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Forza Horizon 4 · The Long and Short of It

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Thanks for checking out the Long and Short of It podcast.
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You can find us on all good podcast platforms.
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Please consider following or subscribing.
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We hope you enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the Long
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and Short of it, the podcast where we discuss each of the
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games on the Open Critic top 100 list.
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My name is Lawrence and I'm joined by this is.
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Dad, welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast on
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what is very close to Christmas. But we're not quite there yet,
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are we? It's.
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No, just over. Oh, it's just under a week,
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isn't it? Well, it is.
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I think when this episode comes out, it'll be a week until
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Christmas Day. So that's exciting, isn't it?
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And I know that you've had Christmas celebrations recently.
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That's my work Christmas party. Yes, that's the one.
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Yes indeed. Had a rundown of events.
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Yes, I for anyone that doesn't really listen since last year I
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don't really drink anymore as I can't handle the hangovers
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anymore and I had my work's Christmas party.
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No the weekend just gone. And to be fair, like, amazing.
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It was a real spectacle. But I, I was very, very, very,
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very hungover Sunday. And I so.
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What was spectacular about it? Probably the scale of it that
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the place has got about 650 people working there and they
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basically hide out this entire event space.
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There's a three course meal with about 30 tables and there was a
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stage which had like a theatre company providing the
1:44
entertainment all night. And the theme was like bringing
1:46
Broadway to Birmingham. So they were doing all these
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show tunes. It was black tie.
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It was. I'll send you some videos after,
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but it was very impressive. I think they probably spent a
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lot of money on it, but yeah. And obviously an open bar and
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lots of wine on the table. And all of Sunday, I wanted to
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cut off my own head because I was so horrifically hungover.
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I think my best Christmas do was when we or when not me when
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previous employers hired at hired out the top of Tower
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Bridge, the entire top floor. Oh, right, that.
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Was pretty much cost a pretty penny.
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Spectacular. And they also did at the top of
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the centre point as well. This was when I worked for a law
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firm in in London and yeah, they had lots of money to.
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Spend too much money in some sorts.
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Of events, yes, and I've also just had quite a few Christmas
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things this week. Also probably drank too much.
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I'm feeling a bit rundown now. However, I think I did catch
2:52
something at one of the events. I don't know what and I don't
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know when. Yes, yeah.
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Yeah, you're definitely going to get ill.
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I mean my my plan yesterday was to drive home and get into bed
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very early because I was still feeling a bit ropy.
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But then I messaged you from the side of the road because I was
3:08
on the on the way home on the M42 and someone decided to rear
3:13
end me in my car. Lovely.
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So instead of getting home and getting into bed at like 7:00
3:19
PM, which I was looking forward to, I got to spend the entire
3:22
evening stood on the side of the M42, which was lovely.
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Luckily, no one was hurt. He doesn't like that for an
3:28
evening. Well, quite.
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But yes, luckily it wasn't too serious, so all is well.
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What's alas, we talk about 1 motor car Fender Bender as we
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move on to the topic of today's episode, which is motor cars as
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motor car Fender benters Bender 6 benters.
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That's right, benters, 6A benter, yes.
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But yes, this week we're talking about Forza Horizon 4.
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I love it that we start recording and and my neighbours
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starts to do DIY. I mean, that's that's probably
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my favourite part of recording. Maybe what you could do is you
4:08
could ask them to come and do DIY at your house so that it's
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even louder. Would that be brilliant?
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Yeah, that'd be. Yeah, you could.
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Do that. That'd be good.
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That's an idea. Get them Makita drill set out.
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That'd be good. Yeah.
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Yeah. Well, hopefully it's we'll do
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some other things, so hopefully it isn't too bad.
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But yeah. So Forza Horizon 4 comes in at
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#42 on our top 100 list on Open Critic with a score of 92.
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It released in October 2nd, on October 2nd, 2018.
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And it was created, developed by Playground Games and Microsoft,
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very much in line with the previous game from the series
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that we played, Forza Horizon 3, which was a few months ago now,
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wasn't it? Yeah, maybe beginning of this
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year, I think. Yeah, I think so.
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So it's been a while, but yeah. So what's, what's the history
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with this game? Where did you play it?
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What was the what was the vibe? First question, where does Forza
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Horizon 4 sits on the list compared to the other Forza
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games on the Open Critic list? So looking at it now, it looks
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like Forza Horizon 5 comes in at 45 S, 3 places lower than
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Horizon 4, and Horizon 3 comes in at 67.
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OK, so. It's the highest one of the
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three. OK, yes, interesting.
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So yeah, had you played this game before?
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What's your What's your history? In no, but I do.
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I remember when this came out, there was quite a big press
5:54
campaign alongside the game, and obviously it's set in the UK, so
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you couldn't really, being from the UK, you couldn't really miss
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this. Yeah, the hype around this game,
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and I was very aware of what it was.
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But as we talked about in the previous Forza Horizon episode,
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that was my first Forza Horizon game.
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So yeah, I've not played this one before.
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But yes, I know you have played this game extensively.
