Would you say Forza Horizon 4 is a Simcade?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mustafur
  • 16 comments
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Is Forza Horizon 4 a Simcade

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 66.7%

  • No

    Votes: 2 9.5%

  • I can go either way

    Votes: 5 23.8%
  • Total voters
    21
mustafur

mustafur

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mustafur
Physics on road I would say yes its a Simcade, but when you look at all options the game gives you,

  • Offroad is clearly arcade.
  • Suspension physics are clearly arcade.
  • The game modes are clearly Arcade.

Yet the reason I play it is because of the Simcade Feel of the game over games such as the Crew or Need for Speed which is clearly arcade and the difference is quite huge in comparison.

At first I thought It was a simple answer being it is one but the more I think about it, it provides more Arcade options as a game.

None of it really is important I guess but I feel the Horizon series is in a weird bracket all by itself on this one.
 
It's an arcade racer that just happens to have consistency in its control feedback. Cars do what you would expect them to do in any given situation, but the levels at which that happens are not strictly simulating real world values.
 
I thought people came up with the term Simcade because games like Horizon exists. Yeah it's pretty arcadey compared to rFactor, but it's also light years ahead from Mario Kart. Should we invent a new term or should we put everything in one bag?
 
IMO a game like Forza Horizon is a toy car digital game, that is, an extension of what we did as kids with our Matchbox/Hot Wheels model cars: Imagine that we could own dozens of cars, real or imaginary, and run, jump and crash without consequences. Now, we wouldn’t do that with a Burago model, not to mention our real cars, but Horizon can help us indulge in such fantasies.
 
Such is the coverage of the word "simcade" that I stopped trying to understand it. I've seen people label many different games with different levels of simulation as simcades, from Forza Horizon to GRID to Gran Turismo, and even Project CARS.
 
I would say it is an arcade racer, plain and simple. To me, only two brackets of racing games exist; Arcade and Simulation.

I would say Games like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are more accessible than iRacing and rFactor, but all are simulators at the end of the day.

Games like GRID and Forza Horizon have a greater focus on realism than Midnight Club and Need For Speed, but I consider all of them arcade racers.

Like @Lukanyon said, "Simcade" has such a loose meaning I've discarded it from my vocabulary.
 
The way I see it, Both Forza horizon and Forza Motorsport could be called "Simcade". Forza Horizon is very arcady but with the underlying realism of the Forza physics engine would but it towards the arcade side of the "Simcade" scale. While Forza Motorsport leans towards Simulation but is tuned for accessibility, so it would be towards the Simulation side of the "Simcade" scale.
 
FT-1
I would say it is an arcade racer, plain and simple. To me, only two brackets of racing games exist; Arcade and Simulation.

I would say Games like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are more accessible than iRacing and rFactor, but all are simulators at the end of the day.

Games like GRID and Forza Horizon have a greater focus on realism than Midnight Club and Need For Speed, but I consider all of them arcade racers.

Like @Lukanyon said, "Simcade" has such a loose meaning I've discarded it from my vocabulary.
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I don't mean this as an attack specifically on your opinion because it seems like a lot of people share it, but IMO putting anything that isn't a sim in the same category as Ridge Racer, WipeOut, Outrun, Mario Kart, Burnout and so on is not helpful.


The way I see it, there are three vague categories that can share elements with each other; arcade, casual and simulation. These categories also have nothing to do with how difficult they are either - no one's going to persuade me that Ridge Racer Type 4 is in any way easier than GT Sport or FM7 on the hardest settings. FH4 is a casual racing game, it's definitely nothing like any actual arcade racing game I've ever played.

The term "Simcade" makes me want to adopt a different language altogether.
 
neema_t
I don't mean this as an attack specifically on your opinion because it seems like a lot of people share it, but IMO putting anything that isn't a sim in the same category as Ridge Racer, WipeOut, Outrun, Mario Kart, Burnout and so on is not helpful.


The way I see it, there are three vague categories that can share elements with each other; arcade, casual and simulation. These categories also have nothing to do with how difficult they are either - no one's going to persuade me that Ridge Racer Type 4 is in any way easier than GT Sport or FM7 on the hardest settings. FH4 is a casual racing game, it's definitely nothing like any actual arcade racing game I've ever played.

The term "Simcade" makes me want to adopt a different language altogether.
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I understand that arcade racers have a far broader scope than sim racers, but the way I see it, racing games have one of two main purposes: deliver a realistic driving experience (simulation) or provide exaggerated features in the name of enhanced fun (arcade). Once you start bringing up smaller aims of individual titles such as "This game is based on a sim engine but the physics have been tweaked for a slightly arcadier feel", you end up with phrases such as simcade which make no sense to anyone who doesn't play racing games... Because it isn't a real word.

People are trying to do the same thing in the simulation category to separate more realistic sims from the accessible titles - Eventually, you will end up with 10 sub-categories within racing games, spawning trivial arguments over what genre a game should be classified as. Oh wait... ;)

You may not agree with it, but I personally think it is fine to group games like Driveclub, GRID and Forza Horizon under the same band of games such as Asphalt, Blur and Mario Kart. As I said at the beginning, they all exaggerate real-life dynamics in one way or another to provide more fun and accessible experiences, even if they go about their business to varying extents.
 
