Pretty much the same experience as Horizon 4 - if you liked that, you've got more waypoints to hold RT to & from. I sadly get nothing out of this, and its desperate cloying attempts to wrangle a drop of dopamine from me all fail too. People give rpgs a bad rep for the whole "number go up" thing, but this could not feel more like time wasted while being hypnotised by a laserlightshow of exp bars and increasing integers that progress towards nothing. Far too many player retention systems draped over a racing game that is overly saccharine in tone and too scared to thrill. The challenges just aren't interesting and the cars don't even feel that good, what am I missing here? This is what all the dialogue sounds like https://i.imgur.com/i1TOMt2.png
Sick beyond belief of open worlds where I have no idea whether the tasks are procedurally or community generated. A barren expanse of a world map dotted with prefab roads and obstacles that the course designer has to fruitlessly negotiate with for any texture. Maybe I'm just down on this franchise for whatever weird or petty reason, it just gives me the same joy as being toured around a Toyota dealership. Psychotic UI, too; why do we want our system navigation to look like a moodboard. Perfectly competent, very pretty, but I don't have 122gb to spare for a game that is only adequate lol.
Sick beyond belief of open worlds where I have no idea whether the tasks are procedurally or community generated. A barren expanse of a world map dotted with prefab roads and obstacles that the course designer has to fruitlessly negotiate with for any texture. Maybe I'm just down on this franchise for whatever weird or petty reason, it just gives me the same joy as being toured around a Toyota dealership. Psychotic UI, too; why do we want our system navigation to look like a moodboard. Perfectly competent, very pretty, but I don't have 122gb to spare for a game that is only adequate lol.
Lindo com Forza.
Estou longe de ser um grande fã de jogos de corrida mas é absurdo como TODO JOGO da franquia Forza Horizon me conquistou de alguma forma.
No quinto jogo da série, o que mais surpreende (Além do visual que é facilmente o mais lindo de todos os jogos Forza até agora) é o mapa ser enorme e cheio de conteúdo (Missões/corridas/tarefas secundárias). Além do jogo beirar o incrível em algumas corridas com tempestade de areia ou perto de algum vulcão por exemplo.
Existem algumas historinhas legais porém o formato delas é sempre igual. Aí caímos no maior problema do game: As corridas e o vasto conteúdo não se conversa, logo o jogo vira aquele "monte de coisa pra fazer". (Offline enjoa rapidinho ter aquele mapa enorme com inúmeras coisas pra fazer porém todas parecidas e desconexas umas das outras).
Porém não tem erro, a experiência de Forza Horizon ainda é a melhor que um jogo de corrida tem a oferecer (Queria muito jogar esse daqui com um volante, pedal e marcha).
PRÓS:
- O jogo mais bonito de corrida que já joguei (Graficamente falando).
- Mapa enorme e vasto conteúdo de jogo.
CONTRAS:
- Vasto conteúdo de jogo não se conversa.
Estou longe de ser um grande fã de jogos de corrida mas é absurdo como TODO JOGO da franquia Forza Horizon me conquistou de alguma forma.
No quinto jogo da série, o que mais surpreende (Além do visual que é facilmente o mais lindo de todos os jogos Forza até agora) é o mapa ser enorme e cheio de conteúdo (Missões/corridas/tarefas secundárias). Além do jogo beirar o incrível em algumas corridas com tempestade de areia ou perto de algum vulcão por exemplo.
Existem algumas historinhas legais porém o formato delas é sempre igual. Aí caímos no maior problema do game: As corridas e o vasto conteúdo não se conversa, logo o jogo vira aquele "monte de coisa pra fazer". (Offline enjoa rapidinho ter aquele mapa enorme com inúmeras coisas pra fazer porém todas parecidas e desconexas umas das outras).
Porém não tem erro, a experiência de Forza Horizon ainda é a melhor que um jogo de corrida tem a oferecer (Queria muito jogar esse daqui com um volante, pedal e marcha).
PRÓS:
- O jogo mais bonito de corrida que já joguei (Graficamente falando).
- Mapa enorme e vasto conteúdo de jogo.
CONTRAS:
- Vasto conteúdo de jogo não se conversa.
I don't know how this game is so good when it's made out of the two worst things white people invented: colonialism and music festivals
Forza Horizon 4, but in Mexico. I'd say if you enjoyed that then you'd also have a great time with this entry but for whatever reason I just can't gel with FH5 as much as I did its predecessor.
Maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's the locale not interesting me as much or maybe it's just noticing the things that didn't bother me last time as it was my first experience with the series. Every line of dialogue which seems like it's purposefully trying to ape Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock, interesting set pieces but with boring, indistinct track layouts, being constantly interrupted in the first 5-10 hours with new events being added to an already overstuffed map or having another set of numbers pop up or increase to give you a serotonin hit to keep you playing for as long as possible.
It still looks great and blasting around the world in each vehicle is still a gratifying experience as you bounce through sand dunes or jungle areas with reckless abandon. But while I think I had a decent enough time overall, at the end of my last session I couldn't help but feel that I had just spent three hours consuming content, rather than having a properly enjoyable experience.
My guess is that open-world racing might just not be for me in the long run and I just prefer games in this genre where I can properly learn specific tracks with distinguishing features and how each car will perform on them.
Maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's the locale not interesting me as much or maybe it's just noticing the things that didn't bother me last time as it was my first experience with the series. Every line of dialogue which seems like it's purposefully trying to ape Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock, interesting set pieces but with boring, indistinct track layouts, being constantly interrupted in the first 5-10 hours with new events being added to an already overstuffed map or having another set of numbers pop up or increase to give you a serotonin hit to keep you playing for as long as possible.
It still looks great and blasting around the world in each vehicle is still a gratifying experience as you bounce through sand dunes or jungle areas with reckless abandon. But while I think I had a decent enough time overall, at the end of my last session I couldn't help but feel that I had just spent three hours consuming content, rather than having a properly enjoyable experience.
My guess is that open-world racing might just not be for me in the long run and I just prefer games in this genre where I can properly learn specific tracks with distinguishing features and how each car will perform on them.
