One little but very noticeable thing I hope they improve on: FH4's whole thing with zapping you to a big yawning white void the moment you cross the finish line? It sucks. In FH3, I always kept cosmetic damage on because it was really something to watch my roughed-up, dirt-caked car cross the line in cool slo-mo with the crowd cheering in the background. Teleporting me to some kind of THX-1138 nowhere-space instead took a lot out of the presentation.
Absolutely. I booted up FH3 getting bored with FH3 the other day, and it was remarkable how much more immersive it feels. The white void zones of FH4 totally take me out of the environment...makes it feel like a game inside of a game somehow. When you initiate a street race in FH3, it kind of feels like you're in the scene...it feels special. On the subject, I would love if they went a step further and actually preserved dirt and grime on your cars
after races, until you wash them. Would go a lot further in building immersion and a sense of ownership.
I think FH3 also had more clarity to its visuals (at least on base Xbox One) that I hope returns in the next game. FH4 feels, by comparison, kind of muddy and nondistinct. One huge difference between the two games is the brightness of artificial lights at night. I can't tell you how many times I've ran into pedestrian vehicles at night in FH4 because both the tail lights and headlights are very dim and sort of blend into the rest of the environment. In FH3 you can see other cars at night from a
very long way off, the headlights are super bright and distinctive. The sky itself is also miles better, particularly at night, in FH3.
Even besides the accuracy of the sounds, FH3 blows FH4 away in audio clarity as well. If you compare two cars that sound roughly accurate in both games (the 997 GT3 RS 4.0 for instance) the sound in FH3 is far clearer, more nuanced, has more range, and is better "located". In FH4 it sounds technically accurate, but it's so mushy sounding that it's ultimately pretty joyless - chase cam exhaust sounds have way too much white noise engine sound and
zero hard edge while interior sounds are totally lifeless. The same car in FH3 sounds absolutely stunning - the chase cam exhaust has that characteristic sharp, whipping noise of a high strung Porsche flat 6 and the interior has the booming intake resonance. The sound quality is so good you want to drive different cars just to hear them....something I never do in FH4.
FH3 is a pretty great game all in all, it just has a disappointing map. FH4 has a marginally better map and far better ongoing support, at the cost of just about everything else. I hope FH5 rights the ship!