@FT-1 you know the reason "Simcade" exists is because there's a need for a third word that is neither "arcade" nor "sim" though, right, because the gap between Crazy Taxi and iRacing is enormous? Two racing sub-genres can't hope to cover the entire history of games that contain both vehicles and racing. It's why basically every other genre of game has multiple sub-genres and I don't understand why racing games are a special case - which they clearly are, if people are inventing nonsense terms when we already have perfectly good words to describe things.

Look at how many thousands of non-sim racing games there are out there, how is it sensible to argue that they can all be lumped into the same category when that doesn't happen in any other genre in gaming (or music, film, TV, literature...)? If someone asked you to recommend five arcade racing games, do you genuinely think it's helpful to come back with Mario Kart, Forza Horizon 4, WipeOut, Super Hang-On and Skydrift, or would you ask them to describe what they're looking for in some more detail?

Or to put it another way, how is it that the world didn't devolve into violence when the first book to be described as a crime novel was released? Surely that's just fiction, because it isn't non-fiction, and shouldn't be categorised further to prevent arguments over how to classify books?
 
@neema_t Of course, sub-genres are essential for explaining all the different types of racing games, but I do most racing games can be categorised into Arcade racers or Simulators, then you can go into more detail afterwards. If a third category was to exist, then perhaps I would allocate it to Kart Racers such as Crash Team Racing and Mario Kart since they often have very different dynamics to most arcade racing games.

I have no problem explaining differences between games in more detail whilst being able to position games as arcade or sims. If asked to recommend 5 arcade racing games, you can easily narrow down the spectrum by asking what type of vehicle(s) they are looking to drive, if they want an open-world environment or if they want the gameplay to include weapons. Here are some examples:

GRID: Closed-Circuit Arcade racing game

Forza Horizon: Open-World Arcade racing game

Midnight Club: Street Racing Arcade racing game

Skydrift: Airplane Arcade Racing game

WipeOut: Futuristic Arcade Racing game

Crazy Taxi: Retro Arcade driving game

Full Auto: Car Combat Arcade Racing game
 
IMO, a driving game is a "simulator" if it has a vehicle behavior model based on a simulation (a-herm) of real-life physics. An "arcade", on the other hand, doesn't follow those same laws that constrain simulators. Think of the latest iterations of Ridge Racer, where the laws of inertia and friction aren't even considered as a suggestion, and the only way to take a corner is to powerslide through; or GTA, where bikes are faster when they are popping a wheelie and you get a speed boost if you push on the throttle when the word "go" pops up. Or better yet, think of the actual arcade racers from the 80s, where your car was often constrained in a lane and you could only switch lanes to dodge obstacles or overtake opponents.

Or, to put it more succintly: a game is a simulator when the intention is to make the behavior of the vehicle is consistent with its real life counterpart's, and is an arcade when instead predicting the behavior of the vehicle requires knowledge of rules specific to the game.

The simcade sits in the middle. At its core is a physical simulation, but some aspects and parameters are changed for the sake of gameplay. In a world of pure dichotomies, I think Horizon would be a simulator: hop into any car you've driven in real life and, unless it's one of those cases where its attributed have been modelled incorrectly, you'll find it a rather familiar experience. But some numbers have been changed so that the cars are a bit more forgiving, a bit more tractable, and the gameplay more fun for a casual audience. You can drive through stone walls without being significantly slowed down, take corners faster than you would in real life, the dirt is more grippy than you'd expect.

FT-1
you end up with phrases such as simcade which make no sense to anyone who doesn't play racing games
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Confusing words for the uninitiated... But we are initiated, aren't we @FT-1?
 
FT-1
WipeOut: Futuristic Arcade Racing game
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Wrong - I come from the future and can categorically say that, apart from a couple of the locations, they've nailed it - it is a complete simulation, although obviously it lacks in terms of feeling the utter violence of the events. I have more than one serious brain hemorrhage due to the real life races which the simulation can't recreate, which is good as medical technology is in it's infancy in this time.

But honestly where I'm most impressed is where the devs got the info on those cat inflatables.
 
ClydeYellow
Confusing words for the uninitiated... But we are initiated, aren't we @FT-1?
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We actively play racing games and browse online racing game communities, so we would understand the intended meaning of such a word created within the community. However, the spectrum of games "simcade" can cover is arguably far broader than traditional terms. Some could argue The Crew 2 could be classified as a simcade because it allows players to Drive real vehicles in real-life based environments. On the other end of the scale, some people call Project Cars 2 a simcade because it doesn't capture authenticity as well as iRacing. How do you explain such a broad term to someone out of the loop?

In my opinion, simcade is the most poorly defined "genre" in racing game, hence why I don't agree on the term being a thing.
 
I honestly couldn't care less as long as the game is:

-Fun to play
-Makes full and proper use of racing wheels including clutch/h-shifter
-Big car list
-Customization and upgrade options
-Good accurate sounds
-Content-rich

I'm very relaxed when it comes to physics. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, but there must be some effort put into it so it at least emulates car physics in some level. If it falls anywhere in between (leaning towards realism), I'm good. Forza does a great job. One of my complaints is like some said before, the offroad physics. There is way too much grip and lack of weight. I am forced to use street tires to have some fun offroad. Same goes for any tire above street. The game does look and feel awful Arcade with grippy tires, reason why I stay away from any car with sport/race tires if possible (a.k.a supercars/hypercars/track toys).

I wouldn't consider Forza an Arcade. It just does way more than actual arcade racers. It does fall under Simulation. It's level of simulation is obviously lower than other titles though.
 

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