum of Computing at Bletchley, Center for Computing History at Cambridge (soon to host a special event for 50 years of the Z80 processor, which ran the ZX Spectrum) and Museum of Computing in Swindon. These include a variety of machines from early electronic computers to the latest models, including 8-bit micros such as Speccy and Commodore. They also have regular events and workshop sessions, so your kids can try programming in Basic or building little robots. There are also small local museums, including Cave in Stroud and Micro Museum in Ramsgate. I recommend it again National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which always has shows playing. Oh, and watch out for the exhibitions and computer events held from time to time at the National Museum of Scotland and the Science Museum in London.

Alternatively, you could just go wild and buy an old computer? You can find a ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 in decent condition for around £50-75 on eBay or at a retro computing fair (RetroFest the annual event dedicated to vintage home computers, is in Swindon from 30-31 May), although make sure they come with all the accessories and a compatible cassette or disk drive. You’ll also need a TV with an RF cable port, or an adapter that can convert the RF output to modern HDMI so you can plug it into the LED display. While acceptable, this is a waste of money and effort just to show your kids Horace Goes Skiing.

If you have a Question Block question – or anything else to say about the newsletter – post a reply or email us at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.