Fun enough core driving and a great open world to mess around in, but everything about its presentation from its story and characters, terrible UI, constantly flashing XP meters and level ups, annoying retention mechanics, AI issues like rampant rubberbanding, and irritating locked down scripted setpiece moments that ultimately don't offer anything interesting or new to the actual driving make this kind of actively exhausting to play.
Hola amigxs, I'm Sergio. I love Fiestas and eat Tacos!
This game rules but your character can only have a British voice. Disgusting.
Forza Horizon proves you can displace Central Americans in style. Gentrified Racing Supreme.
The Horizon series is comfort food. They are the omelette of video games, never the best meal that you have ever had, but consistently good, sometimes even great, and endlessly customizable to suit your taste. Hate onions? Leave them off! Don’t like drift challenges? You never have to touch them! Here’s a bottle of Sriracha and a difficulty slider so you can incrementally decide the challenge for tonight. No matter your preferences, there is probably a configuration you can find to like.
Horizon 5 follows in this tried and true and growing tired formula with noticeable, but modest, improvements. Visuals have taken a leap. Mexico is more interesting than Great Britain. And everything that has been fun in the past is just as (if not more) fun now.
But 5 hasn’t perfected the formula. Choosing between quality and performance modes feels like a legitimate lose/lose. There is still no meaningful progression path in the game. And the tone of the writing still makes Steve Buscemi dressed as a 14 year old seem positively on the pulse of culture.
However, perhaps the hardest part of the game to critique is the nagging feeling that it is just more of the same. Because while that might be somewhat true, no one else seems to have a better idea. Since the first Horizon game in 2012, no one has come close to Playground’s crown and hold over the open world/sandbox racing game.
Because the omelette is still really good! Driving fast, flying off a mountain, and juicing cars is good, dumb fun. It’s just that maybe the kitchen should try their hand at Eggs Benedict next time. But until then come on over, take a load off, and enjoy some comfort food.
Horizon 5 follows in this tried and true and growing tired formula with noticeable, but modest, improvements. Visuals have taken a leap. Mexico is more interesting than Great Britain. And everything that has been fun in the past is just as (if not more) fun now.
But 5 hasn’t perfected the formula. Choosing between quality and performance modes feels like a legitimate lose/lose. There is still no meaningful progression path in the game. And the tone of the writing still makes Steve Buscemi dressed as a 14 year old seem positively on the pulse of culture.
However, perhaps the hardest part of the game to critique is the nagging feeling that it is just more of the same. Because while that might be somewhat true, no one else seems to have a better idea. Since the first Horizon game in 2012, no one has come close to Playground’s crown and hold over the open world/sandbox racing game.
Because the omelette is still really good! Driving fast, flying off a mountain, and juicing cars is good, dumb fun. It’s just that maybe the kitchen should try their hand at Eggs Benedict next time. But until then come on over, take a load off, and enjoy some comfort food.
Look, my friends have done the backloggd big brain stuff on this already, and they're right, but I'm gonna level - I didn't even think about the optics of forza while I played it. Car goes fucking brum and it is inherently fun. Sometimes that's enough for me. You drive through the jungle and look at a ziggurat and then jump off a cliff in a buggy you've put a supercar engine in. That'll do me.
É um bom jogo de corrida, divertido e tal, mas sinto que já passou da hora de Forza Horizon sair dessa fórmula, é basicamente o mesmo jogo anterior, com gráficos melhorados e mapa novo.
Acho que os momentos mais arcade do jogo são mal aproveitados, as corridas de exibição, que são os momentos mais interessantes de Forza Horizon, neste estão bem sem graça.
Acho que o jogo se perdeu um pouco nesse ponto entre o realismo e a fantasia, onde ele não consegue ir mais pra nenhum dos lados e isso prejudica um pouco as novidades.
Acho que os momentos mais arcade do jogo são mal aproveitados, as corridas de exibição, que são os momentos mais interessantes de Forza Horizon, neste estão bem sem graça.
Acho que o jogo se perdeu um pouco nesse ponto entre o realismo e a fantasia, onde ele não consegue ir mais pra nenhum dos lados e isso prejudica um pouco as novidades.
my favorite racing game, its arcadey but is the epitome of "easy to learn, difficult to master" and I love that, I'll never fully learn the tuning system but I still appreciate its depth. The map is significantly better than the previous entry and offers more vehicle variety. Biggest downside is that all the leaderboards around the map are dominated by speed hacks and speed glitches making it impossible to ever see your name in the top 500 using legit methods
People say "they're great games to play when you're listening to a podcast/doing something else" about the Forza Horizon games. They're right, there's something very relaxed, very low stakes about the racing in these games.
Unfortunately, after FIVE of them I think maybe I want something a bit more engaging? I can't say this is a bad game - its far too polished for that - but because of the aforementioned relaxed nature of it all I find it really hard to actually give a shit about playing it.
Unfortunately, after FIVE of them I think maybe I want something a bit more engaging? I can't say this is a bad game - its far too polished for that - but because of the aforementioned relaxed nature of it all I find it really hard to actually give a shit about playing it.
Forza Horizon 5 é provavelmente o jogo mais casual que eu já joguei, não é preciso se preocupar com absolutamente nada além de acelerar um carro. Isso pode ser algo positivo dependendo do ponto de vista, mas em um jogo tão grande e com tanto conteúdo, na minha opinião é um desperdício.
Desde o início você tem acesso aos carros mais rápidos com muita facilidade, e como o jogo não tem qualquer tipo de evento que te incentive a usar os carros mais fracos, é provável que dezenas deles fiquem parados na sua oficina sem utilidade alguma. Obviamente você pode correr com o que quiser, o jogo vai se adequar à sua escolha, mas depois de usar uma Lamborghini Sesto Elemento fica um pouco difícil encontrar motivos pra dirigir um Ford Fiesta.
De forma geral, os eventos do jogo são legais, algumas exibições são claramente scriptadas, mas como eu falei, é um jogo muito casual, nenhuma missão tenta ser desafiadora. A própria história apresentada é uma grande festa, não há rivalidades ou qualquer tensão de corridas de rua, você é a estrela e fim. Mas o que incomoda mesmo são as missões de história, fora os diálogos tediosos, a estrutura em si da maioria delas é horrível, me parece algo feito pela comunidade, como se ninguém tivesse testado pra ver o quão tosco aquilo ficou, de longe a minha maior decepção com o jogo.
