I love a good racing game, and Forza Horizon 5 has been quite enjoyable. I like that I can drive around freely on the map and jump into events anytime I want to. Or just dick around and get combo points for doing cool stunts in the wild.

This Porsche has been my “daily driver” in this game. So far, it’s been my favorite car to get around in. Just because the handling is really nice in the game; I don’t really care for Porsche’s in real life.

I also really enjoyed their collaboration with Hot Wheels. I daresay their Hot Wheels events are far more fun than anything else going on in the game. It’s fun to be playing in real cars on an oversized track, which make you feel like you’re driving a tiny toy car. But I also really like the Hot Wheels Unleashed games, so maybe I’m a bit biased. Also, I collected Hot Wheels when I was a kid back in the '80s, so the idea of driving in a life-sized Hot Wheels car is amazing to me. #LifeGoals.

Hot Wheels. I’ve said it too much and it sounds weird to me now. I believe the term is “semantic satiation.”

Plus, the visuals are gorgeous! I suppose I should mention that I built a gaming computer earlier this year just so I can max out graphics on my games. Most of my screenshots are in 4K resolution ([dons my IT technician hat] Officially 2K, but marketing departments call it 4K) and I’m playing on a giant 48" OLED monitor. It’s important to have the best visuals in my games to get that immersive feeling. Especially in a racing game.

What I don’t like is all the micro-transactions to buy individual cars. I enjoy unlocking more cars to play in my racing games, but I’m not about to spend real money to unlock a single car that might be interesting to drive around for 15-20 minutes.

I will play 100+ hours of challenges to eventually unlock a single car before I spend the $3 to immediately unlock one. First off, that’s the whole point of games - to play them! Unlocking content should be part of the gameplay, not something you can skip if you have the money to throw at it.

Secondly, I’m very anti-corporate greed, and unfortunately, games are run by businesses who care more about making money than actually making good content. So the enshittification is spreading.

There was a time when gamers balked at DLC - if you didn’t have all content in a base game upon release, then what was the point? But every company jumped on the DLC train, and we’ve gotten so used to it in the past decade or two that it’s almost expected that a game will release extra content after the fact now. If it weren’t for Steam, I’d probably never play games. They’re not the perfect company, but they’ve done more to support the gaming community, providing reasonable deals and permanent access to your games, even if publishers pull them from the store. But that’s a rant for another day. I digress.

Also, I hate that this game is super expensive! It sat in my Steam wishlist for ages until I got a pretty decent deal on it. No way I’m paying $60 on the low end for a base racing game. Interestingly, there was a time a year or two ago, when I noticed Forza Horizon 4 was even more expensive than Forza Horizon 5! I dunno what the deal was, but I guess it must’ve had a larger player base at the time, so they jacked up the price.

Anyway, the TL;DR is that Forza Horizon 5 is a fun game with beautiful graphics, but gaming companies are evil, including whomever makes/distributes this game and all its overpriced and useless DLC.

  • cobysev@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    51·
    1 month ago

    You say you don’t care for Porsche IRL. If you have any interest in driving performance vehicles and have an opportunity to drive one, try to not pass it up.

    I used to be pretty big into cars in my youth. I actually took part in some drift racing in northern Japan when I lived there for a few years, and those guys are all big math/physics/car nerds (not the Yakuza gangster wannabes like you saw in Tokyo Drift; that movie was fantasy American street racing with a Japanese skin over it), so I really got into that stuff for a while. But high-end sports cars were out of our league, so I haven’t ever tried a Porsche. I guess that needs to go on my bucket list.

    I suppose have finally accepted there’s never going to be another “campaign” style title. I guess that’s really the gaming industry as a whole with all the battle Royales and similar arcade-style games.

    I really hate that there’s so much push to get us to play online multiplayer games now. I mean, I get it from a financial standpoint - it keeps players engaged with a game long after they’ve finished the campaign and if they can squeeze micro-transactions/seasons/DLC into it, it’s a source of added income for years afterward. But from a gaming standpoint, I just see it as repetitive gameplay that doesn’t lead anywhere, with rewards that are never worth the effort.

    I’m also not a fan of playing online with strangers because the environment can be very toxic. I barely tolerate playing co-op with my friends some days. 😆