Forza Horizon 5 Cares About Fun, Not Just Cars – Review
Forza Horizon 5 is not what you might think it is. It just feels wrong to call it a “car” game, racing game, sim or otherwise. Forza Horizon 5 is a big, open-world adventure experience that just happens to use cars as the, err, vehicle to deliver the fun.
What’s Good
+ Tons of varied cars that feel better than ever
+ Huge world filled with fun activities
+ Amazing graphics and sound
+ Casual-friendly and great accessibility options
+ Ongoing seasonal challenges and rewards
Verdict:
Aside from a few little online niggles at launch that need sorting out, Forza Horizon 5 is one of the best games available so far this generation and a definite contented for Game of the Year. It’s not every day that a “car” game is so good that you would definitely recommend it to just about anyone. Don’t miss out.
For more of my Twitter impressions, pics and clips of Forza Horizon 5 you can click here.
Other relevant reviews and articles: Forza Horizon 5 Photo Gallery, Forza Horizon 2 Review, Forza Horizon 3 Review, Forza Horizon 4 Review, Forza Motorsport 7 Review, Forza Horizon 4 Photo Gallery, Forza Horizon is an Amazing Walking Simulator?.
Forza Horizon 5 Cares About Fun, Not Cars – Review
Scratching every itch
Whether playing alone or with friends, Forza Horizon 5 is whatever you want it to be, in the best of ways.
This is a game that’s so full of activities and vehicle types that you can treat it as an off-roader game most of the time if you want, or a road racer, or a stunts game, or a tuning game, or a car design creator game, or a car photography game or a drift game… the only thing missing now are cops.
Heck… it can just be a way to have some fun driving around some very, very pretty scenery alongside some friends before hitting a massive ramp that sends you flying into a massive section of what looks familiar to anyone who has played Red Dead Redemption.
Vroom and Sparkle
Speaking of scenery… boy oh boy is this game gorgeous to look at running at 4K across the board on Series X and the Series S is no slouch either! You can choose between the jaw-dropping 30fps graphics mode, or the super-slick 60fps mode.
Which you prefer is up to you, because both have definite perks. We tested the game on the launch Xbox One and were shocked to find that despite being locked to 30fps, it looks unbelievable good, although the load times can get really heavy without an SSD.
The sound and music is also great, the cars sound better than anything I’ve heard before and upgrading different parts of your car affects the sound of engines noises. Forza Horizon’s are always full of music and radio stations and nothing has changed there, with some nice selections as well as the use of DJ’s to help drive the story along.
The gift that keeps on giving
The rewards in Forza Horizon 5 come thick and fast. You already start with a few cars, and before you know it you and your customisable character are tearing through the Mexican landscape in supercars, rally cars, classics or completely over-tuned 1-seater buckets with wheels that makes you laugh every time it screams off the line at million miles per hour.
Beyond the core campaign, the world is full of activities, barn finds, online rival challenges and great daily, weekly and seasonal challenges that give you very cool reasons to play every day as well as let you unlock some really great, hard-to-find cars. Best part is that you can do pretty much all of it with your friends if you want.
Engine Misfire
I desperately want to give this game full marks, but at the time of writing I’ve just had to experience 4 weeks of online issues, as well as some new bugs that arrived post-patch, which included constantly losing my progress on a 5-step weekly challenge that I’ve not failed to complete 3 times thanks to a combination of the progression issue and a bug that makes my controller stop working until I force-quit the game (and lose my challenge progression…).
Want to see how good Forza Horizon 5 looks? Check out this gallery we put together!