Forza Horizon 5 é sem dúvidas o jogo perfeito pra quando você só quer pilotar e nada mais, a falta de compromisso com os outros aspectos acaba entregando uma experiência pouco marcante. Mas deixando de lado todos os pontos negativos, ele faz com perfeição o mais importante nos jogos de corrida: um bom gameplay, muitos carros e ótimas corridas. Isso sem falar do destaque do jogo, o deslumbrante e detalhado mapa de México! No final são esses elementos que tornam o jogo prazeroso e viciante.
8.5/10
Desde o início você tem acesso aos carros mais rápidos com muita facilidade, e como o jogo não tem qualquer tipo de evento que te incentive a usar os carros mais fracos, é provável que dezenas deles fiquem parados na sua oficina sem utilidade alguma. Obviamente você pode correr com o que quiser, o jogo vai se adequar à sua escolha, mas depois de usar uma Lamborghini Sesto Elemento fica um pouco difícil encontrar motivos pra dirigir um Ford Fiesta.
De forma geral, os eventos do jogo são legais, algumas exibições são claramente scriptadas, mas como eu falei, é um jogo muito casual, nenhuma missão tenta ser desafiadora. A própria história apresentada é uma grande festa, não há rivalidades ou qualquer tensão de corridas de rua, você é a estrela e fim. Mas o que incomoda mesmo são as missões de história, fora os diálogos tediosos, a estrutura em si da maioria delas é horrível, me parece algo feito pela comunidade, como se ninguém tivesse testado pra ver o quão tosco aquilo ficou, de longe a minha maior decepção com o jogo.
Forza Horizon 5 é sem dúvidas o jogo perfeito pra quando você só quer pilotar e nada mais, a falta de compromisso com os outros aspectos acaba entregando uma experiência pouco marcante. Mas deixando de lado todos os pontos negativos, ele faz com perfeição o mais importante nos jogos de corrida: um bom gameplay, muitos carros e ótimas corridas. Isso sem falar do destaque do jogo, o deslumbrante e detalhado mapa de México! No final são esses elementos que tornam o jogo prazeroso e viciante.
8.5/10
AAA video game maximalism in its most joyous form, Forza Horizon 5 is simply about how cool and fun it is to drive cars. Fast cars, big cars, stupid cars... as long as you're driving them somewhere interesting. Mexico is a much better locale than the United Kingdom but I will admit that I'm mixed on the idea of ripping my baja truck through some ruins. I'll just baja somewhere else.
I look at the map in this thing and see an absurd, frankly sickening amount of open world icons. The kind that annoy me in most other games, but Forza Horizon 5 makes me a hypocrite. It's just too much fun to drive. Everything handles so well. Especially my darling 90s Toyota Baja Truck.
Probably the only game of its kind, very online and player-retention obsessed, that will actually retain me. I did spend 100 dollars to play it early after all. Might as well spend time with it in between other games for the next year or two. You made me a sucker, Playground Games.
I look at the map in this thing and see an absurd, frankly sickening amount of open world icons. The kind that annoy me in most other games, but Forza Horizon 5 makes me a hypocrite. It's just too much fun to drive. Everything handles so well. Especially my darling 90s Toyota Baja Truck.
Probably the only game of its kind, very online and player-retention obsessed, that will actually retain me. I did spend 100 dollars to play it early after all. Might as well spend time with it in between other games for the next year or two. You made me a sucker, Playground Games.
The game begins by dropping your car at the top of an active volcano. I obviously tried to drive the car straight into the lava, but the game FADES TO BLACK BEFORE YOU REACH THE HOT MOLTEN GOODNESS. What is the point of all the realistic graphics if I can't even melt my car???
A little while later, while driving through a cloud of kicked up dust, the commentator shouted "WOOOO RIGHT INTO THE EYE OF THE STORM!!" Gamers, I furrowed my brow so hard at him. It was a dust cloud! There is no eye! The eye is the calm area in the middle of a tornado or something, a phenomenon in which the center of the destructive force is the safest place to be! That doesn't apply to the current situation at all!
I generally try not to be a Surly Nitpicky Gamer Boy™, but a lot of big budget AAA games really do bring it out of me. I get it, it's very pretty and the cars go fast. But I finally tried Ridge Racer Type 4 a few months ago, and the cars in that 26-year-old game not only felt better to drive, but it had an actual visual identity that was beyond cool. This is just boring!
A little while later, while driving through a cloud of kicked up dust, the commentator shouted "WOOOO RIGHT INTO THE EYE OF THE STORM!!" Gamers, I furrowed my brow so hard at him. It was a dust cloud! There is no eye! The eye is the calm area in the middle of a tornado or something, a phenomenon in which the center of the destructive force is the safest place to be! That doesn't apply to the current situation at all!
I generally try not to be a Surly Nitpicky Gamer Boy™, but a lot of big budget AAA games really do bring it out of me. I get it, it's very pretty and the cars go fast. But I finally tried Ridge Racer Type 4 a few months ago, and the cars in that 26-year-old game not only felt better to drive, but it had an actual visual identity that was beyond cool. This is just boring!
Your enjoyment of Forza Horizon 5 will depend a whole lot on your ability to overlook the presentation layer. I know, I know - Backloggd hyper-analysis of a corporate car-driving game - but you straight-up invade the Mexican backwaters in a military cargo plane that smash-drops Broncos and Mercedes and Chevys onto farmlands, for fuck's sake lol!!
Once you've established military/music outpost, the game spends altogether too much time establishing the little dude who is going to be leading the invasion, which more or less sets the tone for this game constantly grappling between "driving good" and "talking bad". I'm all for expression of personal identity in video games, but juxtaposing the aggressive capital-wank (car logo!!!!!!!!) and colonial-wank with a "i'm a disabled they/them :)" character-creation gives this thing huge "Gaming in the Biden Years" energy. Between this and Call of Duty: Vanguard's "world war ii but make it yass qween" stuff, it's been a great week for rainbow flags on the proverbial B52 bomber.
The game starting you out with one insufferably offensive "¡ayyyy cabron we drive the car loco, si!" sidekick and then almost immediately transplanting in the British people from the previous game is really funny! There are more Scottish characters in this than there are Mexicans! But that feels wholly fitting for a game like this, which doesn't really want you thinking about too much of anything; best exemplified by your sidekick explaining the meaning of "mi casa es su casa" to you in an unskippable cutscene that caps off an unskippable tutorial on how to click A to buy a house.
