On Friday 14th September I was invited to Playground Games to play the full release version of the game before it went on sale to the general public at the end of the month.  This was the first time they had ever done an event like this that was open to the community rather than press and VIPs

We met at their office in Leamington Spa for a little meet and greet all got our passes

There was about 20 people there and also the upload team who done some recording during the event.

The area we were going to be in was a nice size area.

They split us up into 2 groups the first group getting hands on with the game for an hour with how it would be if you just got the game, we had fake profiles set up, mine being 2BG Chucky 82 and we had a copy of our pass at which unit you would be one, had a big tv with head phones and a sofa.  I start the game get all the intro that you would expect, then you get your host telling you that your about to dock and that you had to drive this car to the horizon festival with other cars also on their way to the festival, it's not about who gets there first but you don't want to be last. And it puts you in the car and 'go' your off, quick pause menu to turn the assists off but on the quick look couldn't work out how to change to manual so I put up with the auto gear box.  On route to the festival you have the normal racing of other cars which our not AI but drivateers like fm5.  And the normal car traffic flashing there lights at you each time you get on the wrong side of the road.  As you draw closer to the festival the night draws in and shows how the game looks with all the headlights on.

With you arriving at the festival the guys says thanks for helping and that you need to pick a car.  You have a choice of 3 cars which I should have noted but I didn't, you had a BMW a 1969 chevy camaro and the third slips my mind, I choose the camaro.  Once again to the assists to make sure what I have, I turn the tcs on for it but leave the rest off, find the choice if gears and switched to manual with clutch.  I change the drivateers from average to the next setting being highly skilled, in the first race they dominated me as I made a couple of mistakes, so I change to average and don't you know it I leave them standing and have a 7 second gap to the car behind.

I switched it back to highly skilled for the next race (yes I know lots of you say you do it on expert but I ain't that great lol) where once again it’s a fight on my hands for the win but I just keep to it.  I completed the first section then it gets you on a convey to the next section where it begins to rain, it gets wet pretty quick with the sudden downpour and once you get to the next section it gives you the choice to pick races depending on what car you are in, I head to the first location where the road has a rapid drying effect (I did ask about this after and they said it's a thing that's in it just for the first hour to show you what it can be like but any other rain after and it takes longer to get as wet and longer drying times) I do the three races there, then I got the challenge of driving a Ferrari against the flying display team, once you win you keep the car.  I now stay in the Ferrari you go to the next meeting point of nice where once I got there I went exploring.

The car garage, like before there is car barn finds there, you can't transfer your decals from fm5 to horizon2 sadly but all the normal vynals are there and other painting options that you would expect.  I take a drive around and go to the airport to see what's there. You can get on the runway and it will feature in multiplayer games as you do drag racing there.  There is also a speed trap challenge at the end of the runway also. There are hangers which you can drive in and some planes on display which you can get up close to.  I left the airport and went on what seemed like a river but dried up which was abit weird I then just drive about and challenging a few cars by driving up behind them and pressing the double square button.  After some time doing that the hour was up. No pictures or videos of the screens could be taken unless the main focus was people on the game which I did get one picture and got some other from twitter also.

The studio tour was next where no pictures or videos at all were allowed very private up there and massive.  If you want to know where there is over 100 Xbox ones running forza horizon 2 this is the place.  The sound room was amazing, 7.1 surround sound big screen TV lights down low and load.   Back downstairs where I asked one of the team the questions that was asked by the community

jgroves1996

Q: Will there be an appearance of a race track somewhere in the world?

There was the idea of it at first but went against it as the high level of detail needed to be put in for it where you have Forza Motorsport which has all the tracks.

XPR Soundwave

Q: Will the gifting option return?

No, it will be the same as forza 5 where it can be put on the "share point"

Q: Will Horizon 2 and FM5 have file sharing between games like with Horizon and FM4?

Sadly not, due to the different concepts in design with rain effects and dynamic light changes due to the time of day it would not look up to standards

CarbonViper93

Q: What is the gameplay on Forza Horizon 2 based on? Does it drive like Forza 5 or Forza Horizon 1?

Drives like forza 5 but the handling when it rains also changes and when it's a getting wet road you can feel the slight difference in the way the car responds  

Freheliaz

Q: Do they have working windscreen wipers for all the cars?

All cars that have wipers in the game will work as with headlights also, they all work automatically

Q: How does weather affect the grip of the car?

When it rains you can fell the car pulling from the back (well I was in a 69 camaro and that was fun to drive with manual gears and clutch)

Turbo Power 77

Q: From the screenshot of the map I've seen there is an airport. What uses will it have and will we be able to roam around on the runway in free roam?

Yes you can and I also looked round the area.  There are hangers you can go in like the forza 4 test track, there's also planes sat around that you can also drive around, there is a speed camera at the end of the track.  Also I found out in online mode you and meet there and do drag racing down the run way and also use multi class where it will hold the higher end cars on the line while the lower class cars are released so it should get some close finishes.

Zeta0085

Q: Will players be allowed to spectate multiplayer races and save the replays?

No you can not spectate nor save replays

MRN3Drifter

Q: Do you guys reckon if there is going to be some road legal race cars like the Radical and the Pagani Zonda R in Forza Horizon 2?

If it's road legal then it could make it into the game, funny enough the Zonda R is not road legal but the Zonda Huayra is and that is in the game

Joito04

Q: will there be more of car festival atmosphere as in car shows where you can show off your car at the festival also have car rally's EX: gumball rally and gold rush rally.

Yes there will be car meets in the online mode but keeping most the online stuff hash hash

Q: will there turn signal indicators? small things like that matter to me

Nope nor flashing lights but I said that I would rather flash my lights to another car to challenge for a race rather then press the double square button

LMR DarthMario

Q: As a fan of Test Drive Unlimited, will we be getting an MMO aspect?

Yes it will be but let you see it for yourself

They had a rig set up (must be built for small people) we were the first ever people outside of playground games who have had a go on forza horizon 2 with the wheel, not even the press have had a try with this.  One of the dev team set a lap time and we all had 2 goes to try and beat it. I was 35 seconds off the pace but being quite tell I couldn't really move my arms in it.  Had two other guys come 1 second off of him.

I had to leave as I had a booked train I had to catch.  Overall a really good day out also while there we found out that there will be a VIP membership as with the other forza games it has no limited edition copies of the game.  If you liked Forza Horizon well you will love this a great upgrade to the visuals and the handling of the cars and a massive open space where you can basically drive anywhere.  The basics are there from Horizon one, go around the map to the races, the garage at the festival in the middle of the map with quick jump points around the map, the you vs planes etc, barn yard car finds.  Also expect the normal going of DLCs.

Enjoy the demo and thanks for reading.