Reddit must have the worst out of touch takes ever about forza horizon 5

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 5 FH5 Discussion
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Well my experience in racing game forums is generally miserable, as people are overly critical of the games (even I do that).

Now we’re seeing videos from the likes of Empty Box implying there’s some sort of “decadence” of racing games, when in fact Forza Horizon is more successful than NFS ever was, The Crew is a decent alternative to FH-deprived people, Gran Turismo reinvented itself as a competitive light sim while still retaining its interactive automotive magazine style, TDU is coming back, F1 games aren’t locked to a single platform like in the 2000s and don’t suck, sim racing is at its peak with tons of options to choose from (even decade old stuff like GTR2), and we even have decent bike games with licensed bikes (RIDE and RIMS).

I know racing games are more online focused, with slimmer career modes. This doesn’t mean they suck. In fact, from a technical standpoint, racing games have never been better. Most racing games cut on the drivel they used to have (24 hour races and impossible challenges) because only the most obsessive players would complete these challenges. Yet you have a vocal minority of players asking for the return of gigantic and insanely repetitive career modes. I think there’s a generational conflict between the hardcore gamer type of people who grew up during the PS2/Xbox era and are critical of the changes in gameplay, and the silent majority who plays and appreciates all the improvements made for the sake of convenience.

There are a few reasons why I don’t play Forza Horizon anymore but, as a racing sandbox, it’s fine. The problem is more with 5 not feeling like a major step up from 4 (in fact 5 is a step back on multiple accounts). Despite this, you have creators covering Forza Horizon with huge view numbers. What kind of decadence is this?

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96

I mean something would have had to go badly wrong for the games of today not to be better on a technical level.

Many games in the past few years just feel so much more cold, soulless and corporate than they did 10+ years ago.

FH5 is better than FH1 in every measurable technical area, but I personally don’t feel that the people involved with 5 have/had even 10% of the passion + enthusiasm that those working on the first game did.

When a game is made by people who genuinely love + care about it it will show throughout it, usually in the areas that have little to do with the technical side of things.

At the end of the day the most important thing in a game will always be down to the human element ie the content, technology can only lay the foundations for that but it’s up to the people making the game to create it from that point.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t think there’s another franchise out there that has foundations as good as FH, more potential feels like it’s being wasted by this one franchise than almost every other AAA juggernaut one put together.

Many people I think hold those much more positive opinions about games of yesteryear because they didn’t give them that feeling, instead they were examples of clear progress in almost all areas and not just technical like many are now.

Compare FM4 to FM3 which was a fantastic game in it’s own right anyway.
NFSU2 to the first NFSU, then compare MW to 2.
GTA SA to VC, and VC to 3.
And even though I personally prefer GT3 compare GT4 to it.

All these old games are still the most beloved + looked back on in their franchises to this day because they did the standard + expected improvements to the technicals but more importantly nailed the non technical stuff better than anything else before or since.

What makes those games have such status is timeless, the last bit above is in my opinion the main basis for a lot of people thinking the old stuff was better.

And I’ve just realised this is way way longer than I planned so I’ll stop here.

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97

This. At the risk of making everyone hungry, I feel like Horizon 5 is very much like a plain grilled cheese sandwich. It’s good comfort food, but there are many ways it can be improved without overcomplicating it. Butter the bread before grilling, get a fancier cheese, add a little meat, maybe add some tomatoes too, and, especially in Horizon 5’s case, replace the stale bread with a fresher loaf.

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98

I don’t think anyone would get angry with what you say. Instead I think everyone would be in agreement. But what are we actually discussing here? Our desire for this game to be better than it already is, or the OP that claims reddit users are out of touch which seems to be an entirely different topic.

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Check out the Dev Q&A streams for Microsoft Flight Simulator that happen every few months. They have the Microsoft Head of Production and the two top devs from Asobo and they go through what they are working on and also acknowledge issues or why something is not that simple to implement or fix. They also take questions, which they sometimes have no immediate answer to because they’re not pre-screened.

They have a weekly updated roadmap that outlines the top new features and top issues/bugs that the devs and the players decided should be worked on. Players do this by posting issues or feature requests in their forum and then voting on them. The roadmap shows each dev item and the top-voted player items with a status and expected time frame of release, if available.

In the last Q&A, the Microsoft Head explicitly stated he reads their forum. I can only imagine that it is more fruitful for players when the main boss goes to the devs and says “Dudes, they are saying [issue/concern]. What’s up with that?” versus a community manager that the devs think is less important to answer to.

Compared to their approach, PGG is virtually hands-off. No road map, no comms on what is being worked on for new features or fixes, no answers to the simplest questions, self-celebratory live streams etc. It’s as if they just want us to shut up, grind the weekly chores and save our pennies for FH6, which will be basically FH 4.6.

And the kicker is, Joerg Neumann, that engaging head of production for MS Flight Simulator, is credited as “Partner Head of Production” for FH5!!! Crazy if that is really true and, if so, whoever runs FH5 now should maybe have a chat with him to learn how it’s done right.