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Yeah, I, I think this was one of the games that I got free when I
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first got my my Xbox. OK, so I can't remember when I
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got my Xbox. It must have been before we
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started the 19121912. I got it after I, I sold my
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ticket on the Titanic, correct? That's right.
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But no, I, I can't remember when I got my Xbox One, but I'm
6:57
pretty sure one of my friends sold me his and I think this was
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one of the first games that I got on it.
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And to be fair, I really enjoyed it.
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Playing Forza Horizon 3 for the podcast was the first time I'd
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played that one. However, I've probably, I mean,
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now I've probably logged about 30 hours on Horizon 4 and I've
7:17
played a fair bit of Horizon 5 now as well, which we'll
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obviously come on to in due course.
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Yes. But yeah, I've, I've played a
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lot of Forza Horizon 4 and the Forza games are kind of split
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into two camps. You've got the Forza Motorsport
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games, which are kind of like track racing games, and then the
7:37
Horizon games. They're not, they're not really
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meant to be like mainline Forza games.
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They're kind of meant to be add-ons, but I would probably
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argue that the Horizon game is bigger.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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So what? What?
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What do you do in this game? Obviously in Forza Horizon 3,
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it's based in Australia, wasn't it?
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Yeah. So what's the vibe with Forza
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Horizon 4? Is it the same kind of thing as
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as? Horizon.
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It's also Australia. It's Australia Part 2.
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That's correct. You drive the car as a kangaroo.
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Yeah, Wallaby, that's right. So this this time what we've
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sort of got is a greatest hits of the British countryside.
8:28
So you've got areas inspired by the Cotswolds, you've got areas
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inspired by the Lake District and areas inspired by Scotland.
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And basically you do the same thing that you did in Forza
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Horizon 3, but in four. There are tweaks here and there
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to the formula. You can now buy houses, which is
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quite, I mean it's a small feature, not game changing, but
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still a nice touch. And there's kind of a bit more
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in some ways fluid progression, but in some ways not so much.
9:05
For example, you can carry out all the stunt missions
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back-to-back. So yeah, it's very much the
9:14
same. You've kind of got this semi
9:15
open world and you drive around and you you pick your races and
9:20
you compete in the races. The races typically are
9:23
percentage based so that you're travelling a set course and
9:27
you've got a percentage in the corner which is going up and up.
9:30
The race that you've finished, Yeah.
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Yeah, 100%, which is the end of the race or they're lap based,
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but there are fewer of those. And you also drive around
9:41
smashing signs, doing basically jumps and doing speed limit
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breaking things. And yeah, so there's quite a
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variety in there and it's definitely entertaining.
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It, well, it's, it's an open world racing game, isn't it?
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And like you say there, the the newest thing with this game is
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in comparison to the last time when it was Australia, this is
10:07
based in the UK, which is probably why it had so much UK
10:11
attention when it came out because it's quite rare that you
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find games that are based in the UK.
10:16
Yeah, I think particularly real locations company, isn't it?
10:19
I believe so, yeah. And I mean, like, I think that's
10:24
probably one of the reasons that I like this game so much.
10:26
I mean, I, I live in, I live in Worcester sheer and I'm not too
10:31
far from the Cotswolds and one of the Cotswold towns that you
10:34
drive around in this game is a place called Broadway, which is
10:39
one of my favourite places. So it's not like a model.
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No, it's not one. Recreation of Broadway same as
10:48
like Edinburgh in this game isn't exactly the same so that
10:51
that. Was pretty close I'd say, like
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you. Could.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can drive around that and
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I've been to Edinburgh a few times and you can, you can say,
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oh, that's where that is, that's where, that is where.
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Drive around it. You're definitely like, this is
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Edinburgh 100. Percent distinctly Edinburgh,
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whereas Ambleside, which is the the town or the village that
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they've picked in the Lake District, really doesn't
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resemble Ambleside that much, I'd say.
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No. And there is also the inclusion
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of like places that are based off areas in kind of like South
11:24
Wales. So like a lot of the at the
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start of the game when you like right at the beginning you go
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through like a a four season horizon event and I think it's
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the one in the rain that's mostly considered to be the the
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Welsh section. OK, but the the the new feature
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in this game in comparison to the last game is the seasons.
11:54
Yes, good point. And that is probably the biggest
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thing that was marketed when this game came out is the fact
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that in real life weeks every week, the season in game will
12:08
change to spring, summer, autumn or fall if you're American and
12:13
the winter and the map stays exactly the same.
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However, the the environment changes.
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So in the winter you'll be driving through a lot of slush
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and snow and ice and the lakes will be frozen over.
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Whereas in summer you'll be doing a lot of you know, like
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long drive, like long term races in in the sun, etcetera.
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It changes a lot and it changes the way that you play the game
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and the kind of cars that you probably drive.
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And when we come on to the little did you know section in a
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bit, I'll kind of go on to that a little bit more.
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So let's go with our usual format of gameplay is indeed
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king. So do you think that Forcer
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Horizon Four is fun to play? Yeah, it's yeah, without a
13:03
doubt. It took me a bit longer to get
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going with this one than Forza Horizon 3.