When you're not thinking, you're driving a car - and suddenly, the game becomes transportive. Even on the Series S, it looks absolutely unbelievable - this is a racing game where you can make decisions by looking at the mud tracks the cars in front have made and check encroaching shadows of racers behind you to work out where you should be blocking the road without ever using the rear-view. The cars move within this well-tuned sweet-spot between arcade and sim driving (on Hard assist settings, at least) that lets you feel like you're in control without foisting all the real-life considerations of the machine on you. It's incredibly immersive and fantasy-enabling, but the dream rarely lasts - finish a race, and the alarm clock will ring, forcing you to A-button through minutes of menus and roulettes and Xbox avatars doing the nay-nay in front of an unbelievably realistic render of a Porsche 911 Turbo before you'll be allowed to turn the keys again.
I gotta admit - I'm a sucker for in-game gambling mechanics. I like spinning wheels and opening crates and ticking boxes and all that - but the driving here is so good that all the progression mechanics and open-worlding feel like obstructions in the way of what could be a series of menus to action if it wanted. Driving from point-to-point between events is pleasant, but the game will invariably just stick you on the map's sprawling motorway to get between objectives, which leads to minutes upon mindless minutes spent barreling in top gear like some kind of high-octane version of Truck Simulator: Latin America.
I don't really have a problem with the way Microsoft have set up the actual timeline of progression here, though - it's scattershot and unordered, but it does let casual players get straight to the 1989 Ferrari Testarossa (shoutouts to OutRun, this game's essential antithesis) without having to give away months of their lifespan unless they really want to. Horizon 5's a great idle distraction - especially with Quick Resume allowing you to jump in and out of it within like 20 seconds - but it also takes up like half of my hard disk. You could fit 22 Mario Kart 8's into that bytespace!!
Once you've established military/music outpost, the game spends altogether too much time establishing the little dude who is going to be leading the invasion, which more or less sets the tone for this game constantly grappling between "driving good" and "talking bad". I'm all for expression of personal identity in video games, but juxtaposing the aggressive capital-wank (car logo!!!!!!!!) and colonial-wank with a "i'm a disabled they/them :)" character-creation gives this thing huge "Gaming in the Biden Years" energy. Between this and Call of Duty: Vanguard's "world war ii but make it yass qween" stuff, it's been a great week for rainbow flags on the proverbial B52 bomber.
The game starting you out with one insufferably offensive "¡ayyyy cabron we drive the car loco, si!" sidekick and then almost immediately transplanting in the British people from the previous game is really funny! There are more Scottish characters in this than there are Mexicans! But that feels wholly fitting for a game like this, which doesn't really want you thinking about too much of anything; best exemplified by your sidekick explaining the meaning of "mi casa es su casa" to you in an unskippable cutscene that caps off an unskippable tutorial on how to click A to buy a house.
When you're not thinking, you're driving a car - and suddenly, the game becomes transportive. Even on the Series S, it looks absolutely unbelievable - this is a racing game where you can make decisions by looking at the mud tracks the cars in front have made and check encroaching shadows of racers behind you to work out where you should be blocking the road without ever using the rear-view. The cars move within this well-tuned sweet-spot between arcade and sim driving (on Hard assist settings, at least) that lets you feel like you're in control without foisting all the real-life considerations of the machine on you. It's incredibly immersive and fantasy-enabling, but the dream rarely lasts - finish a race, and the alarm clock will ring, forcing you to A-button through minutes of menus and roulettes and Xbox avatars doing the nay-nay in front of an unbelievably realistic render of a Porsche 911 Turbo before you'll be allowed to turn the keys again.
I gotta admit - I'm a sucker for in-game gambling mechanics. I like spinning wheels and opening crates and ticking boxes and all that - but the driving here is so good that all the progression mechanics and open-worlding feel like obstructions in the way of what could be a series of menus to action if it wanted. Driving from point-to-point between events is pleasant, but the game will invariably just stick you on the map's sprawling motorway to get between objectives, which leads to minutes upon mindless minutes spent barreling in top gear like some kind of high-octane version of Truck Simulator: Latin America.
I don't really have a problem with the way Microsoft have set up the actual timeline of progression here, though - it's scattershot and unordered, but it does let casual players get straight to the 1989 Ferrari Testarossa (shoutouts to OutRun, this game's essential antithesis) without having to give away months of their lifespan unless they really want to. Horizon 5's a great idle distraction - especially with Quick Resume allowing you to jump in and out of it within like 20 seconds - but it also takes up like half of my hard disk. You could fit 22 Mario Kart 8's into that bytespace!!
El need for speed para la gente que dice "Latinx"
I played for 7.5 hours and here is an early review:
+ Cars handle way better than FH4, you can really feel when your tires hit the ground.
+ Mexico is a great open world. I really liked the design of it.
+ Graphics are just... damn (but pc port is kinda sucks, wait for cons). It is one of the best looking game i have ever played
+ Story mode is very satisfying to play, cutscenes and dialogues are way better than FH4, and our character can talk now!
+ Variety is enough
+ New rewarding system is way better than FH4, i find myself doing races (i don't like racing in racing game lol - i'm happy with colletibles and crazier events) because game actually rewards you well.
- PC port is bad at the moment. Textures look really low quality even in ultra and extreme. Also lots of crashes and bugs. They'll be fixed -im sure- but still, not a perfect day one experience.
- Some UI elements are just copy paste from FH4 and i don't like it. I want feel like i'm playing a different game.
- Photo Mode is not enough -for me-
I will update this review when i play more after my midterms, cya
+ Cars handle way better than FH4, you can really feel when your tires hit the ground.
+ Mexico is a great open world. I really liked the design of it.
+ Graphics are just... damn (but pc port is kinda sucks, wait for cons). It is one of the best looking game i have ever played
+ Story mode is very satisfying to play, cutscenes and dialogues are way better than FH4, and our character can talk now!
+ Variety is enough
+ New rewarding system is way better than FH4, i find myself doing races (i don't like racing in racing game lol - i'm happy with colletibles and crazier events) because game actually rewards you well.
