What I am Playing: Forza Horizon 5
An entertaining take on a racing centered MMORPG. It does some things well, but in balance, I am not sure it is a keeper.
What got me back into console gaming was the immersive racing experience, and Forza Motorsports 3 on the Microsoft Xbox 360 was both engaging and ridiculously fun game. I have chased the franchise on both the 360 and the later XboxOne.
I heard that there was a new variant, called “Horizon”. This was a racing game that had a MMORPG wrapped around it. When I first got the Gamepass, I installed it and played it for about an hour. Frankly, I just didn’t get it. You drive around, doing little “quests1” and building up experience and credits to progress.
It made little sense, so I deleted it from my drive and went back to Forza Motorsport.
A couple of years ago, I built a gaming PC and I do have the PC version of gamepass, so I figured I would give Horizon another shot.
It required an eyepopping 135 gigabytes on my disk. As a racing themed MMORPG, it starts with an introduction scene where you are serially dropped from a transport plane in your vehicles over some of the action in the world. In this case, the “event” is based in Mexico, so you are racing on mediocrely paved streets, on sandy environs, and exploring cultural sites like the pyramids, and others, and plenty of open world exploration.
There are civilians around, driving like normal people, and plenty of other players (you can tell because players have id tags). There is a map, and you can select where to go, and what event to do. By selecting it, your GPS is set up, and you can navigate to the event. There are plenty of settings you can choose, as well as driver aids. I am a n00b, so I turn a lot of them on. Thus, the racing line is always displayed in events and on the route to the event.
I have done several races, some sprints, and a lot of open exploring (like geocaching you go to see certain things) and unstructured driving around.
The races and sprints are akin to Slalom ski events, where you have to pass through the gates. Miss a gate, and well, you might as well just rage quit, and try it again.
There are also other activities that you are expected to do. There are speed cameras and you are expected to try to go through them as fast as possible for XP2, there are boards that you crash into (destroy) to gain what they offer.
Your position completing an event or challenge will also lead to earning credits (CR) that you can use to buy vehicles, upgrades to vehicles you already have, and to upgrade your housing.
I have about 6 hours in, so there are plenty of things I have yet to experience.
The good
I do not have the highest spec PC for gaming, it is an Intel NUC, the Ghost Canyon version. It is a small form factor, and I did add one of the very few compatible GPU3’s, but it is about 3 generations behind the leading edge. The good news is that the computer with the GTX 1660S mini card has really good performance. I get a consistent 60 frames per second at my 1440P display.
The graphics and game play are nice, and I use my Xbox controller for it.
The open world is fun. Jump into your Bronco and go nuts off road. Drive through the surf, on the beach, explore the pyramid ruins, do some small track racing in ad-hoc circuits buried in the interstices between roads and other events.
The reason why you are in Mexico is to participate in the Horizon festival, and there are a ladder of events in each sub event. Like with most games, you must complete the lower levels of a festival event to move on to the next level.
The individual events are scaled to your experience. As time goes on, and you gain skills, they do get more challenging. I am still early in the progression, so it isn’t easy, but it isn’t particularly challenging. Note: This is good, as it doesn’t alienate the casual gamers (which I really am) and the more serious players can get through them pretty quickly.
The physics of the gameplay is pretty solid. It is not a driving sim, but if you turn off all the driver assists, you can get yourself into trouble pretty quickly, just like in real life. I haven’t done a lot of tuning (frankly, I am pretty clueless, so to me, at my skill level, tuning is a waste of money (or credits).
The landscapes are pretty well rendered. This is to be expected of a modern game, and Forza Horizon delivers.
If you held as gun to my head, I would admit that I am having fun, as long as I can ignore the next bit…
The less good
We need to talk about the gameplay. Sure, take this with a grain of salt, as I turn on most if not all of the driver assists4 enabled, but there are some things that I can’t ignore.
First, the thought of driving a $300K McLaren at 200MPH on shitty roads, to veer off-road and even use it for a rally event is a killer to me. I studied physics, and I rode/raced motorcycles for years, and while I can suspend my disbelief for movies and other entertainment. But in a racing game, it gets ridiculous. Driving a modern Corvette through a rally-cross track with water crossings is just ludicrous.
Second, the events and activities feel stilted. The Festival feels like they are trying to encourage you to follow their recommendations. But this is in tension with the open-world format. To nudge you to continue the journey, there is a coach that prods you, making recommendations of what to do, but they can’t force you to follow their recommendations. That said, they will occasionally go into nag mode, and make events “time bound” as a way to urge you into their world. Ok, I get it, but dammit, I am gonna be like Cartman, and do it my way.
Third, there are things that require me to pay extra money. Sure, I get the base Horizon 5 package with my monthly Gamepass fee, but there are plenty of ways to spend $5 - $25 to get more cars, rare clothing (seriously, I fucking wear shorts, solid T’s and Birkenstocks 90+% of the time) and extra credits. Whereas prior versions of Forza Motorsport (not the Horizon open world) you earned quite a few credits in your career, thus able to “buy” the cars you need for different classes, now, the events provide meagre purses (credits) and you will often be very limited in acquiring the better competitive vehicles. Of course, you can pull out your AMEX card and accelerate the process. But I am a cheap bastard, so, the slow pace of progressing is painful to experience.
Fourth, switching cars forces this insane animation where you are on the stage at the festival, taking bows, while the car rotates. Perhaps this is to cover for a lengthy data load in the back end, but the fact that you are at the start of an event, somewhere in this community in Mexico, and you need a different car, you get to experience that insane animation. Lame.
Fifth, using the controller is somewhat cumbersome for selecting events. Partially that is because the density of items(events) is pretty high and selecting them is tricky. But the GPS to get you to the start of the event is cool.
Sixth, there is some community features, and you can find friends, and coordinate. That said, I have no friends5, in real life or online, so this all feels like cruft.
Seventh, and possible the biggest gripe is that this game hogs almost 139 GIGABYTES on my SSD. Holy forking shit, that is YUGE.
Summary
I am enjoying it. I would prefer if it was more of a race focused game, but I get the charm of a MMORPG driving game. I am just not sure I am the right audience for it. If I had to shell out $60 for this title, it would probably never touch my PC or console. But as a freebie entitlement with my gamepass account, I will play it.
I did pre-order the Forza Motorsports 7 title, so when that launches in October, I will restart my race career, likely tossing Horizon 5 into the rubbish bin for all time.
Small races on streets mostly, where you drive to the next event.
XP are experience points, you earn them from a variety of activities and events
GPU = graphics processing unit, a dedicated video card with tons of acceleration for gaming
I do this, because I do not have the time to put in to get really good at the intricacies of the game play, and since this isn’t an accurate driving sim, but somewhat softer, I feel justified.
once, in 2016 when I bought the latest version of Doom, I ventured into online multiplayer, and the verbal abuse dished out over the audio channel was frankly fucking awful. That was the LAST time I played online, and that will likely remain the case.