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I think because because we played that earlier this year.
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That was my first one. I really got into that.
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You really? Yeah.
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You did a lot, didn't you? Yeah, so I really quite enjoyed
13:23
that and I enjoyed the novelty of it because it was my first
13:27
Forza Horizon game and actually I was pretty hungry for more.
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So it took me a bit longer to get into this one.
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And I do think there are pros and cons to both of them.
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I think Forza Horizon 3 does something's better than Four,
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and I think 4 does something's better than 3.
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So I'd be interested to see where Five goes and if that
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takes the crown for me. You know where 5 space, don't
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you? Is it Mexico?
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Yeah, it is. It feels a little bit different
14:02
to the other two as well. I think that you're quite like
14:04
5. I think, yeah, I'm sure we'll
14:08
get into what some of the drawbacks I felt were with 4
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compared to three and and and so on.
14:16
But yeah, I mean it, it's a fun game to play.
14:18
You and I felt like this time, if you didn't want to just race,
14:25
you could just explore the countryside, smash up signs and
14:29
just mess around a bit more, causing chaos.
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And I think the game encourages it a bit more in this game.
14:35
So there's plenty to do for different types of gamers.
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Yeah, agreed. I mean, I, I've played this game
14:45
a lot, so obviously I, I also think this game's fun.
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And I mean, I'm not someone that's massively into cars
14:55
hugely, but I'd say I'm probably, I've got more of an
14:57
interest in cars than probably you have.
14:58
Would that be fair to say? I like cars.
15:03
I like cars more now than I probably ever have.
15:06
But I I am by no means a tech head.
15:11
And obviously where I work there are engineering departments that
15:16
work on vehicles. And I remember someone said are
15:21
you, are you mechanically minded?
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And I said I'm probably not the least mechanic, mechanically
15:28
minded person, but I'm also not someone that gravitates towards
15:32
it either. So no, yeah.
15:35
I, I think with, with this game is because it's based in the UK,
15:39
like I've said, that's a big pulling point for me.
15:42
And as well as a fact, I think I've just remembered when I
15:44
played this game for the first time.
15:46
So it was probably 20, probably around late 2018-2019, not long
15:52
off early 2019, not long after it came out.
15:55
And it was at a point where I was, I had my first ever job in
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the industry in which I now work like I'm in.
16:06
And it was my first time ever having a company car.
16:08
And I loved that car that I had from the company that I worked
16:11
for. It was a Volkswagen Golf GTE.
16:16
And I, I love a Golf and that car like the GTE spec isn't in
16:23
Forza Horizon 4, but a Volkswagen Golf.
16:25
I think it's an R line is in Horizon 4.
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And I just love the fact that I could get that car in game, tune
16:35
it up like looking first person and like the interior was the
16:38
same with like the tartan seating and stuff like that.
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It was just a very cool thing that I could do.
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And I'm there are car brands that I'm interested in and ones
16:50
that I'm not. Angry.
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I like, I remember when I played that game for the first time, it
16:55
was at a point in my life where I really, really wanted a BMW.
16:59
I've never had a BMW. I've driven around in some for a
17:02
while, but I've never stole one, never stolen ABMW myself, but I
17:09
remember buying quite a lot of like the M Sport lines of BMW's
17:12
in that game and souping them up and like that.
17:17
There's also some DLC that you can get with this game, like
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Bond DLC. Yeah.
17:22
I know the D. Five, yeah, yeah, the DB 5 was
17:27
probably my most second driven in car when I used to play this
17:30
game a lot more. And it's not, it's obviously not
17:33
the fastest car, but no, it's not from 1965.
17:36
But yeah. And I mean, like we've, we've
17:40
talked about Bond a lot in in the past on this podcast and
17:44
not, not not enough, just like the world is not enough.
17:48
But I've consistently always said people have their dream
17:52
cars and you love James Bond 10 times more than I do.
17:58
But I've always said that the the Aston Martin DB5 would be my
18:02
dream car. Yeah, if, if money was was no
18:06
option and, you know, take take a drive up to Scotland or
18:09
something. But yeah, this game is really
18:13
fun because you can just kind of play it however you want.
18:17
And we come on to, you know, what was your favourite element
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of the game? What was your favourite thing to
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do? I'm going to change it up
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slightly. There are Horizon events in this
18:25
game which same as as Horizon 3, so yeah, the showcases.
18:32
So what was your favourite showcase event?
18:35
And for people that haven't played this game, a showcase
18:37
event is kind of like an end of chapter challenge, you know.
18:42
So one of them is you're racing a hovercraft across Scotland and
18:48
underneath the very famous Viaduct Bridge, or you're racing
18:52
a Harrier jet across the British countryside, that kind of thing.
18:55
So what is your favourite showcase event?
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So, so they're, they're grand, extravagant set pieces.
19:02
They are where they're not typical races and they are
19:08
probably a bit more curated than typical races.
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You have set moments where things will happen and you'll
19:16
get camera shots over certain jumps and so on.
19:19
And if you're going to win it, you're going to win it by
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frames. Yeah, yeah.
19:23
Because that's the way that it's set up.