- PC port is bad at the moment. Textures look really low quality even in ultra and extreme. Also lots of crashes and bugs. They'll be fixed -im sure- but still, not a perfect day one experience.
- Some UI elements are just copy paste from FH4 and i don't like it. I want feel like i'm playing a different game.
- Photo Mode is not enough -for me-
I will update this review when i play more after my midterms, cya
After some time playing through the game I realized it would never get better.
FH5 is the final GaaSification of the Horizon formula. Just an endless tangle of player retention mechanics crawling over each other in the form of weekly, daily and seasonal tasks, missable cars, an ever present roulette spin for every time you level up, car-specific XP rewards, forzathon points grind, and probably more I'm just missing. Everything fits together and creates a system to keep the player paying for Gamepass, and just goes to show how much harm this business model could do to the quality of AAA launches.
The story is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I've ever put up with, and a lot of it is non-skippable at that. T10 really went all out to show what it thinks about the player with its cringe, corporate, safe, lifeless dialog, filled with non-characters that are borderline racist caricatures and just won't shut up (Trust me, I tried. The character voice volume slider doesn't even work).
Story events are a huge pain to go through and what's worse is they aren't even fun on their own. Exhibition events got way too big and they're just lifeless and goofy scripted 5 minute stretches at this point. There was a moment of realization when I played the monster truck event where you have to knock some giant bowling pins where it struck me, there's no more denying to it, the target audience's age for the game went down at least 10 years since FH1.
The game perfected the physics and the driving sensations, now enhanced by the vibrating triggers on the Series S/X. That's a big plus and something really solid in the game. There's a big amount of cars (even if the DLC is prohibitely expensive) and despite the absence of a few big brands, it's generally a good job even if some of the models are now generations old. That said, there's a lot of customization options on each car and seeing a lot of them have special body kits now is quite good and allows for a lot of player expression.
However as it comes to the racing itself, it's a game where nothing matters anymore. Railings, trees, stone walls, doesn't matter, the car will just destroy it and carry on. There isn't even almost any traffic at all unless you select a specific offline mode. It is a frustration free package, races are extremely short and rarely ever go past the 3 laps. No thought required, no learning curve of any sort while offline. Online is just rolling the meta car with the meta tune and trying not to get punted out of the track.
Visually the game looks really, really good. Really blows me away at times, it also makes a great use of the console's SSD, making fast travel almost instant.
There are also a lot of bugs in the game. I remember playing it a month or two after release and being unable to fast travel and then drive. The controller would stop responding in game requiring a restart. The text-to-speech would also activate on the main menu screen and the option to turn it off wouldn't work. This still happens.
There are a lot of legacy issues coming straight from FH4 and FH3 even. Namely the auction house still being broken. The controller remap menu still being pretty much useless and even some cars being listed as barn finds (but actually aren't) because apparently they forgot changing that from one of the previous games where they actually were barn finds.
The music choices were interesting. Overall I'm not a fan of it but I took a couple songs for my personal playlists. Listening to the radio stations absolutely butcher already tame songs to fit that E for Everyone rating was some sort of salt on the wound when you pair it with the literal Fortnite dances, the goofy character costumes and the hypercars doing off road, cartoonish stunts to an announcer calling your avatar a superstar in spanglish.
Overall I'm just really unimpressed with the game. I consider it one of the most disgusting things I've ever played and a biopsy of the cancer that eats away the AAA sector. The actual one with the 10/10s, not the latest EA flop people will bash anyways.
FH5 is the final GaaSification of the Horizon formula. Just an endless tangle of player retention mechanics crawling over each other in the form of weekly, daily and seasonal tasks, missable cars, an ever present roulette spin for every time you level up, car-specific XP rewards, forzathon points grind, and probably more I'm just missing. Everything fits together and creates a system to keep the player paying for Gamepass, and just goes to show how much harm this business model could do to the quality of AAA launches.
The story is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I've ever put up with, and a lot of it is non-skippable at that. T10 really went all out to show what it thinks about the player with its cringe, corporate, safe, lifeless dialog, filled with non-characters that are borderline racist caricatures and just won't shut up (Trust me, I tried. The character voice volume slider doesn't even work).
Story events are a huge pain to go through and what's worse is they aren't even fun on their own. Exhibition events got way too big and they're just lifeless and goofy scripted 5 minute stretches at this point. There was a moment of realization when I played the monster truck event where you have to knock some giant bowling pins where it struck me, there's no more denying to it, the target audience's age for the game went down at least 10 years since FH1.
The game perfected the physics and the driving sensations, now enhanced by the vibrating triggers on the Series S/X. That's a big plus and something really solid in the game. There's a big amount of cars (even if the DLC is prohibitely expensive) and despite the absence of a few big brands, it's generally a good job even if some of the models are now generations old. That said, there's a lot of customization options on each car and seeing a lot of them have special body kits now is quite good and allows for a lot of player expression.
However as it comes to the racing itself, it's a game where nothing matters anymore. Railings, trees, stone walls, doesn't matter, the car will just destroy it and carry on. There isn't even almost any traffic at all unless you select a specific offline mode. It is a frustration free package, races are extremely short and rarely ever go past the 3 laps. No thought required, no learning curve of any sort while offline. Online is just rolling the meta car with the meta tune and trying not to get punted out of the track.
Visually the game looks really, really good. Really blows me away at times, it also makes a great use of the console's SSD, making fast travel almost instant.
There are also a lot of bugs in the game. I remember playing it a month or two after release and being unable to fast travel and then drive. The controller would stop responding in game requiring a restart. The text-to-speech would also activate on the main menu screen and the option to turn it off wouldn't work. This still happens.
There are a lot of legacy issues coming straight from FH4 and FH3 even. Namely the auction house still being broken. The controller remap menu still being pretty much useless and even some cars being listed as barn finds (but actually aren't) because apparently they forgot changing that from one of the previous games where they actually were barn finds.
The music choices were interesting. Overall I'm not a fan of it but I took a couple songs for my personal playlists. Listening to the radio stations absolutely butcher already tame songs to fit that E for Everyone rating was some sort of salt on the wound when you pair it with the literal Fortnite dances, the goofy character costumes and the hypercars doing off road, cartoonish stunts to an announcer calling your avatar a superstar in spanglish.