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Appreciate the response. I don’t play MS FS but that’s a good insight into a similar open world, vehicle based, MS title.

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You’ll find many threads often evolve on this forum. Or devolve, depending on your perspective.

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102

If you want to read a really wacky spin on Forza, look at IGN reviews.

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104

Yeah, those are shockingly bad. Especially since Luke Reilly seems to have a very extensive background in racing games. He should really know better than anyone and see that Horizon’s been getting by on good graphics and physics for the last three releases and doing the bare minimum in other categories that have made other racing games distinctive and actually worthy of a high 9 or complete 10.

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Money talks. It’s getting to the point where certain titles need to be legally obligated to follow-up reviews at some period in the game’s lifecycle.

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106

Precisely. Frankly, I feel like video games just really aren’t a medium that can be reviewed instantly anymore. I mean, if they ever really were at all, considering longevity is a factor that very few game reviews old and new take into consideration.

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At least in ye Good Old Days, games could be reviewed with the expectation that they were, by and large, complete, and it was the developer/publisher’s careers if they weren’t. And I’m not just talking about Genesis and SNES - I mean into the early days of the previous generation. Now, you can shovel the most rancid pile of junk out the door, and as long as you garner up enough paid reviews and promise a day-one patch (that’s larger than the game itself), you’re golden.

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108

I would still advocate day 1 reviews if you could trust outlets to be completely honest and go through the game with a fine toothcomb but well…you can’t, games for the most part release in worse states than ever nowadays and the big ones regularly gloss over or even downright ignore it.

I don’t think a proper review is worth it’s salt unless the reviewer goes through every aspect of the game, FH4 + FH5’s poor MP at launch (frequent DC’s in both, no solo racing in FH4, convoys being borked, arcades being impossible without a certain amount of people for FH5 etc) is barely mentioned anywhere in reviews, someone oblivious to faults like those in my opinion should not be put in a position where they can endorse/discourage large amounts of people from spending their own hard earned money on a game.

They should know the game inside and out when they’ve finished & have the knowledge + experience to be able to give a balanced assessment on all aspects of the game.

However it seems now reviewers are the equivalent of if I reviewed COD, I know the basics of FPS’s and I can play them averagely, that’s as far as I go, I don’t have a clue about how COD’s MP should be and I know nothing about Warzone, so I would probably end up giving it a higher score than a proper knowledgeable veteran COD player would because I have no in-depth knowledge about it, I’d do the surface level basics and end up giving my score based on that and that alone.

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109

Exactly. Personally, I think these games should have to be reviewed again after every major content update. Because the sad fact is I’ve played games that were solid 8 and 9s right before the developers caught wild hairs and decided that completely changing their game was a winning move, and ended up taking it down to a 6, at best. I bet a lot of things would stop if their precious Games of the Year suddenly caught a few 4/10 reviews from various publications because a Mike Brown Certified Hood Classic of a patch messed everything up.

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I also don’t understand how they are able to publish reviews a day after the game comes out. Like, a day isn’t enough to properly judge the game as a whole. You need a few days or a week to be able to accurately assess a game.

I’m just taking expert reviews with a grain of salt now. I won’t be buying FH6 anyways unless Whitelight literally says it IS a 10/10.

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111

After every update may be a bit excessive, but a yearly re-review is mostly definitely necessary.

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Have you heard of this thing called a “Review Copy”?

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Review copy is fine for first impressions, but Knight is not wrong about more time being needed to make a proper review of a game, especially a racing game where “rinse-and-repeat” gameplay is, well, the name of the game and longevity is always in question. Plus, we live in a day and age where games are now intended to last far longer than before due to live services, and with a live service being integral to a game like Forza, it is definitely worthy of some kind of analysis rather than saying “It’s there” and moving on.

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114

A prime example of a “review copy” not being the actual game is GT7. The review copy didn’t have the dreaded MTX that made it in at launch. So reviews were slanted from the jump.

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115

I know the IGN reviewer who does racing games should’ve known better when it comes to reviews, but recently Reilly did play and review a PC game called Crime Boss: Rockay City and he actually trashed this broken game. Unlike other reviews this one is at least fairly honest and had several issues he had faced. He also minced the game’s awful star-studded cast and horrid writing and glitchy gameplay. Reilly gave this game a 4/10. Also, GameInformer gave this game a 3/10 and it’s a good read as well.

On topic: I hate how with each passing Forza he jumps ship and gets a pay check just for reviewing a racing game and getting a good rating (a corrupted rating in my term) or worse, a 10/10.

Here’s the dealio: You can’t just review a game just for graphics. You need to nitpick on the game’s questionable problems and issues, not just positivity. There is a MASSIVE difference between positivity and exclusively on positive stuff.

I played some other recent games too. The Saints Row reboot had mixed to good reviews, but the actual game is wretchedly miserable to play through.

See what I mean?

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