Name: Live Service Crap Holds This Game Back
Item: Forza Horizon 5
Rating: 7.5
Author: Todd Lewis

I don’t care for live service games or daily/weekly challenges. I want to be clear that this pulls me out of games. I don’t want to be reminded that this is a video game and that I should invest my time in this challenge or that challenge or that I should use some silly points in a points shop for things I don’t care for. Now I love vehicles and the tuning in the game is awesome, but most cars are geared towards under steer and that’s not what gamers expect in racing games. We expect to drift easily. Sure it’s not realistic all the time but that’s just how racing games have always been. There’s lots of things I love about this game but there’s lots of things I also hate about it. Biggest dislike: ugly ass live service menu (my goodness it’s such an eyesore! Am I playing an ubisoft game??). The under steer trend is annoying but fixable, all graphics options require a restart of the game, driving gets old cause simulation racers are objectively less fun for me than say Burnout or anything with rockets or turbo. Hey, I’m a gamer, I want ridiculous experiences. I can overlook all of this somewhat because the game is stupidly gorgeous, the cars feel like cars, the customizing in this game is stupid good, and there’s tons to do and lots of cars to unlock. For a new player, the game does a piss poor job explaining the more detailed aspects. I can see lots of nongearheads YouTubing this game like crazy for guides. It’s hard to review this game because the live service aspect totally makes me not want to play sometimes. I’m glad I didn’t pay for this and got it through gamepass and it’s sad that I feel that, but my goodness, that main menu has to go and the stupid loot box casino-rewarding crap is just goofy. The car physics are as good as you can expect from a good sim racer, albeit a bit limiting, in actuality. Let’s be honest, it’s a sim racer, you can’t do that much aside from driving. Some people love that, but even I, a racing game fan since I was a kid, get bored of it cause that’s all there is. You just drive. I personally want more and wish the game felt more like a self contained video game that can exist without Wi-Fi but instead the game cries and moans when there’s no internet connection, which is a lame trend in video games today. Also, the radio is god awful in this game! There’s virtually no latin music or driving tunes. It’s like someone from the UK picked Uk like music for this game based in Mexico. So bad, I literally turn off the radio and use Spotify in my Xbox. I review with 5 as my average, as it should be. 7.5 since I like cars and tuning. 6 if it executed those aspects horribly like Need for Speed. 8.5 if the live service crap was fixed and there was a nitrous system or something more.

<p>I don’t care for live service games or daily/weekly challenges. I want to be clear that this pulls me out of games. I don’t want to be reminded that this is a video game and that I should invest my time in this challenge or that challenge or that I should use some silly points in a points shop for things I don’t care for. Now I love vehicles and the tuning in the game is awesome, but most cars are geared towards under steer and that’s not what gamers expect in racing games. We expect to drift easily. Sure it’s not realistic all the time but that’s just how racing games have always been. There’s lots of things I love about this game but there’s lots of things I also hate about it. Biggest dislike: ugly ass live service menu (my goodness it’s such an eyesore! Am I playing an ubisoft game??). The under steer trend is annoying but fixable, all graphics options require a restart of the game, driving gets old cause simulation racers are objectively less fun for me than say Burnout or anything with rockets or turbo. Hey, I’m a gamer, I want ridiculous experiences. I can overlook all of this somewhat because the game is stupidly gorgeous, the cars feel like cars, the customizing in this game is stupid good, and there’s tons to do and lots of cars to unlock. For a new player, the game does a piss poor job explaining the more detailed aspects. I can see lots of nongearheads YouTubing this game like crazy for guides. It’s hard to review this game because the live service aspect totally makes me not want to play sometimes. I’m glad I didn’t pay for this and got it through gamepass and it’s sad that I feel that, but my goodness, that main menu has to go and the stupid loot box casino-rewarding crap is just goofy. The car physics are as good as you can expect from a good sim racer, albeit a bit limiting, in actuality. Let’s be honest, it’s a sim racer, you can’t do that much aside from driving. Some people love that, but even I, a racing game fan since I was a kid, get bored of it cause that’s all there is. You just drive. I personally want more and wish the game felt more like a self contained video game that can exist without Wi-Fi but instead the game cries and moans when there’s no internet connection, which is a lame trend in video games today. Also, the radio is god awful in this game! There’s virtually no latin music or driving tunes. It’s like someone from the UK picked Uk like music for this game based in Mexico. So bad, I literally turn off the radio and use Spotify in my Xbox. I review with 5 as my average, as it should be. 7.5 since I like cars and tuning. 6 if it executed those aspects horribly like Need for Speed. 8.5 if the live service crap was fixed and there was a nitrous system or something more.</p>

Forza Horizon 5

Live Service Crap Holds This Game Back

Player Score

Todd Lewis