Overall I'm just really unimpressed with the game. I consider it one of the most disgusting things I've ever played and a biopsy of the cancer that eats away the AAA sector. The actual one with the 10/10s, not the latest EA flop people will bash anyways.
Kinda hard to fuck it up when you change so little from a game as good as Horizon 4. They've added a couple additional player-retention systems that I haven't bothered to understand, but the core draw of "arcade/sim-hybrid car game without the 'grind'" is mostly untouched from the previous entry in the series.
Another thing that's mostly untouched is the fact that the cast is almost entirely British, save for two Mexican characters (one of whom is a non-entity) who are ridiculously grating caricatures of Latino people. "Familia" is brought up an almost comical number of times in these unskippable cutscenes, and while the gameplay still carries a lot of the weight, I'm forced to assume that the writers first learned of Mexico (as a concept) less than two weeks before they started working on the game.
I can really only give this an 8 (at the time of this writing) in good conscience because you can blow through most of the cutscenes fairly quickly and start racing unimpeded. Driving around in the 1983 Audi Sport Quattro feels incredible - even if I'm still bitter about them taking the Lancia Delta from me - and I have spent entire play sessions just carving through dirt roads, observing some of the most beautifully arranged scenery I've seen in a racing game (even if individual details don't hold up to scrutiny). The one star missing from this rating feels massive though, and it's because the annoyances will rear their heads and you will remember them when you're done playing. I don't mind checklists in games like this - it can be nice to kill some time by sitting down, knocking out a few mini-objectives and moving on with your day. But with the new accolade system, there are so fucking many of these little achievements and they're so easy to rack up. I unlocked the entire campaign without consciously engaging with this system a single time, making me wonder why they've even bothered to graft this system onto a perfectly fine game instead of just using a normal XP system (the way it already does for player level). I can only assume it's there to torture completionists with an endless torrent of tasks that take two minutes each, keeping them playing this game until FH6 comes out and they can get started on the new checklist.
I suppose, though, that I can only sound so cynical about these things because the game kept me playing long enough for the little nitpicks to leave a blister. When the game started I wasn't really thinking about the aesthetics of British people airdropping vehicles to set up little outposts on Mexican soil - I was taken with the sense of speed, with the gorgeous environment, with the way the soundtrack's energy lined up perfectly with everything happening on screen. I've complained a bit here, and I could complain a lot more - it's a skill I've mastered over the years - but the truth of the matter is that I started out by putting 33 hours into this game over a 4 day weekend, and I will likely do so several more times before I claim to be done with it. I bounce between racing games but always return to Horizon for its variety - variety in race types, in cars (the ever-desired hypercars and the incompetent novelty vehicles), and in open world activities. The experience of playing FH5 will probably never fully live up to my first experiences of playing FH4, but it is absolutely a worthy successor.
Another thing that's mostly untouched is the fact that the cast is almost entirely British, save for two Mexican characters (one of whom is a non-entity) who are ridiculously grating caricatures of Latino people. "Familia" is brought up an almost comical number of times in these unskippable cutscenes, and while the gameplay still carries a lot of the weight, I'm forced to assume that the writers first learned of Mexico (as a concept) less than two weeks before they started working on the game.
I can really only give this an 8 (at the time of this writing) in good conscience because you can blow through most of the cutscenes fairly quickly and start racing unimpeded. Driving around in the 1983 Audi Sport Quattro feels incredible - even if I'm still bitter about them taking the Lancia Delta from me - and I have spent entire play sessions just carving through dirt roads, observing some of the most beautifully arranged scenery I've seen in a racing game (even if individual details don't hold up to scrutiny). The one star missing from this rating feels massive though, and it's because the annoyances will rear their heads and you will remember them when you're done playing. I don't mind checklists in games like this - it can be nice to kill some time by sitting down, knocking out a few mini-objectives and moving on with your day. But with the new accolade system, there are so fucking many of these little achievements and they're so easy to rack up. I unlocked the entire campaign without consciously engaging with this system a single time, making me wonder why they've even bothered to graft this system onto a perfectly fine game instead of just using a normal XP system (the way it already does for player level). I can only assume it's there to torture completionists with an endless torrent of tasks that take two minutes each, keeping them playing this game until FH6 comes out and they can get started on the new checklist.
I suppose, though, that I can only sound so cynical about these things because the game kept me playing long enough for the little nitpicks to leave a blister. When the game started I wasn't really thinking about the aesthetics of British people airdropping vehicles to set up little outposts on Mexican soil - I was taken with the sense of speed, with the gorgeous environment, with the way the soundtrack's energy lined up perfectly with everything happening on screen. I've complained a bit here, and I could complain a lot more - it's a skill I've mastered over the years - but the truth of the matter is that I started out by putting 33 hours into this game over a 4 day weekend, and I will likely do so several more times before I claim to be done with it. I bounce between racing games but always return to Horizon for its variety - variety in race types, in cars (the ever-desired hypercars and the incompetent novelty vehicles), and in open world activities. The experience of playing FH5 will probably never fully live up to my first experiences of playing FH4, but it is absolutely a worthy successor.
Com certeza, esse jogo de corrida arcade é um dos melhores que já joguei, deixando seu antecessor para trás, especialmente por não ter corridas na neve ksksks. É tudo muito divertido, mal posso esperar para experimentar as DLCs.
They fixed all the flaws of forza horizon 4 and made a Perfect sequel. Gameplay and mechanics are the same but don't fix if it ain't broke. And it has a incredible open world. Congrats playground
The driving is pretty on point, there are really cool set pieces, and the game as a whole can be at times a really good place to hang out and just enjoy the vistas and the flow of the road, but the characters and the general mood of this franchise annoys me so much. The characters can't stop talking about things I don't care, the dialogue itself is too nice and welcoming to the player that it comes out forced, which is something that relates directly to the progression system. The amount of visual stimuli this game thinks is needed to hook players is just insulting, the map is full of icons, the ending of every career is so full of colours, and ticks, even spins to a wheel of fortune, is like a casino for kindergarten kids. And it's a shame because the core is really nice and the game is beautiful to see, but I feel everything is so clearly put there to satisfy me with the lowest input necessary, like what the worse kind of a game pass game can be, trying to appeal every single human being who is just not enough interested in the game just for the sake of progression and achieving things that frankly are useless when all of your starting cars do the job. This is a very good game that fails spectacularly not to make me feel stupid while playing it, sorry.
