Forza Horizon 5 (2021)

Oh wow, I havent been this conflicted about a game in a while. Simultaneously too much and yet not nearly enough to keep me engaged. It just throws everything at you so quickly, the array of racing types, the catalogue of cars, the maps, the menus within menus of tuning and aesthetic tweaks, and you know I would say it was impressive, but I failed to care about any of it.

I will concede that this might just not be for me, I mean this gives me the same vibe a Fifa game does where it's this annual offering for a specific audience who for the most part will not touch anyother game for the rest of the year. With that context I applaud this game for the sheer amount on display here. But man I would be happy with a quarter of this. Give me one or two maps, maybe three or four cars I can tune back and forth and a solid narrative throughline, and I'm set. With this I am just so prematurely exhausted by the sheer scale of having to engage with all of this that, I've already lost interest.

Silver lining. I think I might try Pacific Drive again. I think that's what I'm looking for in a car game, a slow intimate DIY RPG where I feel a genuine sense of progression, as opposed to the free for all mega theme park Forza Horizon is. I'm jealous of anyone who clicked with this, but yeah, I'm out.

The whole party vibe just doesn't feel right to me. In every Horizon game, I always feel a little bit repulsed by the balloons and cheering fans and spotlights and constant flashy celebratory vibe. They really lean into it more and more every game. This whole game premise is built on a "festival" where adoring spectators cheer as we are handed the keys to a whole garage of supercars - our reward for just showing up. The hype builds as we understeer a hairpin turn at 120mph and smash our new McLaren into the stands. Presumably, this is how they had all hoped to die. There's no damage to the car, because we are just that good. Heck, we got xp for a spectacular crash. Queue more fanfare, please.

It's just too much. I can't focus on the driving or the story (if one exists) or anything else when the sounds and visuals are all about celebrating how great - or awful - my driving is. Just stop. Please. Let me at least accomplish something before the confetti begins.

I miss the old days of gran turismo, buying a $2,000 beater and proving ourselves; winning modest prizes, economically prioritizing upgrades, trading up, and doing it again. It's really hard to enjoy the racing or the economy aspects when I'm constantly reminded that I'm at the center of a country-wide rave in my honor.

I didn't think I'd say this a week or two ago, but there isn't enough end-game content in this. While there are accolades I can unlock, achievement hunting really isn't my thing. I like the weekly challenges but they are now easy to complete in a single lunchbreak or hour after work on the first day and then I'm left with nothing to do until the weeklies reset the following Thursday. And singe Playground Games nerfed car mastery, I don't really have a lot of reason to grind skill points save for levelling up, which functionally has no point.

Don't take this to mean I've soured on the game, I think it just means I think I will really only visit FH5 once a week, or if someone I know needs help with something. It also means I've about three times more excited for GT7 launch day.

More time for Returnal!

Oh no, now I’m playing the auction house. I’ve made enough money to buy all the houses in the game which has, in turn, made me more money back. But I’m making several million credits a day simply because people seem to want to take the easy route and buy the Hoonigan Porsche instead of working for it. But I can make enough skill points to earn several of them a day so I’m raking in dough. God bless the lazy ;-)

Lord help me I’m hooked.

I scoffed at all the 2021 top ten lists that included this game. I played Forza Horizon 4. It was fun. I tried a bit of this when it launched and though, "yup more of the same". I didn't understand why anyone would include this arcade racer that is just more of the same on their list.

But now I'm playing it, and I get it. It's fantastic. It's has low or high stakes racing, depending on what you feel like. You can spend a day in intense competition, or just chill and drive around in your favourite car. It has progression, but you are not locked out of your dream cars until you beat X number of races. It's casual yet also intense. And the cars. So many cars that meant something to me, like the Stingray that my dad restored and put on display in his showroom at work. Or the '95 Porsche 911 in 'Smarties' blue that I weirdly fell in love with as a teen. Or my first car, or my brother's first car. And the list goes on. It's like a nostalgia factory for someone who used to care about cars (my dad worked in the industry) for a couple decades of my life, and those two decades come alive in this game letting me own cars I only dreamt of as a kid. I thought I wouldn't care about a racer as much as I do about this one because I'm not really into cars as an adult, but boy did they still figure out how to hook me. The one con? I don't understand why this game doesn't have a Lotus Esprit. I'll take any decade. 70s, 80s, 90s, or even the last of the Esprits in the early 2000s.

Something about this formula works for me. The "main story" is fine, but I think I just like driving around and smashing the XP boards and doing the PR challenges.

Progression is hilarious in this game - you get points for driving well and you also get points for driving poorly as long as you don't crash into a wall. I'm such a sucker for the dopamine rush of a wheelspin

Poked my head in Forza Horizon 5 this evening, finally. I’ve been hearing nothing but effusive praise for the game since launch. So what did I find?

