Forza Horizon 5: First Impressions

Forza Horizon 5 is the first Forza game I’ve played so, as you can probably guess, I’m not the best person to tell you if it’s a good one or not – at least in comparison to previous games in the series. I’m also not really a big fan of racing games in general. I used to play them a lot more when I was younger, but I don’t think I’ve played more than a handful in the last decade or so which means that I’m also not the best person to review this one – at least in comparison to other contemporary racers.

So why did I even buy it? I guess I had an itch for a racing game and everything I’d seen about Forza Horizon 5 looked pretty good. I jumped in blind, more or less, not even sure if I’d really like it or not but I’m pleased to say my initial impressions are very positive.

Calling Forza Horizon 5 a ‘racing game’ doesn’t quite feel appropriate. I guess ‘driving game’ might be the more suitable label because although there’s a lot of racing in FH5, there’s also a lot of other stuff too.

Before I get stuck into talking about the game, I really want to touch upon the performance. I’m playing Forza on what is now a 9 year old system which, although I’ve made a few upgrades down the years, isn’t exactly cutting edge. Despite that, I’ve been playing FH5 on Ultra settings at a crisp 60FPS. Granted, that’s at 1080p, but I’m still pretty impressed.

Visually, FH5 looks fantastic. The environment and cars, as you’d expect, look great. The only weak aspect when it comes to the visuals are the character models, although I guess they’re not exactly important – but they do look kind of bad compared to everything else.

The game has an impressive opening as you quickly switch between different cars in different parts of the open world map to showcase the variety of environments, vehicles and driving styles. Once that’s out of the way and you’ve finished a couple of ‘story’ based missions, the game opens up and drops a lot of content on you – so much, it’s almost overwhelming.

You’ve got the ‘story’ missions which have a basic kind of narrative to them and these unlock different ‘outposts’ which in turn unlock even more open world stuff to get stuck into – all the different race types, open world activities and collectibles. As you play you’ll earn experience to level up and cash to spend on new cars or upgrades. You also have skill points you can invest in your favourite rides to further boost their experience gain from performing various feats.

You can tune and customise cars to an impressive degree and that’s something I’ve only messed around with a little because I really have no clue what the f**k I’m doing. There’s ‘seasonal’ objectives you can complete for points to earn more cars. There’s a system for building your own custom tracks and sharing them with others. There’s a fun photo mode. There’s a range of multiplayer options ranging from standard races to party games to a battle royale style mode. There’s lots of stuff, so much stuff that it takes a little time to figure out the best way to tackle it all.

And I’m really enjoying it. The variety is great. The challenges are fun. There’s a lot of options to customise your difficulty which in turns boosts the experience you can earn – I’m currently playing on ‘above average’ for AI settings, but there’s about 5 more levels beyond that. There’s always something new to see and do and unlock. It’s been great.

My main criticism of FH5 so far would be that there’s no proper kind of ‘driving school’ tutorial system that really breaks down the different car types, or lets you practice drifting, or explains how to tune your cars to make them better for one kind of race or another. It also doesn’t explain certain features very well – the first time I tried the battle royale mode, I really had no clue what the f**k I was supposed to be doing.

FH5 is a game I’ve had to regularly Alt-Tab out of to check out a guide or a video to explain something and that’s not really ideal. I also can’t say I’ve enjoyed any of the online races I’ve tried yet because even at release I’m coming up against players over level 100 with their own custom tuned cars whilst I’m stuck with a stock rental. Even when I race well in a car I’ve not driven before, half the time I get a DNF because they’re so f**king far ahead.

I’m sure as I progress and unlock new cars and get accustomed to tuning them I’ll be able to enter these races and be more competitive, but right now it just feels like a waste of time.

Despite that, I really hooked on FH5 right now and it’s honestly hard to pull myself away. It’s engaging and addictive and there’s so much fun stuff to get stuck into – I can see myself putting a lot more time into this.