19:25
And then sometimes you'll lose it and you're like, oh, so why
19:28
did I lose it that time compared to the next time when I when I
19:31
beat it. So my favourite one has to be
19:35
for me the most British one of them, which was the the Scottish
19:41
train, which was that's called branded.
19:44
Yeah, yeah, So yeah. And it was, it was the LNER
19:49
train thing, which you do see on some of the old trains.
19:53
And yeah, it just felt very British.
19:55
And I wish they'd leaned into that Britishness a little bit
19:58
more with the showcases because some of them don't feel very
20:03
British. I would have liked to have been
20:07
in a slow car against the London bus, for example.
20:10
I think that would have been brilliant.
20:13
It's just things like that that they could have leaned into a
20:16
bit more. But yeah, that that was the the
20:18
most British and therefore the coolest.
20:21
The other ones like the Harrier jet, you do that.
20:24
You do something similar in Forza Horizon 3 for the final
20:28
showcase. And it was ridiculous there in
20:31
that there's there's no way that a car would beat a jet plane.
20:37
But here you do that. The the hovercraft was cool.
20:43
The dirt bikes, I think that we'd seen that in Forza Horizon
20:47
3 as well. So there were less here and I
20:50
felt that they weren't as ingenuitive as as it's.
20:56
The first time you've experienced it in three.
20:58
And similarly there's a special Halo one which is is cool.
21:03
Yeah, the Halo one's cool. And it definitely is a better
21:06
mission than the one in three. But again, the novelty factor is
21:09
gone because you've kind of already done that in three.
21:14
So it's not like, oh, but it's more like, oh, here's the Halo
21:17
Bishop Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a sense of
21:22
familiarity. And I probably think that's not
21:24
helped by the fact that we did play 3 not long ago, and I was
21:29
pushing to play this game a bit earlier on in the year.
21:32
So probably having that little bit of breathing room helped.
21:36
But yeah. What was your favourite
21:37
showcase? The same as you, the Flying
21:39
Scotsman. I think that's the best one.
21:42
It's I think it's closely followed by the hovercraft.
21:46
I think the hovercraft one's good.
21:47
And for, for anyone that doesn't know what I'm talking about when
21:51
I talk about like the big viaduct, the Harry Potter
21:54
Scotland. Yeah, it's the, it's the really
21:57
famous bridge that you see the Hogwarts Express going over.
22:00
And the Flying Squatsman is effectively, it looks a bit like
22:04
the Hogwarts Express, to be fair, doesn't it?
22:08
Just so, yeah, I think. Steam trains.
22:10
Yeah, I think the Flying Scotsman is the highlight.
22:12
And when you say that, oh, I'd like to see one like in a slow
22:16
car against a London bus or something like that.
22:18
I immediately thought, really, a lot of these showcase events are
22:25
very similar to the kind of challenges that you would see
22:28
them undertake on Top Gear back in the day when it was still,
22:33
you know, Clarkson, Hammond and May and some of the stupid
22:38
challenges they did, which, I mean, I was never a huge, huge
22:43
fan of Top Gear. One of our old housemates was,
22:45
wasn't he used to bloody love it?
22:47
Yeah. But there were episodes of Top
22:51
Gear or blah. That's, that's a really cool
22:53
concept. I love that.
22:54
Yeah, I've never. Been this game.
22:56
On it. But yeah, I appreciate the the
22:59
the novelty of it. Absolutely.
23:03
So what are your thoughts on the the the graphics on this game
23:10
more than the sound? Because the music is the music,
23:12
isn't it? There are a few different radio
23:14
stations, but yeah. The music's good, yeah.
23:18
The music's just as good as it was in three and yeah.
23:22
It's all about hospital radio. Yeah, so there's there's
23:27
something there for everyone. I don't think the music's on the
23:32
level of the GTA soundtrack, but it's a pretty good soundtrack in
23:37
and of itself. I don't think it captures the
23:41
party feeling quite as well as Three did, but it's a very good
23:45
soundtrack. The visuals, they're better than
23:48
Three and the I know when they recreated the UK, they were able
23:56
to get more accurate topographical data.
24:00
So the terrain is a bit more accurate, so where there are
24:05
mountains and hills and valleys and so on.
24:10
So they're able to more accurately recreate the British
24:13
countryside. And I think the seasons also
24:18
really help the the visual identity of this game.
24:24
And yes, it's a pretty game. To this day I don't think it
24:28
stands next to 2025's best looking racing games, but I
24:35
think it's aged very well and I think typically racing games do
24:39
age well to be fair. Yeah, and really any kind of AAA
24:45
game that you you talk about or look up past probably about
24:48
2016, they're all pretty good at holding up.
24:51
I mean, I, I had a little go briefly a couple of weeks ago on
24:56
Star Wars Battlefront 2 again, which came out in 2017.
24:59
Yeah, and that game still looks like it came out like now the
25:03
engine Unreal. But no, this game is very
25:08
attractive. Just unreal.
25:09
No, it wasn't. No, just unreal.
25:11
It's I think it's, it's a dice game.
25:14
It's not the Glacier engine, something else I can't remember.
