Giant Bomb Horizon Race Night

Starts every Tuesday Night at 8:00 PM ET (5:00 PM PT)

Runs until people get tired or 11:00 PM ET, whichever comes first

Click here to find out when this is for your time zone.

In the world of Colorado, there are roads that have escaped our wrath for three years. This is about to change.

We're going to drive at insane speeds through traffic. We're going to destroy lots of cars and fences. We might even have a race or two.

It's time for a hoondown.

Don't tell Ken Block or Bobby Flay.

How To Join

Note: The following methods haven't been tested yet, since Forza Horizon isn't available to the majority of the public at the time I'm writing this. Don't expect things to go exactly as planned, and have a little patience.

By Car Club

1. There will be a Giant Bomb car club for Forza Horizon. Join it, and find out more info on how to do that once I've posted the car club thread (it will likely involve you playing Horizon at least once, then posting your gamertag in that thread).
2. If you're in the club, you will be spammed with game invites on Tuesday nights. If you want in, be ready to accept said invites at 8:00 PM ET and beyond (after all, people will leave and space will open up).

By Gamertag

• If you can't join our club for some reason, you may send a friend request to GiantBomb Forza before Race Night begins. We'll try to send out invites through this tag if space permits, but be forewarned: Most of our normal attendees come through the car club, so you may unintentionally become an afterthought. Nothing personal -- it's just easy to overlook.

What To Expect

Hell if I know. Horizon's untested ground! Seriously, though, expect the following simple format:

• A lot of racing and playground games for the first 60-90 minutes.
• After that, we'll turn on free roam and see if we can't complete a few challenges together. Hopefully free roam is easy to jump in and out of; otherwise, this could prove problematic.

Break you apart through competition, then bring you back together with cooperation. Sounds like a proper hoondown to me!

The Rules

There's not much in the way of rules for an open world racer like Forza Horizon, but a few points warrant mentioning.

1. Don't be a dick.

I fully expect Forza Horizon to involve way more contact than Forza Motorsport, but that doesn't mean it's cool to ruin everybody's race by ramming as many cars as you can, or willfully ignore challenges in free roam just to fuck over the group. As Marino would say, don't be that guy.

2. Mind your headset.

Communication is important during Race Night, especially since I like to ask for event suggestions, or I need to tell somebody to switch their class and ready up. If your headset is glitching, be it echoing or emitting static noise, you make that communication much more difficult. Be aware of when others tell you your headset is causing problems, and be willing to adjust accordingly.

3. If you want to join, just join.

We don't care if you're a complete newbie or a complete expert (just don't complain about the racing not being serious enough for your liking). If you want to roll with fellow Bombers around a virtual Colorado, just join us. Race Night does not bite, despite popular rumors. We just have a few people who can't resist terrible jokes.

4. Don't worry about DLC.

I'm going to make every effort to make sure you don't need DLC to join us. Most of our racing is done by class, so simply having cars you enjoy in every class should suffice. That said, if Pikes Peak or a similar add-on track ever becomes available, this point may become a complete lie. Pikes Peak would be pretty awesome, after all. (We're not getting Pikes Peak.)

5. You may have to wait.

Unfortunately, Forza Horizon has only eight spots in the lobby. That means on popular nights, you might be left out. I'll try to inform you if this is the case, but I can make no guarantees, and I apologize for that. If there's enough demand after a month or two of Horizon, we'll look into multiple lobbies, but for now, just be patient. We'll try to include as many willing participants as possible every Tuesday.

Finally...

Just be willing to have fun. Horizon sounds like it will be an awesome game, and I hope that's true for the multiplayer. I also hope you'll join us for some delightful chaos every Tuesday night either way.

The Giant Bomb Car Club

The car club thread is here. I suggest you join our club if you want to join Horizon Race Night on a weekly basis!

This post will eventually cover any awesome videos, photos, or events involving Horizon Race Night.

Until then, feel free to ask any questions you might have about Horizon Race Night or the forthcoming car club.

I'm excited about this! Not excited enough to take a half day off work like I did with Forza 4, but excited nonetheless. Count me in for Tuesday night!

I have class 7-9 on Tu/Th, and by the time I get home and eat dinner I'm not free until 10ish. God damn it... I won't be regular until December. Obviously I need to try to not have class on Tu/Th night in the spring.

I don't get out of class until 5:15 (8:15 for most of you), so I'll probably be at least 30 minutes late most times. Pumped though.

