Forza Horizon 2’s greatest moments sometimes come under the most unexpected circumstances. The Land Rover Defender isn’t exactly known for its speed or sportiness, and Tchaikovsky isn’t renowned for his racing game soundtrack contributions, but when Horizon 2 mashes these things together something very, very good happens. I’ve played a lot of racing games over the past two-or-so decades. I’ve never played one where I was shredding through a vineyard at top speed in an agricultural 4X4 primarily designed to effectively ferry British farmers up wet hills. Certainly not with the 1812 Overture booming from the stereo. Is it slightly absurd? Yes. Is it fun? Absolutely.

Vineyards, and fences, and cafes. And, well, anywhere really.

Nice hog.

Because red is always the correct colour.

It'd be great to be able to disable the so-called Drivatar designs.

Forza Horizon 2 rebottles the winning formula established by its predecessor, albeit with a heaped tablespoon of new and improved ingredients. The eclectic roster of 200+ lavishly detailed cars here ranges from cult coupes to hypercars, and it’s the best line-up in the open-world racing business. Like Horizon before it, they all feel distinct from one another too, thanks to the Forza series’ familiar, top-quality driving dynamics. As usual, supercars feel crisp and sharp, SUVs feel suitably soggy, and everything seems honed to let you heave your cars into corners with two glorious fistfuls of opposite lock.What developer Playground Games has added, however, is a far richer world that’s exponentially denser with rewarding racing and exploration content.The backdrop this time is a slab of land straddling the border of northern Italy and the south of France. It’s wish-fulfilment for Forza fans who’ve spent the last decade watching the hosts of Top Gear cocking about on the Mediterranean coastline every second week.It’s a bigger area than Forza Horizon’s small slice of Colorado, though it’s not a 1:1 recreation of the region. It’s still dwarfed by the likes of Test Drive Unlimited’s life-size Oahu, but there’s a lot more to do in it. The airstrip, shipping port, and abandoned freight yard are highlights, each offering drift-friendly, hoon-tuned playgrounds to experiment in between races.These are great places to compulsively rack up your Skill points. These rewards for impressive driving return from the original, although this time they’re integrated far better into the gameplay. Where previously Skills points had a nebulous effect on your ‘popularity’, in Horizon 2 they unlock points you can trade for permanent perks like discounts on new cars or a small grace period at the beginning of an online game of Horizon 2’s tag mode, ‘Infected’. Accumulating huge skill combos in Horizon 2 is a lot of fun and far more satisfying now that there’s more reason to do so.The game’s 700-or-so events are also lucrative sources of Skill points, from the highly enjoyable Showcase races to class-based blasts across the countryside. The ability to plough through shrubs, splinter fences, and drive almost anywhere is a big shift in Horizon 2. While many events take place on pre-determined ribbons of road, plenty of Horizon 2’s racing is on the rolling fields and through the scattered forests of Tuscany and Provence. The fast and frantic new cross-country races are probably my favourite race types. Low-slung sport cars cope unrealistically well with off-road excursions but it’s a forgivable concession to reality considering how much fun these races are.Horizon 2’s racing is supplemented by plenty of extracurricular activities. The new Bucket List challenges are the best; they’re unique activities to complete in cars parked around the world. Some are a little plain, like a simple speed trap goal, but some are hugely enjoyable, like a stunt challenge around a golf course. Barn Finds are back too, tucked away across the region, and Playground made good on its promise that half of them would be brand new cars for the Forza franchise. If you followed the team’s weekly car reveals over the previous months the silhouettes on the Barn Find interface will probably give most of the surprises away, but I still loved uncovering the worn-out, weed-filled wrecks and seeing them restored to showroom condition.One thing I particularly enjoy about Horizon 2 is how you’re welcome to completely ignore the car championships the game suggests to you on your way to the ‘Horizon Finale’ and select your own favourites. Letting us meaningfully progress the game by remaining in the cars we prefer, rather than forcing us into vehicles we’re not in the mood to race, is great design.You’re also only ever a button press from being online, too. It works well, syncing your time of day to an online session and seamlessly transitioning you into it. The online racing was steady during testing, and I like that being rewarded for building Skill point combos keeps things worthwhile for those of us who can’t always finish first, but the more gentlemanly single-player remains my preferred environment. That, or the fiendishly addictive Rivals component where I can compete with my mates’ event records asynchronously. I lost an entire late night session trading times back and forth with a friend on just one of Horizon 2’s marquee Showcase races.Like Forza Motorsport 5, Forza Horizon 2 uses AI driver profiles from your friends list to populate your career races during single-player, as well as the world itself, removing the need for a generic gallery of trash-talking Euro jocks to function as opponents. Horizon 2 is generally better for it but it’s still too insistent on having us choose a design to immediately apply to the cars we buy. The result is a cavalcade of clipart-splattered cars cruising down the French Riviera looking far more like the kind of off-brand Hot Wheels you’d see lining the pegs at Toys “R” Us than sexy, six-figure supercars. You can still opt out for your own cars but there’s no option to explicitly disable these user designs on opponents, like you can in Forza Motorsport 5, and this irritatingly spoils the game’s aesthetics somewhat. The cars I want to see in my game are the sleek, unadulterated machines we see utilised in Horizon 2’s intro; not gaudy eyesores spackled in ostentatious graphics.It’s kind of a shame too, because virtually everywhere else, Horizon 2 has grown up quite a bit from the first. The menu overlays are more sophisticated, there are no microtransaction options muddying the economy, and Horizon’s layer of men’s lifestyle product promotion has been given the boot. So long, Old Spice US Muscle Mash!The world itself is gorgeous, from the vast fields of red poppies to the scooter-lined streets of Nice. While some of the shadows seem a little choppy, the resolutely locked framerate never wavers and thus delivers a dependable, smooth driving experience.As stunning as Horizon 2 looks during the day, it looks even better at night. All light sources in Horizon 2 are rendered in real-time; headlights slice through the inky blackness and smashing a street lamp realistically darkens areas it was previously bathing in light. From the right vantage points, the soft glow of the fireworks and spinning amusement rides at the Horizon festival can be seen from miles away. Horizon 2’s new wet weather effects are easy on the eyes too. I love the way the world is reflected back at us via puddles on the asphalt, although the spray effect on vehicles is more static than I’d anticipated; even at speed the droplets don’t streak across the windscreen or bonnet.The sound is as good as we’ve come to expect from the Forza series, with roaring engines and crackling exhaust overrun best enjoyed in any one of Horizon 2’s lengthy tunnels. I especially love the pleasing crunch of gravel beneath the tyres, but the tyre noise slider needs to be cranked up to 10 rather than its default setting.