25:19
But it still looks beautiful. Yeah, yeah.
25:22
But yeah, this game does capture the British countryside very
25:25
well. Like very, very well.
25:27
Which brings me on to the the Did You know section, which
25:33
cocktails a little bit more into the the the seasons.
25:39
So apparently from doing a bit of research into it, and this
25:43
doesn't surprise me, but the seasons, the system I put in for
25:47
the seasons was like a complete technical nightmare because
25:51
obviously what they needed to do was change the entire map
25:54
weekly. But in doing that, you couldn't
25:57
break any of the races, any of the AI lines that come up or the
26:02
player roots. And apparently it was so
26:05
difficult that it actually nearly killed the project off.
26:09
And it's why there's no other open world racer who's like done
26:13
it to the level that Forza has. Because when you, when you think
26:17
of it, it's like, oh, OK, the seasons change.
26:19
I'm now driving on the same roads, but there's snow.
26:22
But actually, if you think about it, in order to make that work,
26:26
there must be so much that goes into it.
26:28
Yeah, I think, I think you find in games generally that yes, we
26:33
get day night cycles, but games very rarely do season changes.
26:38
You do get occasionally things like Bully that does season
26:41
changes, yeah, and they're designed that way, but it's not
26:45
a common thing. So there is a novelty to that.
26:49
Well, The thing is as well that apparently the weather
26:51
transition transitions in the game are local.
26:54
So it could be raining in one area while another one stays
27:00
completely dry. And apparently like the snow
27:02
will linger longer in higher areas.
27:05
So you'll probably find that in the winter, the snow is a bit
27:09
deeper or a bit more difficult to drive in if you're driving
27:12
around areas in Scotland than if you're driving somewhere that
27:16
was more southern in the game. So like there's a lot of thought
27:19
that's gone into the season transition and yeah, it's it's a
27:24
it's a mechanic that you don't really see in games at all, to
27:27
be completely honest. No.
27:29
So yeah, I wanted to to throw that out there.
27:33
And just to add to that, it really does transform the
27:38
racing. I I really just liked what they
27:42
did with winter. I thought it was far too snowy
27:46
for the UK. But you do care massively.
27:49
But you do get all patches of snow in the UK depending where
27:52
you are. But yeah, so, so it, it, it
27:57
looked visually very pleasing. I thought it was a pain in the
28:01
arse to drive in and I didn't enjoy driving in the snow.
28:05
So I was grateful when I got to spring.
28:09
But yeah, it does transform the way you play and you have to
28:12
pick the right vehicle. And if you pick a fast vehicle
28:15
in the snow and you slip off the road, good luck trying to get
28:18
that thing back on the road. Don't drive.
28:21
Cars in the winter. Yeah.
28:23
And then you can drive across the lake, as you say, which is
28:25
frozen over, which again, transforms the way that you
28:30
play. Yeah.
28:32
So it's cool stuff there. Yeah, it's.
28:37
I mean, to be fair, whenever the winter came up for me, I'd
28:40
always like I, I had a lot of cars because obviously I played
28:42
it a lot in the past and I think I had a couple of Land Rovers.
28:45
So I'd immediately just jump in a Land Rover Defender, which
28:48
funnily enough is another one of my like dream cars.
28:52
But I don't think I'd be able to run a Defender just on the tax
28:56
alone. Bloody hell.
28:58
But yeah, so the question of the week then, we've talked a little
29:04
bit about in the Forza Horizon 3 episode where you'd maybe want
29:08
to see a Horizon game in the future.
29:11
And I think we both agreed on a few locations.
29:13
I think one of them was was Japan.
29:15
And obviously you've now been to Japan, so you've got a better
29:19
understanding of of what that would be like.
29:22
But from a growth perspective, obviously you haven't played
29:27
Forza Horizon 5 yet. But what kind of thing?
29:32
Say Forza Horizon 5 didn't exist yet, or you knew absolutely
29:36
nothing. About it What would be the next
29:37
steps of the series? Yeah, you've seen three, You've
29:40
seen them. What happened with four, which
29:41
arguably 4 is very, very similar to three.
29:44
What do you think you would want to see in the next iteration of
29:47
a Horizon game other than like a different location?
29:53
I'm going to let you go first for this one.
29:55
I don't usually, you usually have something to say, but I
29:58
need I need a bit of processing time.
30:00
For that, no, that's fine. I mean, I think that this game,
30:06
these these games was kind of coming out at around about the
30:09
same time as the Crew. And the Crew lets you mess
30:13
around with like motorbikes and stuff like that as well.
30:16
And I think that utilising different vehicles would be more
30:21
interesting, not just cars and not just supercars.
30:27
And I think maybe finding a new way to unlock vehicles, etcetera
30:32
would be interesting. That doesn't include implicating
30:35
microtransactions into it. But I think it's very easy to
30:39
like get credits on this game and great because, you know, you
30:45
want to buy more cars, etcetera. But I think they should probably
30:48
make it a little bit more difficult to achieve those
30:51
adding some new vehicles like motorbikes.
30:54
And like even again, I'm making a reference to Top Gear.
