Forza Horizon 4 LEGO Speed Champions Expansion: Here Are All 30 Achievements

JoshMead
To argue that its okay to include them because of a Halo Warthog, smashing cars through stone walls, or the unrealistic distances one can jump and survive unscathed in Forza, is dishonest, and tantamount to arguing its okay to include them in SIM racers due to the game's HUD, chase cam, and the magic ability to toggle whether your vehicle can take damage, or consume fuel or not.
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Nope. You can false equivalency an entire novel's worth of words all you want, but that's not the case.

You're drawing an arbitrary line because you don't like something. That's fine — we all have our own tastes — but you're trying to justify it as some sort of logical conclusion, when it isn't: it's just tastes. You're okay with a game employing a rolling metal peacock with 2500hp, or something with a hypothetical laser propulsion system — some overgrown plastic bricks aren't any more ridiculous.

Just because a game has certain things about it that sets it apart from absolute reality, it doesn't therefore warrant throwing all logic and standards out the window. Because arcade or not, all non-satirical games have to have standards. You wouldn't see a spaceship as a vehicle in a WWII FPS game, and you wouldn't find visually detailed monsters in a kid's cartoon karting game neither.
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Here's another arbitrary line.

People can use the playground games events or the halo showcase as arguments regarding realism all they like, but that'd be insinuating that all players generally interact with such things in the first place, rather than trying to ignore all the game's tacked-on nonsense and play it as realistically as it'll permit them.
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Remember folks, if you don't like something in a game, it's "tacked-on nonsense".

I'm not going to harp on the idea of playing FH4 as realistically as you feel, because I've done the same thing from time to time. But it's not all I do in the game, because that'd be intentionally ignoring a solid chunk of it on the grounds of some sort of sim racing elitism. Back just before release, I was streaming on Mixer when an old friend messaged me. She had been watching the stream and really liked the cruising portion she had seen, which was impressive as she wasn't much of a car person. But she also liked me trying to climb to the highest peak in the Unimog, and launching the bike-engine-swapped Peel over said peak. Why? Because it was fun.

I could sort of understand all the outrage over the LEGO expansion if this was Motorsport. But it isn't. This is MS' big racing game, big in the sense that it reaches a lot of different demographics. If LEGO cars are what it takes to draw some people in, and then they get hooked on the other stuff that's in the game, leading them down a road of exploration into the more serious portions of the genre, then win-freaking-win. Racing games need it.
 
SlipZtrEm
You're okay with a game employing a rolling metal peacock with 2500hp, or something with a hypothetical laser propulsion system — some overgrown plastic bricks aren't any more ridiculous.
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Exactly. What makes a bunch of LEGO cars and Hot Wheels any less realistic then the VGT's in GT Sport, considering the fact that a good chunk of the VGT's have absolutely no physical, real world model and only exist in game, some, as you said have ludicrous power outputs or propulsion systems, and only a handful actually have real world models? Granted, in the case of the LEGO cars, the real world equivalents are one to one scale models that aren't in game, but there's certainly real Twin Mills and Bone Shakers out there.

All this stuff about 'realism' and 'believe-ability' from some in the past few days feels like bad faith arguments, especially when they try to bring other series, mainly GT, into it. Plus, as has been brought up time and time again, it's not like Horizon is slavishly dedicated to realism even before the Hot Wheels and LEGO stuff was added in. You mention it - how realistic is a Peel or Isetta outfitted with a motorbike engine in the grand scheme of things, yet is more or less celebrated as a way to have fun in Horizon? Sure don't see problems from those pearl-clutching about realism then.

It's ultimately frustrating, because there could be some actual criticism leveled at the LEGO expansion - like if it'll actually be good and be able to deliver on the stuff that it's offering - and as I write this, we'll be able to find out en masse in a few hours. Yet the vast majority of comments revolving around the LEGO expansion has been varying shades of hyperbole, and it's just silly to see how some people's perceptions of it are at a sliding scale of absolutely silly outrage.
 
ShakesMcQueen
Horizon also launched with over 3X the number of "real" cars out of the box.
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When playing multiplayer and being surrounded by hot wheels cars and lego cars is actually pretty game breaking.

A cannonball run or a touge expanion pack would have been much more better.

Or a collarboration with Gumball 3000
 
SestoScudo
When playing multiplayer and being surrounded by hot wheels cars and lego cars is actually pretty game breaking.
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Yeah, because that's definitely what's happening. Surrounded by these cars, instead of the reality being, as pointed out up thread, hyper/supercars and the King Cobra sometimes, plus whatever cars needed for the Trials and other weekly events.
 
Silver Arrows
Yeah, because that's definitely what's happening. Surrounded by these cars, instead of the reality being, as pointed out up thread, hyper/supercars and the King Cobra sometimes, plus whatever cars needed for the Trials and other weekly events.
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I dont like LMP1s being mixed in with VGT many members have suggested they be split along with Group C.

We always wanted VGT's GR1 to have their own class.

People want immersiveness in their games whether you like it or not.
 
