Hearing rocks ping the chassis as you race or the frame whine with rough landscapes makes for a real life racing experience that matches what it actually sounds like when racing this type of terrain.
The developer Codemasters has created many rally racing games but are striving to make this the most simulation based title out of all of their releases. This is very welcome as there have not been many Rally simulation games released in the past from Codemasters or any other developers.
Stages are procedurally generated as you go. This means that Dirt 4 has virtually endless replayability.
The custom stage creator called 'Your Stage' is fairly simple to use. You choose only the length and the complexity of the stage and on which country your race will take place. There are five countries to choose from: Australia, USA, Spain, Sweden and Wales.
Races take part in five different countries around the world: USA, Australia, Spain, Sweden and Wales. Each of them with unique features and demands. Australia for example is gravel-based with tight zones and twists. Spain is mountainous with little margin for error.
In career mode you can spend earned credits on improving your facilities and as a result the effectiveness of your engineers.
You also get to micromanage your career, especially when it comes to sponsorship deals where you will constantly try to find better and better deals to increase your earnings.
If you create a custom track that you enjoy, or rather, if the game generates a custom track that you particularly enjoy, you can save it and even share it with friends who own the game.
The sound effects are brilliant as well. From the buzzing sounds coming from the cars to the nature sounds coming from the track you are currently racing.
Even though they could stand to be a little sharper, the visuals are very detailed. You can easily see and make out in detail the leaves as they rise above the ground once you pass on them, or the mud caked on the car you are driving.
The water visual effects are phenomenal as well. Especially the splash effects.
While certain car categories and eras are well-covered with lots of different models, some eras are left behind. The 2000s for example are represented by only a handful of car models.
Forza Horizon 4 is a blast to play because of how real it feels without getting into outright simulator territory. You have plenty of chances to drive at full speed, zooming through the fullness of the environments. Turns are reasonable to gauge, so you can take the time to maneuver and quickly get back to hitting the gas. The simulation aspects include lots of options to tune the difficulty how you want, including colored lines on the tracks that guide you in the most optimal parts of the tracks, while more experienced vets can up the AI difficulty for more of a challenge. Fine-tuning races to fit what you're looking for helps you enjoy driving that much more, letting you naturally improve as you sink more and more hours into the game.
Whether you're in the mood to play against the AI or against other players, you can easily change between both modes whenever you want. Offline play is still populated with other cars on the road, while in multiplayer, all of those cars are actual players driving around to their own objectives. And if you do go online, if you happen to lose your internet connection, the game will simply shift you to online mode until you sort things out, and then you can jump right back online.
You can automatically know which car you're driving just from the way it feels with a controller or peripheral wheel. The rumble features are unique for each car, down to the fine details of how hard or soft the vibration is. The sounds that the engine make are true-to-life as well, with some of the more compact, classic British cars from the last century sounding straight out of a period piece film, while the more modern rigs are of course much more intense. It's worth it to try out a bunch of cars to see all of the differences between them, and just how much work went into making these features.
The huge open world changes drastically from one season to the next, keeping things from getting stale. You can never really get too used to how a track plays, since the in-game clock is always ticking, and that same track will be completely different over time. In the spring, there's more rain, so tracks tend to be quite muddy, letting off-road races shine more. In the summer, there's of course plenty of sun, which is a great neutral time to get used to the general layouts of each track. But by the fall, all of the leaves in the road can cover your view, and in the winter, the snow and foggy atmosphere can be tricky to navigate with even more limited visibility. And all of the seasons loo gorgeous, just as they do in the real-life locations set in Britain.
You get to drive all sorts of cars and trucks of all types, but the big trucks can cause some problems with the camera. Every now and then, you'll come across bridges and other overhead passes throughout the world. The camera doesn't quite adjust to fit in with your view and the truck, so it ends up hammering up and down until your overhead view isn't obstructed anymore. So if you're driving a big truck during a race, you just have to be more careful whenever you see a bridge coming up.