30:59
But like there was an episode where I think they raced each
31:04
other with Clarkson going through central London on a
31:08
bike. No Hammond going through central
31:10
London on a bicycle. I think James Wade like took a
31:13
boat or something, unless I'm misremembering.
31:15
And then Clarkson was driving. Stuff like that I think would be
31:18
very fun because it gives you some involvement from shows that
31:23
are super popular, Laptop Gear or like The Grand Tour, and it
31:29
will kind of switch things up a little bit.
31:31
But I think a lot of that would depend on the location that they
31:33
decided to put the game in, which obviously we've talked
31:36
about before. I think something that I would
31:43
like to see them do and I don't think for my money, any that
31:49
I've played have done this well. I'm sure there are listeners out
31:55
there that have played games that have done this well.
31:58
I would like to see a racing game implement a decent story
32:06
because here you have cutscenes now, which and you have like
32:14
characters that talk. Yeah, it never.
32:17
It's like the stunt ones, like you do the mission and and he
32:20
says, oh, oh, for whatever reason, they need you to do this
32:23
now. Oh, they decided to add more
32:25
stunts because you're doing it just it's it's there for the
32:28
sake of it. And and I get that, but I feel
32:35
like you go back decades and someone Once Upon a time said,
32:40
oh, it's a racing game. You can't have story, and
32:44
everyone's just kind of followed that template.
32:48
And actually there's no reason fundamentally why you can't have
32:53
a good story in a racing game. And so the crew, as you
32:59
mentioned, does have a story. The original crew does.
33:03
It's also got a really nice sense of progression as you
33:07
travel across America and that journey across America, I almost
33:12
feel like in Forza Horizon 4, you can go anywhere straight
33:16
away. And because of that, the sense
33:20
of progression is sort of cut off.
33:22
So I feel like when she, let's let's say the overall goal is to
33:28
get to Edinburgh and, and that's the road trip, it should feel
33:32
like a road trip. It shouldn't feel like something
33:34
that you can do by cutting across country in 10 minutes, if
33:40
that. And it it you don't, you don't
33:45
need to take any of the Arcadianists away, but you just
33:50
add a good story for people that want it.
33:54
And actually, I reckon quite a large subsection would want a
33:58
decent story if it was done well, if they really kind of
34:02
leaned into it. There was, I remember hearing,
34:05
I've never played it, there was like an RPG racing game and with
34:11
all the RPG trappings that go alongside that.
34:14
So yeah, I think it could be done with the right people and
34:21
the right story being told, which doesn't have to be like,
34:28
oh, street racing, Fast and Furious.
34:30
It doesn't have to be that. It can be that.
34:31
Maybe it's something like Italian Job.
34:33
I don't know, there are so many, I mean, the fact that there are
34:38
so many car films out there that are well received, each have
34:44
their own stories. Why can't we pull a bit from
34:47
that and incorporate that from a from a gameplay perspective, I
34:53
think lean further into the weather effects.
34:55
Like, if you're going to a really exotic setting, why not
34:59
have tidal waves and don't worry?
35:03
I mean, yeah. There's there's something that
35:06
will you'll enjoy in Force Horizon 5 from memory.
35:10
Yeah, that's like Tideways and Hurricanes.
35:12
One of the racing games I really still enjoy is actually a Disney
35:17
racing game called Split Second. And I might have mentioned this
35:21
before, but you race around the tracks and the tracks change as
35:25
you race around them. Like you're driving around an
35:29
airport and the air traffic control tower will come down and
35:34
it will destroy the track and you have to avoid it.
35:39
But at the same time, Castle in Mario Kart.
35:42
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
35:43
But even more so, like the destructibility in that game is
35:47
it's like each level is a giant set piece.
35:51
It's like the showcases, but they're actual races.
35:55
They're not set pieces in that way, but the stuff that happens,
35:58
you can trigger it and it's cool and there aren't enough games
36:02
doing that. So I think that aspect would be
36:08
good to improve on. I also agree that the
36:11
progression in this game isn't. This is one thing that I don't
36:13
think was as good as Forza Horizon 3, where it took me
36:19
quite a long time to get to the final showcase in 3 here didn't
36:25
feel that long at all to get to that final showcase against the
36:31
Air Force One fighter jet. So I feel like the progression
36:37
here is is too quick. And then they say, Oh no, you
36:43
have to get a gold wristband. But from what I've read, getting
36:47
a gold wristband doesn't really mean anything.
36:50
So yeah, it just kind of tails off and that sense of
36:55
progression was really not as exciting here as it was in
37:00
three. Sure.
37:02
No, I get that. That's fair enough.
37:05
It'll be interesting to see where you compare 5.
37:09
Yeah, I'm looking forward to 5. Yeah, we'll probably give it a
37:13
while just to let this one, you know.
37:16
Yeah, for you a little bit like. For the same reason, yeah.
37:20
Yeah, but no, I think that you're like 5.
37:23
So if we conclude, then Forza Horizon 4, it's the, like we
37:31
say, the highest rated Forza game on the list.
37:36
Do you think that it deserves its place?
