So why on earth grab an expansion pack for a game I hadn’t finished? Well…. Even with over 40 hours logged I’m still nowhere near close completing all of the championships on offer and have only recently started to play around with the on-line options. Simply put it’s possibly the best racing game I’ve ever played with fantastic driving mechanics paired with a true open world and great reward structure. I reviewed Forza Horizon 2 back at the end of October and - spoiler alert - absolutely loved it. Storm Island, however, managed to overcome both those problems in no small part to being a proper, full-blown expansion to what was already a superb game. Partially that’s down to publishers getting greedy and putting out very little actual content for your money but mostly by the time I’m done with the original game there’s another title demanding my time.
Set on a gorgeous fictional island just off the coast of southern France, Storm Island does exactly what its name suggests.It’s rare that I’ll buy DLC for any game these days. It takes you and your Horizon 2 avatar to an island and then sends all manner of storms, lashing rain, high winds and mud filled raceways your way. The best thing of all though, is that it then just lets you get on with it, giving you the chance to play around to your hearts content. To access the island, you’ll need to have completed a few of the standard Horizon 2 events first, but by now anyone worth their weight, should have worked their way through enough of that. Granted, the new race modes are just more of what was already in Horizon 2 but with a bit of a steroid injection.įrom there, it’s a simple enough drive to the harbour in Nice in order to catch that ferry and be thrust into a few more races.įeaturing 30 new championships, all set across some new game modes, another of those superb Barn Finds and a number of equally great Bucket List Challenges, Storm Island is a great way of furthering your Forza Horizon 2 career. ‘Rampages’ see you going from point-to-point, dodging obstacles as you go, ‘Brawl’ adds in even more extreme terrain, whilst the ‘Cross Country Circuits’ and ‘Extreme Cross Country’ races take you further off the beaten track than ever before.
You’ll need to start off in the lowest tier of championships, racing for four different titles before managing to get a crack at the top dogs in ‘Gauntlet’. Set in the dead of the night, Gauntlets see you take on the toughest terrain, the toughest drivers, the hardest of rain and the windiest of storms requiring you to drag all your racing skills up to the A game in order to triumph.
And when you do, you’ll get shifted up a tier and given the chance to experience even more hardcore races. Now, don’t go expecting to transport your entire garage onto the island and expecting to come out triumphant. It won’t happen and all that you’ll achieve will be getting your glorious cars dirty. Thankfully Storm Island understands and brings five new vehicles along for the ride. Additionally, a number of Storm Island specific upgrades can be bolted on to all your cars so if you do wish to go tearing things up with a VW Campervan, then just make sure you stick those rally tires on it! All are obviously suited for the off-road rough and tumble the island brings, with a sixth car, that of the Metro 6R4 ensuring that those who search out the single Barn Find on the island will be treated to the most ultimate of rally vehicles. Storm Island also includes eight more Bucket List challenges for you to attempt, re-attempt, shout at and attempt some more. I would have loved to see a couple of easier buckets available just to get us into the swing of things once more but Storm Island isn’t about going about things the easy way.įour of these are of the medium variety whilst the other four work well together with the islands hardcore image and aren’t for the faint hearted.