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I downloaded the Rally expansion pack for Forza Horizon last night since I finished all of the base game content, and it kicked my ass!
**TL;DR - The computer times seem unrealistically difficult to match, and if you make one mistake you are knocked down to dead last and it's nearly impossible to make up the time**
It has a vastly different structure than what I am used to. The base game is basically the standard racing game format but in an open world setting. Drive to event, enter event, race against other drivers in a lapped race or a point-to-point. First across the line wins. The Rally expansion is very much like its real-world rally counterpart in that you enter an event, then compete in staged races for that event but nobody else is on the track. You are racing against split times put up by 49 other computer-generated racers. As you compete in a stage, your time is checked at various checkpoints and you move up or down in standing as your time is compared to the other racers. When you finish a rally, your overall time is ranked, and you are given points toward the rally championship. Score enough points and you make the finals where you race for the championship.
I will say that the expansion is GORGEOUS! The rally tracks are highly detailed, dynamic and an absolute pleasure to drive on, and the cars are all pretty cool as well. The physics seem super-realistic (even going so far as to shift the weight of the car forward or backward depending on how you take a jump) and they present their own interesting challenges. You also have a co-driver who calls out upcoming obstacles and gives suggestions on which corners to cut, whether or not the course is off-camber and if there are any hazards to watch out for.
That said, good Christ is it difficult! I scored 50th in the qualifying race, and basically stayed at the bottom of the pack for the first four events. I'm not inexperienced at playing racing games; I played Forza 4 on Hard difficulty and basically scored first in almost every race I ran. On Forza Horizon I'm in the process of doing the same thing. I play on Manual with no TCS/ABS/rewind, and only use the driving line for breaking on street races because there are no markings for what turns to take. I like to think I'm reasonably good at this. But the Rally expansion just blew me clean out of the water. On medium difficulty and my usual settings I could not set split times on any stage higher than 25th place, and overall I was ranked dead last. I cannot believe the average player could score anywhere near the top in this game even using all of the assistants. It's just too brutal. I'm toying with setting the difficulty to easy to see how much of an improvement I end up with on my times, but I'm not sure how much time I can shave off my splits. I'm driving clean and flat-out in every race, and If I even make one little mistake around a corner I go from 20th to dead last and never make up the time.
Anyone else have this expansion and if so, what was your experience with the difficulty?
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