Game Preview: Forza Horizon 3

How can you really judge the performance of virtual car in a video game unless you've also driven said the actual car in the real world, on the same roads featured in the driving simulator?

After doing exactly that in the lead up to the impending arrival of Forza Horizon 3 on September 27, let's just say few things could have been more anticipation-building in the lead-up to the first all-Australian version.

The Great Ocean Road on Victoria's rugged southwest coastline is one of the world's most iconic driving ribbons, and with Forza Horizon 3 set in Australia and featuring Australian cars, it was also part of this week's special media preview.

Apart from getting some hands-on time with the new game, we also managed to get some time behind the wheel of some of the cars featured in the game.

I left Torquay in Ford Australia's last ever homegrown V8, the XR8 Sprint, arriving in Lorne as part of a convoy of supercars and media.   We parked near the Lorne surf club, the finish line of the annual Pier to Pub swimming race.

After swapping into an R8 Spyder for a roof-off punt along the sunlit coastal vistas between Lorne and Apollo Bay, the Audi proved just the right car to punt past surf beaches and holiday homes, then round tight curves as sightseers gawked at lookout points.

The Lamborghini Huracan upped the ante even further, the throaty growl of its V10 echoing off the hillsides and cuttings of the Otway ranges on our way to the Twelve Apostles and Port Campbell.

The 4G phone reception was bad, but who cares when the next supercar at your disposal is Nissan's GT-R and its insane twin-turbo V6, which we used to good effect for the inland trip back to Lorne.

Here Microsoft had set up some time with the retail version of Forza Horizon 3, so it was time to come back to earth -- somewhat -- and see just how some of these supercars translate into digital form.

We are big fans of the Forza Horizon series, and having this next iteration set in Australia is an added bonus.

However, driving on the left came as a bit of a surprise to us car-racing video-game veterans used to hurtling around open-world settings of the USA and Europe.

This new perspective may cause some angst to northern hemisphere Forza fans but, well, stuff 'em: it's fantastic to have a game that features the variety of driving conditions this vast continent has to offer, with the realism of motoring on the correct side of the road.

And rest assured, the visual representation of our great land is top-notch.

We decided to mimic the experience we had just had and jumped straight into the GT-R, then headed from the urban streets of Surfers Paradise down the Great Ocean Road to Byron Bay ... yes, the actual layout of Australia is topsy-turvy and compressed, but the effect is cool.

There, near the festival hub of Byron, is the Lorne Surf Life Saving Club, modelled and presented as we had just seen in the car-park earlier that day.

You can even drive the GT-R down onto the beach in front of the club to have a look around. Thankfully the sand is devoid of sun-loving swimmers, perhaps scared off by the pop and grumble of the Nissan.

PlayGround Games in the UK have included a great deal from the more track-orientated Forza series into this version of Horizon. As such, in between races through the Outback or the Daintree, or indeed around Maroondah Dam, you will be able to explore the cars in the garage like never before with AutoVista allowing an almost virtual-reality showroom of each vehicle.

When out on the road it is clear that the simulation model has been expanded. It's only the true supercars that hug the roads like slot-cars. We generally found it hard to keep a BMW M4 on the straight and narrow (not that it matters too much here) using a game controller.

It was reassuring to jump back into the GT-R and gain some sure-footed all-wheel drive grip to explore what new content was available.  But we didn't get much of a chance as the session came to an end all too soon.

But we did glean that this is a real Australian-oriented release; there are Ford versus Holden events and the weather seems to change almost as frequently as it does in Melbourne. There is also an ever-changing challenge series of events known as #Forzathon.

Drivatars (the in-game representation of your friends, and your representation in friends' games) have also been tweaked significantly for this release.

But while it's cool to race in a dynamic pick-up bout or challenge other AI road users to a quick point-to-point squirt, we didn't see any of the special events associated with the Horizon series.

No racing against helicopters or trains unfortunately, but they are there in the code somewhere, so let’s hope they will be more challenging than going up against Puffing Billy.

Oh and, no, we checked and will not be able to hit any of the roos that bound across the landscape.

After our all-too-short taste-test, it certainly looks like Forza Horizon 3 will continue to deliver the popular and critically acclaimed structure and presentation everybody has loved so far with the Horizon series.

Let’s hope it was as much fun as the Ferrari 458 Italia was on the way back to Torquay on this preview day.

Forza Horizon 3 will be released worldwide for Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs on September 27, or September 23 for Forza Horizon 3 Ultimate Edition customers.