So TDU, despite its "launch window" status, was an awesome idea with terrible driving, and TDU2 was basically that same idea with an even worse execution.

Does Horizon finally deliver on the core concept of a massive, open-world driving game?

1) We've only played the demo.

2) Jeff's front page review answers your question.

I wasn't aware TDU had 'terrible driving'

Sure, it took a few days to get used to.. but it was pretty amazing when you mastered it.

TDU2 however, sure.. nicer cars, more to do.. but the car's handled like Saints Row which was fucking horrible in a driving game.

Horizon looks pretty similar to TDU1, which is why I need to buy a new xbox to play it.

Shame TDU1 servers were taken down permanently a few weeks ago =[

@ascagnel: Pretty sure it isn't wide open world, when you drive around the other cars are AI drivers I think. I don't think they are real gamers, but I could be wrong.

TDU was a nice idea but fucked up the most important part of a driving game. The driving. TDU 2 was as awful to drive as TDU, which is the sadest part of the story.

Topic makes me cry. I can't believe it's 2012 and we still don't have a proper open world racing game that offers it all.

TDU1 was an excellent game for its time, but broken steering wheel support and a laundry list of missing features doesn't let it stand up today. TDU2 had all of the dream features accept maybe for the loss of motorcycles: off road, multiple race tracks built into the world, weather (awesome lightning storms), day/night, damage, license tests, persistent multiplayer, supposedly more sim leaning handling; it sounded like the best of all worlds but so much of it was executed poorly, the car selection was terrible, and the changes they made to the events layout were just miserable to experience.

So I always wished Turn 10 would run with the TDU concept, thinking they were a dev that could do things right when you could never really believe that Atari would provide the support necessary to actually produce the AAA dream racer we've been waiting for.

But Horizon is just as bad as TDU2, maybe even worse, only in different ways. The handling is better in some ways, but worse in others (there's barely a difference between asphalt and dirt), and a host of minor gripes (including the trade off of Forza's elegance for DiRT's baditude) come to mind but the real deal breakers that ruin Horizon for me are:

1. The open world is a complete lie. Invisible walls and invincible fences that limit the world to narrow roads make this feel like a trapped-on-the-track racer, which if that's what you want, I recommend sticking with Forza 4. This is not open world; they just traded real world tracks for pretend made up tracks and tied all the tracks together. A few breakable "fences" that do little more than make the track a hair wider don't help the world feel any more open. And the dirt tracks are essentially asphalt roads with a different color surface and a dust effect.
2. The multiplayer is the same crap every other game has delivered; you have to completely abandon your "world" to go into multiplayer. The devs said that TDU style multiplayer was too hard to do, so they just delivered this silly track racer multiplayer component. Being awesome might be hard, but being common is boring.

Actually I guess it comes down to one thing: Horizon is not an open world racer as advertised, either in the world itself or the multiplayer design, and if that doesn't matter to you then you are better off with Forza 4. If it does matter to you, you are better off with TDU2, even with all of its shortcomings. Can somebody please do this right already? Or do we just have to keep buying asphalt racing, dirt racing, and open world racing in separate lackluster packages?

I agree with @plaintomato, Horizon is disappointing. I was expecting to see other real-world racers actually driving around but they're not and the claim of open world is phoney at best, if not an outright lie.

I'm about to punch all of y'all...TDU2's driving was great, it was TDU that felt awful.

Unlimited 2 is sorely underrated. But it's Horizon's PGR-like driving mechanics that have won my heart.

This is a lot like the Horizon/Most Wanted debate people seem so attracted to having. These binaries are idiotic. We can, like, play both for their merits.

It took me a minute to figure out that "TDU" = "Test Drive Unlimited"

I don't mean to be an acronym etiquette nazi, but I wish people would at least spell out once what they are talking about.

Anyway, open-world driving games have a standard they must measure up to.

@HistoryInRust said:

Unlimited 2 is sorely underrated. But it's Horizon's PGR-like driving mechanics that have won my heart.

This is a lot like the Horizon/Most Wanted debate people seem so attracted to having. These binaries are idiotic. We can, like, play both for their merits.

Agreed, but it's frustrating to see that if you combined the merits of both games you'd have a perfectly awesome game, but instead those merits are split between two separate games that both feel incomplete. Maybe it just costs too much to straight up do it right, but I'm still looking for a complete package. TDU2 could have been it with proper financial support from Atari and a few smart people ignoring some of the bad focus group feedback...so close but no cigar is frustrating.

@believer258 said:

Anyway, open-world driving games have a standard they must measure up to.

I don't really get the TDU/Paradise comparison - it's like HistoryInRust's Horizon/Most Wanted debate. It's like a Portal/COD debate to me - they are barely in the same genre. And Paradise didn't have this, at least not integrated directly into the core game:

@AndyMP said:

I was expecting to see other real-world racers actually driving around but they're not and the claim of open world is phoney at best, if not an outright lie.

TDU2 is still the best "open world racer" imo...it just fell short in so many peripheral areas that it couldn't compare to Paradise, or Horizon, on a "polish" level. But look what Criterion is delivering now - more rehashed "keep selling it until it don't sell no more" budget games at full price.

I just finished Horizons and loved it. I don't see where the dislike is coming from. Although it isn't nearly as expansive as TDU2, it has fantastic handling, large list of cars, and it is a much more polished experience. Remember, this is only the first Horizon in, hopefully, a series of them. I didn't expect to get TDU2's entire list into the game, but future versions may have it.

Also, a lot of people have been complaining about the AI getting much faster at the end of the game. Here is a hint: drop the difficulty ;)

My only major complaint is I wish the draw distance was further. It is really tough to dodge cars over 200mph because they instantly pop up in front of you...

The only thing the TDU games do better than Horizon is the size of the map. That's it. Everything else about the games is superior in Forza.

TDU's handling was atrocious, in both games, and in my experience with open world games (both driving, and other), the larger the map is, the less fun it is, because the developers are concentrating on making it bigger, not better.