37:40
I think it's really tough. I think I think a Forza game
37:47
deserves to be there. But you're not sure which one
37:50
yet because you've not got the full.
37:51
Yeah, I'm not sure which one to hang my hat on.
37:54
The other thing that I felt was that they lost a bit with Forza
38:00
Horizon 4. I said that Forza Horizon 3 was
38:07
like a summer holiday. Yeah.
38:10
And it really felt like that. Like through and through.
38:13
It felt like a celebration. It felt colourful and it just
38:20
felt different from what so many other games were doing.
38:24
As much as I appreciate the seasons, moving to a seasonal
38:27
approach and having this year round thing which doesn't end
38:33
it, it didn't feel like a summer holiday anymore.
38:36
It felt more like a year long version of the Isle of Man TT
38:45
and, and obviously that's that's the Isle of Man's, not Britain,
38:48
but yeah, it's the Britishness of it.
38:49
Or it might be technically be Britain, but it's got its own
38:53
government. But yeah, so, so I think, I
38:57
think it, it lost something of that, that party festival vibe
39:06
festival. That's that's the word that I'm
39:08
thinking, and I didn't think that would be the case before I
39:13
played it. And actually I think for us,
39:16
because it's our home, because it's the UK, it's never going to
39:21
be an exotic location in that way.
39:24
So I'm interested to see how Mexico feels, whether it
39:28
restores that sense of festival to it.
39:30
My feeling is that probably it will.
39:34
But yeah, I'm interested to play it.
39:36
So if you were to push me to say which one I enjoyed more, I'd
39:45
say 3. I think 4 is a refinement of
39:51
three. Yeah.
39:54
But I I just think. Leave some stuff out.
39:59
Yeah. And, and I think that the the
40:01
sense of progression from 3 was really I, I really missed that
40:06
with four and maybe if that had been.
40:08
Sort of there a bit more and you didn't unlock all the showcases
40:11
really quickly. I'd appreciated it a bit more.
40:15
I didn't do as much racing this time around because I could just
40:19
go around smashing sides and, and I felt like I was earning,
40:22
earning influence all the time. And, and, and I can see from
40:28
from this, this is one that you've played even now vastly
40:32
more than me, because when you drive around, you can still see
40:36
other people's stats. So I could see your stats.
40:37
You kept appearing in races against me and I could see the
40:40
number of roads you've driven on and the number of signs you've
40:44
broken, so on and so forth. And that's still called that
40:47
social aspect. Yeah, it is.
40:49
Yeah, so I like the formula of the Forza Horizon games, and I
40:54
think Forza Horizon 4 has a place, but for me, 3 was
40:59
preferable. And part of that is going to be
41:02
the novelty of three, which it was just my first Forza game.
41:07
I know that your opinion will probably be slightly different
41:10
from mine, but yes, let's hear it, yeah.
41:13
I prefer this game to three, and again, it might be like what you
41:17
just said, that it was my first Forza game #3 #4 sorry.
41:21
So that might have something to do with it, but I, I prefer this
41:26
to three. I prefer the location, I prefer
41:30
the setting, I prefer cars, even though there's a lot of
41:33
similarity there obviously. And I think it might just be the
41:38
order in which we've played them.
41:40
But that being said, I also really like 5.
41:42
And I think that if I have a guess, I think that five will
41:45
probably be your favourite from the amount that I've played it,
41:49
which isn't a huge amount, but if I think about Mark, yeah, I
41:53
think that one will be for you. So it'd be interesting to see
41:56
that one when we get there. Yeah.
42:00
So that's Forza Horizon 4. We've got a couple of games in
42:05
the pipeline coming out over the next few weeks so.
42:09
The next game, The next few weeks.
42:11
Well, yeah, next while, yeah, the next game that we're
42:16
playing. Have you played through it yet?
42:18
No. So yeah, have you started it?
42:21
I started it. I played probably an hour.
42:25
OK, Obviously it's a game I'm familiar with anyway, but it's
42:28
the remake of that game, yeah. So I will need, I'm going to
42:38
Essex on Saturday and I'm there for the majority of Christmas.
42:45
So I will then need time to play it once I get back and then we
42:49
can record that episode. Superb.
42:51
So it'll probably be either the week between Christmas and New
42:54
Year or early in January to the next.
42:57
Yeah, I think it'll be early January and we'll do that, which
43:00
is fine, yeah. Which will be a good episode
43:03
because Metal Gear Solid 3 is a game.
43:05
Yeah, we want. To do it for love and right
43:08
don't we? Yeah, we weren't happy with the
43:10
MGS 3 episode in total when we played it for Snake Eater a few
43:14
years ago. So I think that would be an
43:16
interesting episode and we'll probably.
43:19
Butcher this one as well. Exactly.
43:22
And after that we've got a shorter game whilst you work on
43:26
a much longer one in the background, which I think will
43:28
be interesting particularly. You want to reveal the shorter
43:31
game and we'll leave. We'll hold up the longer game.
43:35
So after MGS 3D we are going to be playing Bilatro, which is a
43:42
game that I've probably put in about 20 hours into so far.