Also, if any of you are getting the 370Z pre-order bonus and would like the Aston Martin instead, I'd happily trade codes.

I might pooooooooooosibly be getting this tuesday we'll see if so count me in I'd like some ghost times to race against. As well has have some dudes to play online with. My Gamertag is same as my GB user name.

I would love to join, but I probably won't be getting this game until I get a job. Hopefully you guys are still going with it by then.

That sounds awesome. I'll probably only be able to participate in free roams if/when there's room because of work, but that's the kinda stuff that sounds most intriguing anyway. Good work PsEG.

and you can count my sorry ass in

Count me in.

I won't be picking up the game until after Christmas, but at that point, I think I'll join up with your car club and try to get more involved in the race nights. I'm a terrible car painter, but it'd be fun to be able to share my crappiness with other people. Plus, with me racing, you are all absolutely 100% guaranteed never to come in last place, so.... yeah.

Eeek this is late UK time. I'll join the car club (you can join multiple right) but hopefully there will be events not too late on a weekday UK time too. I think the GB PC Hub had asked for interest in this and NFS:MW

I'll join but the race times are real late for us UK folk. I'll defiantly join the car club though.

Should we start a GT list for Rivals and whatnot, or will this game populate that list with the GB Horizon gamertag like NFS:HP did?

@Blur_Fan said:

Should we start a GT list for Rivals and whatnot, or will this game populate that list with the GB Horizon gamertag like NFS:HP did?

It's probably not necessary. The car club, which I'll have a thread up for within the next 24 hours, should serve as an additional source for rivals times in-game.

@Mister_V said:

I'll join but the race times are real late for us UK folk. I'll defiantly join the car club though.

@Chavtheworld said:

Eeek this is late UK time. I'll join the car club (you can join multiple right) but hopefully there will be events not too late on a weekday UK time too. I think the GB PC Hub had asked for interest in this and NFS:MW

Unfortunately, this Race Night's geared towards North American players, so the start time isn't intended to be optimal for the UK crowd. I've nothing against the idea of a UK Horizon Race Night, but someone else would need to start that up and run with it, since I can't commit to any times that would be ideal for Europe.

Also, if Forza 4 is any indication, you cannot join multiple car clubs.

As for NFS: Most Wanted, I'll be posting a thread in the near future announcing race nights at 8 PM ET on Sundays for the 360 version, so I'm sure the PC audience will want to figure out what time's best for them.

I have class on Tuesday nights so wont be able to stick around past 9pm est or so (I'm on pst), but I'd be interested in trying to get in on this. I'll be picking up the game tomorrow.

So will we cruise tonight?

@HouseofBoost said:

So will we cruise tonight?

Yeah, I'm sure there will be some sort of cruising as we experiment with the free roam mode. It seems that once we've gotten this week behind us, it might be best to announce what free roam challenges we're doing before Race Night, as a bunch require some preparation. Of course, we might just have the cars ready and roll right through all of them, but that'd be disappointing.

As a side note to everyone, I imagine we will fill up an eight-person lobby VERY quickly tonight. If that's indeed the case, I may encourage people to create additional lobbies and spam the "invite club members" button.

To anyone that pre-ordered from Amazon, have you not received a code for the Aston yet either?

Gentlemen, we're thirty minutes away from the official start of the HOONDOWN. I hope you're as ready as you can be, having only hours to acclimate yourself to this new Coloradian world.

A few quick notes:

• Jugnutts, SushiX, and I tested free roam mode earlier today, and it allows for easy jump-in and jump-out gameplay. Therefore, it will almost certainly open and close every night.
• Challenges in free roam aren't exactly descriptive. You may have to listen to me or read this thread in future weeks to figure out what the heck we're attempting.
• There's also no traffic in free roam, nor is any XP awarded. Yeah. It's weak.
• Finally, in the other XP-awarding modes, we noticed that on occasion, XP earned during a race wouldn't sync with the Forza servers, and therefore we'd get an error message saying that our XP for that race was thrown out. This is an unfortunate bug, so be aware it can happen to you.

Beyond that, get ready to hoon like mad, y'all.

EDIT: Oh, and as a side note, if we do fill up the lobby tonight, I'll try to post in here and inform everyone, but no promises. Please accept my apologies in advance if you try to join us, can't, and don't get any fun multiplayer racing in.