It’s what I expected, more Forza Horizon 4 in a new setting. It has the same annoying un-skippable intro racing montage (this time with some air dropped cars à la Furious 7), the same insufferable radio DJs, the same stiff voice acting and hollow story all paired with more the same fantastic feeling driving.

Like Forza Horizon 4 the sequel is the same highly enjoyable open world racing game wrapped in a cheesy and often overbearing narrative. But like it’s predecessor, it succeeds despite its weaker parts because the racing feels wonderful and the map is big, detailed and gorgeous.

Also like Forza Horizon 4 I’ll probably see myself bounce off this once I’ve had a few hours to fill my occasional desire to play a racing game. It’s certainly better than the last Need for Speed that I played, and is enjoyable enough in stints to justify jumping in every now and then when in between other games.

Forza Horizon 5 oli pitkään odotuslistallani korkealla ja täyden 10 arvostelut pitkin poikin internettiä eivät ainakaan pienentäneet odotuksiani. Forza Horizon 4:sta aiemmin testanneena tiesin suurinpiirtein mihin olen hyppäämässä: avoin maailma jossa kruisailla vapaasti, loputtomasti tekemistä ja todella hauskaa ajamista. Edellämainittuja asioita sarjan uusin osa tarjoaakin, mutta liian suuret odotukset hieman koituivat pelin kohtaloksi omalla kohdallani.

Peli on hauskaa ajamista ja siinä on loputtomasti tekemistä, mutta silti jotain tuntuu puuttuvan. Omalla kohdallani suurimmaksi kritiikiksi nousi aivan olematon yksinpelitarina ja se miten sitä esitettiin ja vietiin eteenpäin. Yksinpelitarinan "lopussa" jäin odottamaan lopputekstejä, mutta niitä ei loppujen lopuksi koskaan tullut ja pelin läpipelaamisesta tuleva suorittamisen fiilis jäi epätietoisuuden varjoon, oliko tämä nyt tässä vai ei. Ilmeisesti oli, mutta Forza haluaa olevan loppumaton peli, johon lopputekstit eivät ilmeisesti kuulu. Sisältöä tuntuu vain olevan itselleni niin käsittämätön määrä, että sisältö ja uusien autojen saaminen on jo täysin irrelevanttia.

Vaikka pelistä jäikin lopulta hieman pettynyt olo, sitä ei käy kieltäminen etteikö minulla olisi ollut hauskaa pelin parissa. Forza Horizon 5 kello näytti lopulta miltei 30 tuntia, jotka kertyivät vähän yli viikon aikana. Tälläisiä tuntimääriä ei kovin huonolle pelille olisi tässä ajassa kertynytkään, joten jotain pelissä on varmasti tehty oikein. Julkaisuversiossa oli vielä pieniä repsottavia kulmia ja nettipeli hieman takkuili suuren pelaajamäärän myötä, mutta pääosin mitään suuria peli-ilon tappajia ei tullut vastaan. Kuten aiemmin tänä vuonna pelaamani Need for Speed Heat on tämänkin parasta antia varmasti useamman pelaajan nettipelit, joita varmasti silloin tällöin tulee pelattua myöhemminkin ihan vaan ajamisen ilosta.

4/5 Kiitettävä

Reached Hall of Fame

My thoughts:

Forza Horizon 5 is still the most polished open-world arcade-sim racer as of recent, but in my opinion, it's still far from the 10/10s that critics are giving. From a couple of weeks from launch, my impression of FH5 was that it's at least an improved FH4 (in most ways), which was the lowest point in the Horizon series (but not necessarily a bad game either)

Pros:

• Mexico map is AMAZING. Large map with a huge variety of biomes, terrain, altitude, and road conditions
• Easily the prettiest racing game to exist visually (at least until Raytracing Gran Turismo 7)
• I actually liked the summery vibes soundtrack this time especially for Horizon Pulse Radio, similar to the song selection of FH3. Really disliked FH4's radio.
• Proceed single player by doing ANYTHING you want this time. Everything leads to progress, even if you decide to just focus on dirt racing for example.
• Many character customization features, including prosthetics and custom pronouns to fit with the modern era... Except for the voice options (mentioned in cons)
• Introduction sequence is breathtaking, along with the first drives to set up new festival outposts.

Cons:

• ... But there's little depth after the "flashy first impressions"
• Huge amount of been there's, done that's if you've already played FH4 alot. FH5 doesn't feel very fresh gameplay-wise, especially since the Showcases barely feel anything new.
• Very Shallow Singleplayer, in comparison to FH1 & FH2.
• The most cringe dialogue to date. NPCs now insert random Spanish words every sentence to remind you that you are in Mexico, but the language hybrid comes off awkward.
• The whole "Horizon music festival set piece" is still mostly just a background object, rather than the main overall theme in FH1 and FH2. FH5 still feels a bit soulless compared to those entries, but at least the festival has more of a physical presence than in FH4.
• Your character NOW has a voice that can't be turned off! It now forces the "You're a person from FH4's UK" storyline incase you had a headcanon for your character, so you're stuck with a British accent. Also, your character makes a lot of sarcastic remarks.
• The AI cheats really hard. FH4's Unbeatable is a joke, but now even in Highly skilled difficulty (2 steps above average), they drive too perfectly in rain/dirt.
• Release FH5 has a rendering distance bug where far-away objects are really low-rez, and look terrible as a result. At least FH4 worked and looked good from the box.

