Unleash the advanced driving physics of Forza Motorsport 4 on a Test Drive Unlimited–style open-road environment, and you get Forza Horizon, a new spinoff from Microsoft’s acclaimed racing series. Developed by UK-based Playground Games (employing Turn 10’s Forza gaming engine), Horizon delivers an immersive and attractive driving environment that does the franchise proud.

Forza fans worried that the new dev team and open-road concept would compromise the series’ impressive physics can rest easy. Though Horizon comes with enough driving aids to fully automate the experience for newbies, sim aficionados can toggle off these assists and enjoy the unfiltered dynamic weight transfer, wheelspin, and brake lock-ups from Forza 4’s scores of real-world performance machines. What’s more, the inclusion of off-road racing — and no less than 65 different surface types, ranging from smooth asphalt to sand, clay, and gravel — lets you push those physics to all-new levels. In fact, the only serious road bumps we encountered were the game’s abysmal collision and damage modeling, where, more often than not, head-on 200mph impacts barely even arrest your speed.

Set against a fictional Colorado background, Horizon features over 200 roads and more than a dozen distinct scenery locales, ranging from built-up urban streets and highways to lonely mountain switchbacks and twisty, forested two-lane roadways. As pretty as some of these vistas can be — and the game’s lengthy drawing distance makes some of them quite spectacular — the knowledge that they’re not authentic Colorado locales loses Horizon brownie points alongside TDU and TDU2’s painstakingly faithful re-creations of Oahu and Ibiza. Driving off to a seemingly infinite horizon also required Playground Games to cut Forza 4’s 60fps framerate in half, but the end result is still quite pleasing, especially with the accelerated day-to-night transitions and detailed car (and dashboard) treatments.

Accelerated day-to-evening transitions test your night sight.

Arrive at the Horizon Music Festival in style...Forza style.

The single-player game boasts a satisfying blend of open-road map discovery (where you can unearth new locales and engage passing A.I. cars in impromptu challenges) and organized circuit and point-to-point race events. As you progress through each event and map sector, you accumulate in-game credits that’ll generously finance your vehicle upgrades and new car purchases. Horizon measures your progress with a colored-wristband system that opens up new events as your points and winnings accumulate — including some inventive Showcase races where you may have to beat an airplane or hot-air balloon to the finish line. Along the way, you can also smash destructible billboards that cumulatively reduce the cost of performance upgrades, and discover hidden cars tucked away in rustic barns that you can restore and add to your vehicle stable.

Horizon’s Xbox Live component is similarly engaging, but unlike the Test Drive Unlimited series, it doesn’t blend seamlessly with the single-player game. If you select multiplayer from the main menu, you’re transported to an online (non-A.I.) environment where you can join up to seven other players in a variety of circuit, point-to-point, and free-roam co-op racing events. You’ll also find some appropriately named “Playground” challenges where you can engage in Tag and Cat-and-Mouse arcade silliness with like-minded gamers. Conversely, the single-player game is an A.I.-only affair where the only human connection you’ll find is in the various Rivals challenges (which let you race saved ghost images from other Live-enabled gamers) and individual event leaderboards.

Horizon may not be the natural successor to Forza 4, but it manages to steer the franchise in a fresh and entertaining new direction. Serious Xbox racers need a lot of room to properly stretch the legs of their Ferrari F-40s and Audi R8s, and Forza Horizon delivers that room — and those wonderfully responsive cars — in spades.

PUBLISHER: Microsoft Studios  •  DEVELOPER: Playground Games  •  ESRB: Teen  •  MULTIPLAYER: 8 on Xbox Live  •  ACHIEVEMENTS: Steady  •  COST: $60  •  RELEASE DATE: October 23, 2012

Crank up some dubstep tunes on three themed radio stations. Wub.

Got a Kinect? A SmartGlass-enabled tablet? An Xbox 360 Wireless Speed Wheel? Forza Horizon supports them all. (And changing your GPS destination using Kinect voice commands is pretty cool.)

On Xbox 360

+ Enormous stable of responsive and tunable licensed cars.

+ Exceptional graphics with long draw distances.

– Horribly unconvincing collision dynamics.

? Where are the real Colorado landmarks?

9.0