Including this one, almost every recommendation of Forza Horizon 5 starts with the same sentiment: "I'm not into cars." And I think that's probably a good thing! As a society, we would ideally be unified against cars as they exist today. I'm writing this sentence during the warmest New Year's Day on record. The automotive and fuel industries have such a tight grip on the leaders of our planet that they're willing to kill it — and us — in the process. Most days it feels like they've won, like cars have supplanted humanity as the dominant species.
Forza Horizon 5 presents, for better and for worse, the kind of romanticized fantasy Hideki Anno has spent an entire career rebuking. Twenty-six episodes of television, five movies, and twenty-five years later, Anno and team have created what is paradoxically the most complex AND most poignant argument against escapism possible with Neon Genesis Evangelion. A franchise about teenagers using big robots to fight even bigger monsters is eventually revealed to be a vessel through which to tell viewers that it's time to grow up — put it all in the box and experience the real world — horrifying as it may be. Societally cars are a status symbol, a mask we wear for others, and a means to express our freedoms all in one. Forza Horizon 5 rejects the reality of the industry and instead chooses to fully lean into the societal pedestals we've placed cars upon to create an escapist dream. What if, in this virtual space, it was all just okay? Not only does Forza revere cars in the way one might have in the mid-to-late 1950s at the birth of the US Interstate Highway System under Dwight Eisenhower, but it also can't conceive of a world in which said highway system might have been a bad thing. In fact, Forza Horizon 5 frequently asks you to leave behind the act of driving a supercar 200mph on highways and roads for the even more thrilling experience of driving a supercar 200mph through someone's farmland.
It’s through this "ignorance is bliss" lens that I have to be honest and say Forza Horizon 5 is one of the most joyful video game experiences you can play on Xbox Gamepass, or anywhere for that matter. It's the ways in which Forza sidesteps the dissonance entirely and creates an automotive dreamworld that draws me to its absolutely gorgeous setting time after time. When I'm behind the wheel, rewards come as quickly as I can propel my car forward. An accidental donut in the middle of a city street here, an eviscerated cactus there, everything amounts to points I can put towards adding another car to the garage. Can I drift for an entire mile? How fast do I need to drive to launch myself off this cliff and clear the entire river? What would happen if you put a jet engine in the first-ever automobile? Playground Games has asked these questions, discovered the answers, and understands how to compensate you for your curiosity.
While the structured experiences and rewards therein provide enough pure adrenaline-based fun for most people both on and offline, it’s the open world aspect that always hooks me more than anything else. Despite devoting a portion of this piece to a “fuck cars” mentality, the truth is that the dichotomy I feel between this game and the reality of the automotive industry is one I’ve experienced for most of my life. I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and, just like the rest of the United States, it’s unfortunately difficult to exist without access to or the possession of a car. Like most teenagers I spent an inordinate amount time longing for the freedoms owning a car provided. To go anywhere, and to do it with or for others on a whim is the stuff of fantasy. I was fortunate enough to finally get one in my senior year of high school, it was a big red thing that sure looked like a truck but was definitely not a truck — I loved it dearly. It was in the years that followed I learned something very important about myself: No, I’m not into cars… but I absolutely love driving. I’d spend hours by myself with an iPod plugged into my tape deck blasting music through shitty speakers and weaving through the mountains in upstate New York to discover which songs paired best with which roads. I’d pack as many friends into the back seat as possible and, with the windows down, cruise to the beach for a day and marvel at the first moment you could smell ocean air from the highway. In the nights insomnia got the better of me I’d get out of bed in the early morning hours and roll around the neighboring towns as silently as possible, a passive presence among groups of grazing deer until I felt like I might be able to go back to sleep.
Sometimes, with the right song on Spotify and the right time-of-day and weather systems aligning, Forza Horizon 5 manages to get pretty close to recreating that feeling. Even while writing this I struggle to decide if I’d really consider it escapism at all. Was it escapism in 2013 when I couldn’t sleep? Was it escapism in 2017 when I wanted to see the leaves change? Is it escapism now when I want to drive as fast as I can with my friends on a road purpose-built for connective experiences? And even if it is, is that such a bad thing?
Forza Horizon 5 presents, for better and for worse, the kind of romanticized fantasy Hideki Anno has spent an entire career rebuking. Twenty-six episodes of television, five movies, and twenty-five years later, Anno and team have created what is paradoxically the most complex AND most poignant argument against escapism possible with Neon Genesis Evangelion. A franchise about teenagers using big robots to fight even bigger monsters is eventually revealed to be a vessel through which to tell viewers that it's time to grow up — put it all in the box and experience the real world — horrifying as it may be. Societally cars are a status symbol, a mask we wear for others, and a means to express our freedoms all in one. Forza Horizon 5 rejects the reality of the industry and instead chooses to fully lean into the societal pedestals we've placed cars upon to create an escapist dream. What if, in this virtual space, it was all just okay? Not only does Forza revere cars in the way one might have in the mid-to-late 1950s at the birth of the US Interstate Highway System under Dwight Eisenhower, but it also can't conceive of a world in which said highway system might have been a bad thing. In fact, Forza Horizon 5 frequently asks you to leave behind the act of driving a supercar 200mph on highways and roads for the even more thrilling experience of driving a supercar 200mph through someone's farmland.
It’s through this "ignorance is bliss" lens that I have to be honest and say Forza Horizon 5 is one of the most joyful video game experiences you can play on Xbox Gamepass, or anywhere for that matter. It's the ways in which Forza sidesteps the dissonance entirely and creates an automotive dreamworld that draws me to its absolutely gorgeous setting time after time. When I'm behind the wheel, rewards come as quickly as I can propel my car forward. An accidental donut in the middle of a city street here, an eviscerated cactus there, everything amounts to points I can put towards adding another car to the garage. Can I drift for an entire mile? How fast do I need to drive to launch myself off this cliff and clear the entire river? What would happen if you put a jet engine in the first-ever automobile? Playground Games has asked these questions, discovered the answers, and understands how to compensate you for your curiosity.