43:45
It's quite addicting both on but playing at both my PC and on my
43:50
Switch. I think you play.
43:52
I mean, I know you don't play games as much as you used to,
43:54
but I still think you play games more than the average person.
44:00
Just just. If I get into something, if I
44:02
get into something, I probably will, but it's rare for me to
44:05
get into things these. Days because we talked about
44:08
that a couple of weeks ago. We saw each other in person.
44:13
Yeah, and I'm always consuming games to some degree.
44:16
Yes, whereas I'm usually just watching something about them,
44:20
Yeah. But yeah, that's.
44:22
Different interests. Isn't it?
44:24
It is. And that's what makes it
44:26
interesting. But yeah, so that's, that's
44:30
forced Horizon 4. That's what's going to be
44:31
happening over the next kind of month or so.
44:34
So, yeah, as always, you can find us on social media.
44:38
You can also e-mail us at the long and
44:39
shortpodcast@hotmail.com. Before, before we go, I know you
44:44
did a bit of a review of the year.
44:47
Is there any any interesting facts that you'd like to share
44:51
with the listener? Oh, like from our our feedback.
44:55
Yeah, was it the Spotify feedback?
44:58
Yeah, I can do. Let me just open it.
45:01
So yeah, like you can do a Spotify Wrapped for podcast
45:05
users. So this is only exclusively for
45:08
Spotify, only exclusively for people that listen on Spotify.
45:12
And I think that our largest listener base is in Apple
45:16
Podcasts, I think. But on Spotify alone, apparently
45:21
2025 was quite the year for us. So apparently our total new
45:26
audience went up 999%, which is impressive. 1032 Well, yeah,
45:34
exactly from one person to two. But our total follow up count
45:38
went up on Spotify by 25%. So thank you very much for that.
45:43
And our biggest episode of the year was Hitman Blood Money.
45:49
Yeah, Come on, keep going. We're.
45:53
Both. Fond of, apparently, via
45:55
Spotify, our podcast reached 47 countries overall, which is
46:00
interesting, Yes, because we couldn't even name 47 countries,
46:04
no. And our top five countries #5 to
46:08
be fair, the top three I think are interesting.
46:12
So #5 is Israel #4 is Finland #3 is Germany, and then #2 is the
46:20
US and #1 is the UK. Those two don't surprise me, but
46:23
the other three do. So if you're an Israeli, Finnish
46:28
or German listener, or indeed any international listener.
46:32
We appreciate it, those 47 countries.
46:35
Let's make it 67 next year. Exactly.
46:39
And apparently we're a top 10 show for 53 fans.
46:42
We're a top five show for 37 and we're the number one show for
46:46
six fans. I want to break north.
46:48
Korea personally, I don't think that they would.
46:52
We're not sanctioned to be listened to there.
46:54
I don't don't think, I don't think big Kim likes us, doesn't,
46:59
doesn't like our doesn't like our capitalist views.
47:03
Wow, wow. It's not allowed.
47:04
We can. We can try.
47:07
We can, we can, we can but try. But yeah, I mean for for anyone
47:11
that's that's like we say that is just Spotify.
47:13
But for anyone that's listened this year, we do appreciate you
47:19
whether you've only listened to the odd episode or you've
47:22
listened to all of our episodes or you've just recently started
47:25
following us or you've followed us for almost six years in
47:29
February, which is incredibly scary.
47:33
It's certainly been a journey. It's.
47:36
Been a good year I think. I think we've enjoyed it more
47:40
this year, haven't. We, yeah, I mean, I can, I can
47:42
speak it for myself. Yes, we've been less consistent.
47:47
Yes, we've been throwing games in the left and right from our
47:50
own choices. And we've also started doing the
47:55
open critic list, which I think has breathed some life into it.
47:59
Yeah, it's been a lot more fun this year.
48:00
So whatever we've been doing, we'll keep doing that.
48:03
Indeed. And we'll try to come up with a
48:06
little bit more consistency next year, even if it's just.
48:09
One point. We know that we can work on
48:11
that. But yeah, so we hope that you've
48:14
enjoyed listening this year or for the past almost six years.
48:19
We do appreciate it. We appreciate you and we hope
48:21
that you enjoy listening. And I suppose with that being
48:25
said, the last thing for us to say is we hope that you have a
48:29
Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
48:32
I suppose. Yes.
48:34
What, what would Mr Blobby say in this scenario?
48:38
He has been imprisoned. Yeah.
48:42
I see. So, yeah, trying to spread the
48:45
the the good word of our podcast into places like North Korea.
48:49
Yeah. So he was across the DMZ.
48:52
So we are starting a campaign to free Mr Blobby, Free Blobby
48:58
North Korea. Fantastic.
49:01
So if we can get that going, let's do that free blogby.
49:05
This will be our new For 26 catch phrase for the podcast.
49:11
Free blogby Fantastic. That would be fantastic, won't
49:14
it? Well yes, I said Merry
49:18
Christmas, a Happy New Year and we will see you all in 2026 for
49:22
Metal Gear Solid 3D. But in the meantime, take care,
49:26
Cheerio. See you on the next one.