In short: An arcade racer vastly outclassed by its flashier sibling, playing at being a sim without any apparent attempt at improving its core issues.

Something feels off about Forza Motorsport. Somewhere between the inexplicably unruly vehicles and curiously small track selection, is a void that shouldn't exist in a game that's spent the last half decade and change supposedly attempting to find itself, and returned with a branding reset that suggests a fresh start.

Forza Motorsport is a game that has no identity. The cover art featuring Cadillac's Le Mans Hypercar, selection of tracks, and game progression's commitment to upgrades and setups, suggest it wants to be a sim. The swimmy car physics' persistent power slides, inconsistent feedback, and still woeful racing wheel experience suggest the opposite.

The result is a game that feels worse as a sim than its primary competitor, Gran Turismo 7, and fails to match the casual fun or flair of its sibling, Forza Horizon - despite offering blessed freedom from that series' profoundly grating festival shtick. The same over-wrought self-seriousness tempered by GT7's general mechanical competence becomes positively abrasive in a game where even slow cars regularly feel like an unpredictable handful. Absent Horizon's more engaging structure, and menagerie of vehicular monstrosities, every vehicle being as likely to break loose mid corner as wallow off into the trackside mud like a two ton pig transforms from slight annoyance into glaring frustration.

Pair all of this with a game that feels like a yearly sports title's annual refresh, rife with performance issues and lacking any obvious refinement in the execution of its foundational elements beyond fine, if underwhelmingly thin, alterations of its single player offering and you're left with a game that fills no niche.

It doesn't play in the same league, mechanics wise, as Sony's hallmark racer. It's not a good enough racing game, or a fun enough single player experience, to elevate itself above Horizon as a destination casual racing game.

Of the racing games you could play, this is certainly one. Beyond that there's little to say.

Can’t wait for this game to be unfairly and completely ripped to shreds before annoying online personalities in a few years release “Starfield 3 Years Later: A Hidden Masterpiece?” This is inevitably a Bethesda game after all, but there is something magical in waiting for a new release. Todd Howard’s passion project love baby - so intricately dense and in parallel shallow with the same issues that plague anything he touches that, if I can’t lie, was exactly what I expected. And at the end of the day I can’t really complain - Hundreds of hours will be put into what’s made here - exploring, scavenging, talking and raiding until I’m left slamming my head wondering why I even bothered. Don’t even bother reading many reviews. It’s Starfield.