While the structured experiences and rewards therein provide enough pure adrenaline-based fun for most people both on and offline, it’s the open world aspect that always hooks me more than anything else. Despite devoting a portion of this piece to a “fuck cars” mentality, the truth is that the dichotomy I feel between this game and the reality of the automotive industry is one I’ve experienced for most of my life. I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and, just like the rest of the United States, it’s unfortunately difficult to exist without access to or the possession of a car. Like most teenagers I spent an inordinate amount time longing for the freedoms owning a car provided. To go anywhere, and to do it with or for others on a whim is the stuff of fantasy. I was fortunate enough to finally get one in my senior year of high school, it was a big red thing that sure looked like a truck but was definitely not a truck — I loved it dearly. It was in the years that followed I learned something very important about myself: No, I’m not into cars… but I absolutely love driving. I’d spend hours by myself with an iPod plugged into my tape deck blasting music through shitty speakers and weaving through the mountains in upstate New York to discover which songs paired best with which roads. I’d pack as many friends into the back seat as possible and, with the windows down, cruise to the beach for a day and marvel at the first moment you could smell ocean air from the highway. In the nights insomnia got the better of me I’d get out of bed in the early morning hours and roll around the neighboring towns as silently as possible, a passive presence among groups of grazing deer until I felt like I might be able to go back to sleep.
Sometimes, with the right song on Spotify and the right time-of-day and weather systems aligning, Forza Horizon 5 manages to get pretty close to recreating that feeling. Even while writing this I struggle to decide if I’d really consider it escapism at all. Was it escapism in 2013 when I couldn’t sleep? Was it escapism in 2017 when I wanted to see the leaves change? Is it escapism now when I want to drive as fast as I can with my friends on a road purpose-built for connective experiences? And even if it is, is that such a bad thing?
Vrum vrum
Após um bom tempo sem jogar jogos de corrida, resolvi dar uma chance pra Forza Horizon 5 e me surpreendi com o quão a experiência de jogos assim podem ser reconfortantes. Por se tratarem de jogos onde muitos vezes você vai repetir várias corridas e ter uma jogabilidade até que simplificada, baseada em repetição, o jogo não demanda tanto de você, claro, isso jogando nas dificuldades padrão, pra quem quer desafio, acredito que consegue encontrar aqui ainda, sejam em níveis mais avançados de dificuldade ou no próprio online do jogo. Mas eu me encontrei mesmo foi nessa versão mais simplificada que ele apresenta.
Recentemente, sempre que quero escutar um podcast, ou simplesmente relaxar e ouvir música, eu sei que o Forza Horizon 5 vai ser o que vou procurar fazer enquanto isso, e sinceramente, me divirto bastante com isso.
Recentemente, sempre que quero escutar um podcast, ou simplesmente relaxar e ouvir música, eu sei que o Forza Horizon 5 vai ser o que vou procurar fazer enquanto isso, e sinceramente, me divirto bastante com isso.
I'm extremely conflicted with this game because on one hand, it's the most fun I've had with a racing game since NFS Most Wanted / Underground 2 (released '05 and '04 respectively, played both around 2010-2012).
The gameplay is incredible, I just love going fast as fuck in a wide assortment of vehicles in a similarly wide assortment of race types. The world map offers a lot of misc things to do between races etc., or just explore. It's just satisfying to drive around (playing with Sim Steering, feels infinitely better than the arcade/normal steering)
Now the flaws start coming in when you actually DO want to race, initially, especially with friends. In a convoy (mp session), the host has to initiate a race or event; however they can only do this at the physical location IN THE GAME MAP. This is alleviated almost entirely by buying one of the player homes which allows you to fast travel (for a small fee) to any road on the map). Once an event has started, the rest of the convoy have 10 seconds to accept the event or otherwise get kicked from the convoy. This is also made harder by the next segment...
The UI is atrocious. The HUD itself is good, but navigation between menus or doing basic things is needlessly compicated, and it's like Microsoft sat down and asked themselves "how can we make forced tile metro even worse" with loads of arbitrary sub-menu tabs that aren't clear. The game is also borderline unplayable on HDD, menus load slowly etc.; moved this to my spare SSD and it cleared things up, actually kinda nuts how much faster it was. Transitions that took upwards of 30-60s or more were done in more like 3-6s, occasionally 10-15s if it's loading a story scenario or something. 100GB game btw.
The presentation is also utterly fucking obnoxious for the first several hours or so, I fucking hate the dialogue so much lol
Overall, Forza Horizon 5 is an incredibly fun racing game with incredible berth, but plagued by stability issues and other inconveniences.
The gameplay is incredible, I just love going fast as fuck in a wide assortment of vehicles in a similarly wide assortment of race types. The world map offers a lot of misc things to do between races etc., or just explore. It's just satisfying to drive around (playing with Sim Steering, feels infinitely better than the arcade/normal steering)
Now the flaws start coming in when you actually DO want to race, initially, especially with friends. In a convoy (mp session), the host has to initiate a race or event; however they can only do this at the physical location IN THE GAME MAP. This is alleviated almost entirely by buying one of the player homes which allows you to fast travel (for a small fee) to any road on the map). Once an event has started, the rest of the convoy have 10 seconds to accept the event or otherwise get kicked from the convoy. This is also made harder by the next segment...
The UI is atrocious. The HUD itself is good, but navigation between menus or doing basic things is needlessly compicated, and it's like Microsoft sat down and asked themselves "how can we make forced tile metro even worse" with loads of arbitrary sub-menu tabs that aren't clear. The game is also borderline unplayable on HDD, menus load slowly etc.; moved this to my spare SSD and it cleared things up, actually kinda nuts how much faster it was. Transitions that took upwards of 30-60s or more were done in more like 3-6s, occasionally 10-15s if it's loading a story scenario or something. 100GB game btw.
The presentation is also utterly fucking obnoxious for the first several hours or so, I fucking hate the dialogue so much lol
Overall, Forza Horizon 5 is an incredibly fun racing game with incredible berth, but plagued by stability issues and other inconveniences.
This is probably as good as a car game could ever get.
Everything people have said about why this game is a bit clatty (some of the overly dense progression stuff and all of the colonialism stuff) fades into the background when you're going 180 mph through a jungle. I'm sorry, it's just inherently fun.