Pass the Controller | Latest news, reviews and reviews in video games
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Forum
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet the Team
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Forum
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet the Team
>

Forza Horizon 5 review | Xbox Series S

5/11/2021

 
A Maclaren AMG races against a plane

Go! No “3,2,1”, no “On your marks, get set”, Forza Horizon 5 (and the series in general) wastes no time in getting you right into the action. In fact your first act in the game is to leap out of a plane in a series of cars and dive straight onto the beautiful open roads of Mexico.
James Michael Parry

​by James Michael Parry

Twitter logo

​@james_parry

Forza Horizon 5 box art
Developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, Xbox One
Players: 1-72

The visual spectacle of those opening minutes feels hard to top. Each of the five cars in the opening sequence, some on-road, some off-road, is designed to show the different types of events and experiences, from straightforward road races to tricky desert trails to near impassable dust storms.

While the weather system was the headline feature for Forza Horizon 4, here it feels perfected, fully bedded-in to the extent where a change in weather can take you by surprise, or collide with you, forcing you to make a detour.

In your first hour, particularly if you’re a newcomer to the series, it would be easy to feel overwhelmed. The sheer amount of options, cars and terminology going on quickly gives you a sense of the scale of this adventure, and the entire map is unlocked from the beginning, so you could, if you wanted, do a grand tour straight away.

Fortunately, developers Playground Games know what they are doing after five installments in the franchise, and only reveal what things are as you run into them on the map. This creates a sense of discovery similar to [Burnout Paradise Remastered], where you’ll come off the path you’re on only to find something hiding just over the next hill.

For completionists, there’s a treasure map available for a one-off microtransaction, but the developers have already said this game has more flexibility with collectables than any of their previous titles, so we could see all sorts of billboards, props and obstructions being added during the live service-inspired seasons of play, with season one beginning at launch.​
Four green Jeeps explore the forest
​One area which has a tremendous level of depth is the cars themselves. Adjusting tyre pressure and swapping out parts to tune your cars for whatever event you're about to take on is encouraged, and is something you can rely on the collective knowledge of die-hard fans if you’re unsure, thanks to a search option which lets you check out setups which have been shared.

If you’re feeling like online is a recurring theme, you’re not wrong. The narrative conceit for the game in the first place is a festival (or fiesta) in celebration of cars which wouldn’t be too out of place in an early Fast and Furious film. Horizon Festival is all about bringing people together, and the team has made sure they carry this spirit into every aspect of how the game is put together.

Not only will you see other players mooching around the map as you explore, but you’ll be pitted against other players’ Drivatars, digital echoes of their racing style, in races and events. While not a new idea, in fact the series has brought them in from the main Forza Motorsport series since its second outing, the compiling of player driving data makes for far more unpredictable and interesting AI opponents.
A Pegeot 207 faces on a dirt track at the Horizon Festival
Hooking up with players in real-time is where things get even more fun though, as there are four main modes – Open Racing, Open Drifting, Playground Games, and The Eliminator – with tons of different types of events between them.

Open Racing is as straightforward as things get, challenging you to road, dirt, cross country and street races. Open drifting, as the name would suggest, is all about the drift, so you’ll be sticking to roads and trying to nail those corners, while Playground games include flag rush, king and survival. The Eliminator returns from FH4 as the Forza Horizon take on Battle Royale, pitting up to 72 players against each other into head-to-head races within a gradually shrinking area of the map.​
The driving in Forza Horizon 5 is some of the most beautiful escapism you can experience.
On top of that there’s Horizon Arcade, which is more of a collection of minigames which you take on together as a group. Perhaps you’ll need to maintain a certain speed within an area of the map to score, or drift for as long as possible around a certain bend. These challenges, admittedly, do tend to be “drive around a specific area”, but to dismiss them as only that is reductive, as you can easily find some fun and memorable moments as a group.

Individually, your in-game persona will be the one interacting with the NPCs as you drive around. You can customise your character with different looks and physical appearance to an extent, including a wide variety of prosthetic limbs, but the general build and vibe of the different characters still feels a little flat. The game does call you by your real name, if you have it shared in your Xbox or PSN profile, as it has in previous games.
A Ford hot hatchback goes off-road with a helicopter and other cars
As you drive around, discover roads, smash billboards and complete other challenges, you’ll unlock accolades which let you progress through the game and unlock more events. You’ll also be given wheelspins, a free lootbox mechanic earned by completing in-game challenges, to unlock more cars, clothing for your in-game avatar and all sorts of other goodies.

While races are all well and good, you might find the expeditions a welcome change of pace. These involve exploring a specific area, which might, for example, have a tropical storm going on, and take pictures or find jumps to establish it as a new area for the Horizon Festival and unlock new events in that part of the map.

Since we were playing ahead of release, there were a few bugs here and there, but far less than we’ve seen in other pre-release titles. One technical issue we hope is sorted out is how the game handles the Series S’s Quick Resume feature. With online games this can often be very hit-and-miss in general, so perhaps it’s to be expected, but we didn’t manage to jump back into the game easily, whether we played on or offline.

The driving in Forza Horizon 5 is some of the most beautiful escapism you can experience. The cars themselves are as realistic as any buttoned up racing sim you could mention and the vast vistas and rolling hills are a joy to tear along, sending cacti, road signs and other debris flying.
A Ford dune buggy looks out over the sands
Handling varies considerably between vehicles, meaning it can take a while to find a vehicle, or handful, depending on the road surface, which works for you. Once you’ve found the groove though, it’s totally up to you how you explore the expansive, marker-filled map. The towns, landscapes and even historical ruins you’ll find are all recreated with the care and attention of a team that has taken the time to make a game that feels like exactly what they wanted to make, with no compromise.

Game Pass, and a very comprehensive set of accessibility options, lowers the barrier of entry for this Forza Horizon more than ever, so, whether you’re new to the series, or just eager for another adventure, Playground Games has given you a sandbox with everything you need.

Pros
  • Stunning visuals are pushed up a notch by the dynamic weather’s sun, sand and rain effects
  • Intuitive, customizable controls with a huge amount of depth for real petrol heads
  • Variety everywhere you look with hundreds of miles of road, mud and dirt to explore

Cons
  • Sheer amount of options and car tuning depth can prove overwhelming at first
  • The chirpy DJs and voiceovers can grate a little, but you can always turn them off
  • Quick Resume doesn’t seem to be along for the ride just yet

10/10​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.



    READ MORE

    News
    Features
    Videos

    Comment Here

    Categories

    All
    Action Adventure
    Adventure
    Air Combat
    Arcade
    Family
    Fighter
    Hardware
    Horror
    Indie
    Open World
    Platformer
    Puzzler
    Racing
    Role Playing
    RPG
    Shmup
    Shooter
    Sim
    Sports
    Stealth
    Strategy
    Survival
    Virtual Reality


    Archives

    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015


    RSS Feed

Pass the Controller

News
Reviews
Features
​
Videos
Forum
About

The Forums

Gaming Discussion
Xbox
PlayStation
PC Gaming
Nintendo
Off Topic
​Achievements and Trophies

What is PTC

About Us
​Meet the Team
​
Contact Us
OpenCritic
Find our reviews on OpenCritic
vrgamecritic
Find our reviews on vrgamecritic
© COPYRIGHT 2014-2019 PTC / JMP.
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.