SestoScudo
I dont like LMP1s being mixed in with VGT many members have suggested they be split along with Group C.

We always wanted VGT's GR1 to have their own class.

People want immersiveness in their games whether you like it or not.
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How did we switch from Hot Wheels to VGT cars?
 
SestoScudo
I dont like LMP1s being mixed in with VGT many members have suggested they be split along with Group C.

We always wanted VGT's GR1 to have their own class.

People want immersiveness in their games whether you like it or not.
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Here's the thing though - that sort of thing makes sense in the context of GT Sport because yeah, having what essentially amounts to two different generations of sports car, with wildly different power levels and even combustion options - on tap for the class without at least a hard line in the sand dividing modern LMP1 and VGT's at least with Group C, is stupid and makes the already laughably bad class structure Polyphony has look even worse. Same goes with the McLaren F1 GTR being put into Group 3 and arguably, the Renault Megane Trophy being shoved into Group 4 when it has absolutely no place being there and should have been placed into it's own class.

Horizon isn't as hyper focused on competition as GT Sport is though. If there is a problem with the LEGO cars somehow becoming the new meta car (As hilarious as that'd be and as many more minds would melt down at such a thing) then it is what it is, because ultimately competition isn't the main point of Horizon. (In fact, I think most people here would agree that racing against humans utterly sucks in Horizon) So what are we left with? You have to see Hot Wheels cars occasionally out in the real world? Again, as pointed out up thread, half the time people just drive their X class or high S2 hypercars to the various Forzathon Lives and when generally driving around, so what immersion is being broken?

JoshMead
How did we switch from Hot Wheels to VGT cars?
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I mean, considering we had a dude earlier in this thread try to say that somehow the VGT's had more merit then LEGO/Hot Wheels cars (when as already said, is absolutely hilarious and outright false) I guess it's no surprise that we've jumped right back to square one because this entire topic is just one big ouroboros.
 
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You’ve got to differentiate between realism and immersion. FH is not always very realistic so LEGO cars is not that big of an issue when it comes to that.

Immersion and illusion however is where LEGO becomes a problem, because they break the fourth wall of the game and makes the player aware of the fact that it’s only make-believe. You can’t trick the brain into thinking that you’re driving your favourite car on your favourite road when you are being overtaken by LEGO.

Compare with Game of Thrones, the realism in that series is next to none, but had Jamie Lannister broken the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience it would have broken the immersion and illusion of the series.

So if you’re looking for immersion and illusion, LEGO is probably not your favourite expansion of all time. But if you’re looking for a fun game I think it could be worth a try.
 
ImaRobot
When you brought up realism in games only failing to realize that you even listed a game that’s really not all that real with the cars it has and has had in its series.
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"Realism" isn't the proper word for this... though I don't know what is.
I mentioned all of those games because they all contain unrealistic vehicles. Vehicles that can be tolerated to some extent in spite of their fictitious nature.

The VGTs and make belief cars of MotorStorm, Burnout, etc don't bother me. The former are experimental prototypes that mull around with brand styling and experimental near-future technology that may eventually come to pass, whilst the latter are outright pretend vehicles made to look like cars that do exist in order to evade the legal boundaries with busting up licensed vehicles.

This laser propulsion car does sound rather absurd, though I'm quite alright with many of the VGTs, especially the beautiful Mazda and Hyundai VGTs. And if Gran Turismo ever had any cars more absurd than the VGTs, I wouldn't know. GT Sport was my first game of theirs, so excuse my ignorance.
 
SestoScudo
When playing multiplayer and being surrounded by hot wheels cars and lego cars is actually pretty game breaking.

A cannonball run or a touge expanion pack would have been much more better.

Or a collarboration with Gumball 3000
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Game breaking? No. Immersion breaking? Maybe. I suppose that's up to the individual person,

Ultimately every single car in this game isn't real. They are all polygonal models with different sets of performance values assigned to them by someone in a cubicle. That goes for Gran Turismo or Assetto Corsa too.

I don't get why people get protective of the "realistic" polygons, and in the case of at least one user here, "feel sick" about the ones that look like they are made of LEGO. Who cares?! As long as the cars are well balanced with the existing ones, and the racing still feels fun, I don't care if other people are driving around in LEGO cars, or apple carts on wheels.
 
For the people who absolutely hate the LEGO expansion but will play it anyway, I used to think the worst that can happen is they don't like it. But now I realize the worst that can happen is they love it.
 
A few random thoughts after playing for a couple hours:
- I'm happy that your bricks change to gold when you complete tasks. This is a theme in other LEGO videogames, so good to see here.
- When I knocked over 500 bonus cubes, I was only 0.02% to do so. Wow.
- Both of my kids like it. One's a teen and the other's an adult.
- The race track reminds me of Paul Ricard (home of the French GP), especially the blue paint in the runoff areas.
- Surprisingly, I'm not yet sick of listening to Everything Is Awesome.
- Mildly disappointed my drivatar doesn't actually build the bonus items, as this would be in keeping with other LEGO videogames (emphasis on Mildly).
 

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