So, I dunno if the lobby filled up that quick or what but every time I got a invite I'd accept it and then it would say the session was full every time I tried. =\

Yeah, we're still full up. It's rather chaotic. I wish there was a better way to gather up more than one lobby, but nobody ever wants to be the person to create the second overflow lobby, simply because it guarantees they won't make the main lobby.

I'm open to ideas for improvement, be it additional times during our busy weeks or the such, or designating people to certain lobbies, but it's a difficult problem to implement a solution that everyone's fine with.

@PsEG: Indeed it is chaos. I'm getting messages in-game for speed cameras being beaten like left and right. I'm sort of surprised how many people have joined up with the club... its madness!

@PsEG: Yeah, I kept trying to jump in, but every time I accepted an invite the game was full by the time I got to the multiplayer menu. Maybe, next time I can catch more than just a brief glimpse of the race night crew on video: http://www.twitch.tv/chasepettit/c/1710876.

I could use a club invite from anyone, gt: FoxRiders4Life

@Falconer said:

To anyone that pre-ordered from Amazon, have you not received a code for the Aston yet either?

Nope, but they said it would be emailed a day or two after release, not immediately like the Challenger code was.

Also, I will absolutely not be buying the Aston Martin in game, so if anyone sees this and wants my code (or wants to trade me their 370Z code for it), I'm open to that.

Oh snap, well color me interested! Count me in at some point next tuesday! I believe I'm still in the club

That was damn fun. we should discuss having two lobbies so everyone can get in on it, at least while people are hot about the game

Does it have a similar system to FM4, meaning can you press a button to invite the entire car club?

Since I usually wont be able to start until around 9pm EST, I am willing to open a second lobby when needed.

@j3ffro919: it does still have this feature :)

@mfpantst said:

@j3ffro919: it does still have this feature :)

That's fantastic. I may end up spamming the club sporadically throughout the week when it isn't official club racing because it seems like there are a bunch of people playing. At least the never ending update that someone beat my speed camera time makes me think that...

I started up the game this afternoon, 86 messages. almost all of them speed camera related. it is a certain sort of madness.

but ya try to get a second lobby up and all will be sound.

Tonight, I'll either be napping or hitting the club invite button for a special extra night of Hoondown. Seems like the fervor's enough to where we might have enough demand for a few irregular gatherings, especially given that NFS: Most Wanted is most certainly on the horizon.

Then again, I might be napping. We'll see!

just got back home so wasn't there for the invite - I did get to play with the devs earlier today and got a unicorn.

Wait, there are unicorns in Horizon too? Who the FUCK thinks it's a good idea to continue that inane bull shit?

@Falconer: Probably due to complaints, the "quality" of the unicorns have changed a bit this time around...

2001 BMW Z8

1969 Dino 246 GT

2009 Fiesta Zetec S

1991 CR-X SiR

1972 Elan Sprint

2010 MX-5 Superlight

2012 John Cooper Works Coupé

2010 S5S Raptor

9th ???

Personally I don't understand people complaining how they're hard to acquire, that's the whole point I thought lol.

Cant wait. will have to grab a headset to use with the CSR. comunication is KEY

Just to note, there was some impromptu club racing around 9 Pacific with Ryan smoking bolt-on wonderboys in his Fast and the Furious Supra.

Damn I just missed it, went to bed around 1 eastern...

No takers for my Aston Martin code? I'm seriously not going to use it, I don't even really care about getting the 370Z in return.

@wrathofconn: If you're just gonna give it away I'll take it. :) I dont have the 370Z code or I would have traded ya.

@Jugnutts: Message'd. Enjoy!

@PsEG: You seem like someone that has spent alot of time with Forza, does Horizon still have the simulation aspect that 4 has?

@Bourbon_Warrior: What exactly do you mean by the "simulation aspect"?

@Bourbon_Warrior: For the most part, yeah. There's a few nuances that feel slightly different, like less controller vibration for wheelspin, weirdness in spin recovery, and gearing differences that make manual w/clutch less appealing, but overall it feels a lot like Forza 4 in a crazy open world.

@wrathofconn said:

@Jugnutts: Message'd. Enjoy!

Awesome, Thank you sir. I will take good care of her.

So I find myself taking a fuckton of pictures while driving around in this game. It looks SO GOOD.

i believe we have a white whale gentlemen...

Dont know if this hs been adressed yet or not, but is anyone interested in doing this for the West Coasters? Same night, just starting a bit later?