It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m a massive fan of the Forza Horizon franchise. Every single one has been nothing less than brilliant, and so when longtime designer-turned-Forza-Horizon-5-creative-director Mike Brown left Playground Games to found Maverick Games just three years ago, I figured I\u2019d be interested in whatever he and his new team had up their collective sleeve. It was a safe bet, but a correct one, as the studio\u2019s first project is very much up my alley \u2013 and will probably appeal to plenty of my fellow Forza Horizon fans.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s called Clutch, and while it does feature multiplayer, it\u2019s a more single-player-focused open-world driving game than Forza Horizon. It\u2019s set in a spectacular place, like Horizon \u2013 the south of France, including Monaco and the French Riviera \u2013 and it\u2019s packing plenty of real-world cars from the likes of Porsche, Aston Martin, BMW, Land Rover, and Renault, among others. It\u2019s also got a rewind button, which Forza (albeit, Forza Motorsport) invented in racing games. <\/p>\n
But that\u2019s about where the similarities end. Because while Horizon is about the festival from which the series takes its name, Clutch is very much about your player character, Theo Martial, and his sister Cass. The two of you have always been obsessed with cars, and as young adults, they find themselves making ends meet as, effectively, vigilantes \u2013 doing delivery runs for less-than-above-board people. You\u2019ll meet plenty of characters and experience plenty of drama; quite honestly, I don\u2019t really want to ruin any of the plot points, as the story is set to be a significant calling card for Clutch. I suppose what I will say is that a lot of what I saw from Clutch\u2019s narrative reminded me of the recent Brad Pitt blockbuster F1 \u2013 not in terms of plot points, per se, but with regard to tone and spirit. This is a good thing, to be clear, as I had a blast watching that movie. If Clutch\u2019s story is just as fun as F1\u2019s, I think I\u2019ll be in for a treat.<\/p>\n
Within that story, you\u2019ll be doing plenty of familiar Forza Horizon-like things: racing, driving, and drifting \u2013 but sometimes with a more cinematic flair. For instance, one mission I saw during my brief demo tasked us with finding a rare Aston Martin Valhalla (seriously, open another tab and look this car up if you haven\u2019t seen it; it\u2019s borderline alien in its exotic appearance and practically a street-legal F1 car). The problem was, the car is located in its wealthy owner\u2019s penthouse. You\u2019ve got to get it out of there\u2026and you can imagine how that\u2019s going to go. <\/p>\n
Well\u2026almost. There\u2019s one part of that Valhalla escape that you definitely won\u2019t be expecting: the harpoon you can fire from the car. No, Clutch isn\u2019t trying to be Spy Hunter, but it is mixing in some arcadey additions to the basic arcadey driving formula. There are six total tools to unlock over the course of the campaign, and as the harpoon was the only one I saw, I can tell you that you can shoot it at any object in the game. You can use it for traversal, for instance, such as firing it at a lamppost on a corner to help you take a turn at higher speed, a la the Tim Burton Batmobile in the 1989 Batman film. I\u2019m curious to see the remaining five tools and what cumulative effect they have on the gameplay, but on the whole, Clutch feels very similar to Forza Horizon in terms of its driving: it\u2019s grounded in reality, but not a pure sim by any means.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n I say that with a little bit of experience, as I did get to play one three-lap race at the end of my demo. Fortunately, rival-racer AI is aggressive, and you do need to drive smart and drive well in order to move up to the front of the pack. If Brown and the team were aiming for a similar handling feel as Forza Horizon, my first impression is that they\u2019ve pretty well nailed it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nMaverick Games’ Clutch – First Screenshots<\/h3>\n