Once again, one of the main strengths of Horizon 5 is just how customisable its difficulty settings make everything. Fingers crossed the planned DLC will send us off on more adventures like these, as they're a really neat change of pace, even introducing light platforming and puzzle elements, which works a lot better than it sounds like it should. These felt a little strange at first but quickly grew on me, and with plenty of optional objectives to tick off at each site, I ended up being a little disappointed that there weren't more of them. The studio takes further advantage of this through the new Expeditions - journeys to key landmarks around Mexico to help set up outposts for each of the core racing disciplines, as well as exploring these awesome locations in the process. FH4's UK had about as much variety as it could realistically have had, but Mexico just offers so much more to work with, and Playground puts that environmental palette to exceptional use here. Charging over the crest of a hill at sunset to see a sprawling urban expanse light up the night before you speeding through a jungle in a tropical storm only to happen upon some stunning old Aztec ruins burning from beach to mangrove to tarmac in a single Skill Chain… it’s truly remarkable. The setting has to be the franchise's best yet, combining the biome diversity of FH3 (perhaps even greater) with the local history of FH4 to deliver a map that is constantly surprising. There's not going to be a whole lot more complaining here, either, because almost everything else about Forza Horizon 5 is superb. Once you're done with things like those Horizon Stories, this complaint becomes one for the history books. This is only made more egregious by the fact you can't skip these pre- and post-event chinwags, so while we wait to hopefully get a skip option in an update down the line, just try to smash out three stars on everything first go so you don't have to sit through more of it than you have to. It's all hammed up to the Nth degree, which kinda makes sense for the larger-than-life radio DJs, but not so much for the regular racers at the festival. The female main character voice sounds like she's delivering every line through a held-at-gunpoint Cheshire Cat smile, so ends up coming across as either simple or patronising depending on the context, and most of the supporting cast isn't much better. Weird mannequins stare one another down awkwardly while their puppet masters have an equally awkward off-camera discussion, and while the local voice actors generally seem decent (and at least add a little Latin American flavour even when they're not), most of the English acting is pretty awful. A lot of it pertains to characters, actually - obviously not a focus for a racing game, but still something you'll have to endure a fair amount of due to unskippable dialogue sequences in many of the non-standard events. In fact, the long-term version of the game might actually be even better than what we get up front, since most of my issues with the game are extremely front-loaded. This Horizon festival is scheduled to run for years (lord knows how they managed to get permission for that), and if this is the baseline standard for what we can expect, the future is looking muy bueno indeed. What we have here is just the beginning, after all. And if not now, then almost certainly down the line. However you like to race, whatever you like to drive, wherever you may roam, you can probably do it in Forza Horizon 5. The stunning Mexico setting is the largest and most diverse in the series' history, with activities in line with that variety to drop players into just about every form of automotive competition imaginable. Truth be told, there's so much to discuss here that wherever you started in trying to critique a game as massive as FH5, there'd always be a better place. They say you should always lead with the most important stuff, so there it is. Forza Horizon 5 Forza Horizon Xbox Game Studios Xbox Game Pass Online Multiplayer Game review Review Simulation Racing Luke Albigés Forza Horizon 5 lets you set your car horn to play At Doom's Gate from Doom, making it an automatic 10/10 game.
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