The REALLY bad: Multiplayer is AWFUL and is currently a downgrade from FH4 (which was also mostly bad at launch!)

• You spend 40% of the time just waiting for something to load
• No options to pick what class & terrain you want to play! In other words, you might want to race just average A-class Import Tuners in circuit race but nope you got placed in a lobby that's S2 Hypercar off-road Cross Country hell and are stuck with all of the loading times just to enter and exit. And then you have to re-queue in matchmaking again until you finally get something you can tolerate.

Unfortunately, I've preordered the $100 premium edition and was left... unsatisfied? The cheap AI, cringe story events, and terrible multiplayer really killed the game's longevity for me (as of release state), because I already feel done with the game. These are just opinions from someone who's been following the series mainly since FH3. I just hope the DLC's are interesting because FH4's Lego DLC felt really really bad to me.

If this is your first Forza Horizon game, please disregard my opinion. You'll have a blast!

This is very much another Forza Horizon game, so I will leave out most talk about how good Forza Horizon always has been and cut to specifics about this game. I think this is one of the best executions yet of that formula and an amazing entrypoint for even people who don't usually play driving games.

This game does a better job than ever at quickly giving you a taste of much of what it has to offer, and then guiding you toward new stuff at just the right rate to keep my attention. This is the most I've gotten into one of these since the original Horizon in 2012. Its region is pretty similar to that original game, and I love the variety in it. I think some of that guided content feels a bit pointless with some of its little bonus objectives, but luckily that stuff is skippable.

I think the visual upgrade on current-gen Xbox is really amazing at times, with some incredible draw distances, smoothness, and detail that add so much to the immersion and viscerality of zooming and occasionally literally flying through these areas. Anything taking place at nighttime looks incredible, and weather effects feel slightly more amazing than in Motorsport 7. Sometimes I'll just drive through water for a couple minutes cause it looks cool.

The series has long been great at making a welcoming experience for different types of driving game fans through its customizable difficulty, freedom in event types, and extras like the rewind feature. That inclusivity has been expanded even more with a bunch of new accessibility options as well as diverse character customizations such as prosthetic limbs, pronoun choice, and no restrictions on gendered hair/clothing/voice. I do find it a bit odd that with all that, there is not much customization of body type and only 2 voice options are available.

The player character with that voice takes a bigger role than usual in this game, with many unskippable dialogue scenes. With characters always yelling in excitement, quipping at each other, and inserting random Spanish words into their sentences every 2 seconds to remind you you're in Mexico, the writing felt a bit try-hard to me. Forza Horizon's tourism/festival conceit has really worn off on me, and I would honestly rather they come up with something new and let me play as one of these Mexican people than a random British guy setting up a party at some ancient monument or whatever.

I'm sorry to harp on this topic, but I have to also point out that the voice acting is plagued by awkward delivery where actors seem to have been reading straight off a script with no direction. Lines can sometimes just be read incorrectly. My assumption is that the normal process was interrupted by COVID and they just did not have someone overseeing it.

One more small negative. This game seems to have more problems than usual with getting stuck in the world geometry. I have confirmed this with at least one other person that far more than usual we are having to use the "reset position" option after getting stuck somewhere. Weird, but at least you can easily get out of it.

I am definitely happy with this game and have been loving just listening to music and driving around or methodically clearing out an area's events. If you have Game Pass, just download it and try it out. If nothing else, you'll experience the game's opening which is a ton of fun, and you just might get hooked.

I have to say that I didn't finish the game yet but I saw enough to feel comfortable writing this review.

Maybe my opinion won't be very popular and a lot of people will say that I am just crazy... Everyone is saying that this game is awesome, the game is achieving records of players, sells, .... so I thought it would be really good.

My surprise is that the game doesn't deserve this credit. I don't know if it is me, or if people are happy with everything they play and they are not demanding at all. The game is just the same as Forza Horizon 4. THE SAME. There is nothing new. I would even say that it is worst than FH4.

They only changed the map, added some cars, and that is all. Even the season effect is quite worst compared to FH4. The main quests and side quests are really less inspired than FH4 too.

Don't get me wrong... the game is still good because the formula still works. But it is so frustrating to spend money on this because everyone is saying that it is awesome and no one really says the truth. I am totally having a deja vu and feeling that I already played this... The game is good, but you should be alert that the game does not offer anything (even offers less) than FH4.