I played a little bit of The Crew 2 last week, simply because I thought it was worth it for the unique map and the nice looking car interiors. I thought it was relatively good enough if it's stretching itself thin in every direction by featuring such a large map and cluttering it with way too many diverse vehicles. If it it stripped itself it down to solely cars, I thought it had the makings of a world class driving game (albeit maybe not a world class racing game) in the mold of its spiritual predecessor, Rest Drive Unlimited.

Motorfest is closer to that game. It's mostly cars. It's a smaller map. It's kind of a more direct Forza Horizon (FH5) clone but that's okay because again, Test Drive Unlimited walked so Horizon could run. I think the driving and car handling is way imporved. The map is stunning. The destructible environments make race events less of a curse than in The Crew 2. And this game just has a sense of fun and frivolity that Horizon is missing. All the little unique playlist touches are gorgeous and nice to play through. The festival environment in this game spreads itself much broader. The whole map feels closer to the tone of the Hot Wheels DLCs and the game is better off for it. I'm sure I'll get bored at some point but this is the antidote to the modern racer right here. A better Need for Speed than Unbound. A better festival racer than Horizon 5. Just stunning.

Forza Horizon is the inverse of Horizon 4 for me. Where everything I liked and disliked about that game has been flipped with this. There's a sparse linearity to the progression here. It's just race and unlock wristbands. Likewise a sparseness to the map itself. There's virtually no off road racing in this game, no destructible environments to the point of making a checkpoint or way marker useless by way of rumbling across the terrain. I think it's pretty telling that the last three games in the series feature an SUV on the cover alongside some sort of supercar. In contrast, Horizon 1 is pretty much all highways, all coated in a warm, autumn Colorado sunset. It reminds me a lot of NFS Hot Pursuit 2010, just minus the police and a lot more infectious and fun to play. There's an actual story and characters in this game and a genuine reason to race in events. I enjoyed beating the shallow arrogant villain racers, especially Darius Flynt (what a name). It's something the Horizon 3 and 4 really lacked. I thought the festival atmosphere made the most sense too, felt like the most realistic actual festival setting - basically Coachella with race events for some reason (the concept itself is still fairly unbelievable). Features a small, but manageable car list that actively encourages and necessitates variety in which cars you race.

All good things to say in comparison to where I think the series evolved with Horizon 4. But saying all that, I still find this game to be empty and utterly sanitised. The driving physics are still rad and pretty much the same. It's a fun game to play, but it still feels a bit too easy. And I'm hypocritical, but I find the strict adherence to road racing a detriment to the fun. It's not really an open world racer. It's an open world menu screen where you can drove to whichever track event you want to participate in. It's a good blueprint for what's to come, sadly I think they went too far with it and kind of lost whatever identity they were striving for. I also don't find the car presentation in this game to be that appealing, something it shares with Horizon 4. The cars barely feel like they exist. Just a bit dated. Fun. But really just a sanitised, slightly better Need for Speed.