Microsoft Forza Horizon 5 - Information Thread, update: "Rally Adventure" expansion to release on 29 March 2023

[Keyser_Soze]

21 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

All of that to say, I constantly see extremely high praise for the Forza games, but the vibe/aesthetic and open world aspects have always turned me way off.  As someone who loves arcade racing, but generally dislikes modern game design (online/co-op focus/endless menus and stats/open world), is there enough here for me to get over these hangups and enjoy this game? 

 

If you have game pass you can figure this out rather quickly. I mean it is online and open world, not sure if it fits the other things you have on there because you can play it entirely single player. But yeah, hard to say if you'll like it with the parameters you laid down. I would just say try it on game pass and find out.

[AbsolutSurgen]

35 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

So, I love racing games.  Specifically arcade racers.  Sim racing now dominates video games, which is a shame because it's so dreadfully boring.  I've spent a ton of time with Sega classics like Sega Rally and Daytona USA, and more recently with stuff from Codemasters like the DiRT games (DiRT 2 and GRID 2 are incredible).  I also have played a smattering of recent indie arcade racers (Inertial Drift, Hotshot Racing, Slipstream, etc.), which while good, just do not reach the same heights that we saw in the 5th and 6th console generations.

 

All of that to say, I constantly see extremely high praise for the Forza games, but the vibe/aesthetic and open world aspects have always turned me way off.  As someone who loves arcade racing, but generally dislikes modern game design (online/co-op focus/endless menus and stats/open world), is there enough here for me to get over these hangups and enjoy this game? 

It's not a sim game.  Nor is it an arcade game.  It is a hybird.

You still need to brake in turns.  However, it also features huge jumps, crashing through trees and arcadey steering.

It is fundamentally an open world game, but the individual events aren't.  It has online aspects, but most of my time in the game was spent racing in single player.

[ShreddieMercury]

33 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

If you have game pass you can figure this out rather quickly. I mean it is online and open world, not sure if it fits the other things you have on there because you can play it entirely single player. But yeah, hard to say if you'll like it with the parameters you laid down. I would just say try it on game pass and find out.

 

I don't sub to game pass at the moment but thought about signing up to play this.  I probably will since it would be a low cost way to at least see what it's like, and then find some other stuff to try (Windjammers 2).

[Spork3245]

1 hour ago, ShreddieMercury said:

 

I don't sub to game pass at the moment but thought about signing up to play this.  I probably will since it would be a low cost way to at least see what it's like, and then find some other stuff to try (Windjammers 2).

 

I have a one month trial code that I can't use because it's only for new subs. You want it?

[ShreddieMercury]

52 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

I have a one month trial code that I can't use because it's only for new subs. You want it?

 

That's so kind of you!  I actually have subbed before so I don't think that will work, but I really appreciate the offer.  I was trying to figure out if there was some other deal I could find but I can't really identify anything at this point.  I've gone back and forth and have subscribed for a couple months here and there in the past, but I prefer to just buy games I'm interested in on sale if possible.

[Spork3245]

11 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

 

That's so kind of you!  I actually have subbed before so I don't think that will work, but I really appreciate the offer.  I was trying to figure out if there was some other deal I could find but I can't really identify anything at this point.  I've gone back and forth and have subscribed for a couple months here and there in the past, but I prefer to just buy games I'm interested in on sale if possible.

 

Do you need Ultimate or regular (for GP)? You can get single months for cheap if you want to try Horizon for a month before committing to buying.

[AbsolutSurgen]

CDKeys has the MS store/Xbox version relatively cheap: Forza Horizon 5 (WW) | Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S/PC | CDKeys

[silentbob]

1 minute ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

CDKeys has the MS store/Xbox version relatively cheap: Forza Horizon 5 (WW) | Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S/PC | CDKeys

or try it on gamepass for 3 months from cd keys for $15

[Spork3245]

2 minutes ago, silentbob said:

or try it on gamepass for 3 months from cd keys for $15

 

That's a gold card, does the $1 conversion trick still work even if you had GP before?

[silentbob]

5 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

That's a gold card, does the $1 conversion trick still work even if you had GP before?

 Shit, didn’t notice that. 
 

You can still do the conversion. I did 3 years for roughly $185cnd. So I bought 3 years of gold from Costco (tax free and $59.99) and entered them on my Series X under gold option. Then I bought the cheapest UGP deal from CDKeys for a week at $4 and it auto-converted the 3 years of gold to UGP.

 

YOU CANT HAVE ANY UGP STILL WORKING. 
 

so make sure you have run out your UGP subscription before you try to do the trick. If you enter your gold cards, it converted down too a third of the time frame. Thankfully I did this on a 3 months Gold but converted down to a month of UGP

[ShreddieMercury]

Thanks to @Spork3245 I have a month of Ultimate!  I'll download FH5 this afternoon and let you know what I think.

 

I think there is a general misconception in gaming circles about what arcade racing really is, because in revisiting older games in that genre, I've realized that lots of them have unique and challenging handling models with incredibly deep gameplay.  Daytona USA has three tracks and one car, and I've played it for dozens of hours because the races are always unique and you are on a knife's edge at every corner.  Arcade racing does not mean that the game is shallow; from my perspective it just means that the focus is entirely on the actual racing, and making sure that central element is as fun and perfectly challenging as possible for the player.  I'm not sure if it's specifically to blame, but when Gran Turismo came along, it seemingly widened the genre in shallow ways by focusing on every detail aside from the actual racing itself.  You no longer were focused on learning the exceptionally designed tracks and fighting interesting AI, you were instead grinding ovals in order to unlock more generic cars with slightly better stats.

 

I've thought about creating a master thread for arcade racing recommendations but didn't know if there was enough interest at this point.  

[BloodyHell]

This game is so much less impressive now that GT7 VR is here. 

[SoberChef]

12 hours ago, ShreddieMercury said:

So, I love racing games.  Specifically arcade racers.  Sim racing now dominates video games, which is a shame because it's so dreadfully boring.  I've spent a ton of time with Sega classics like Sega Rally and Daytona USA, and more recently with stuff from Codemasters like the DiRT games (DiRT 2 and GRID 2 are incredible).  I also have played a smattering of recent indie arcade racers (Inertial Drift, Hotshot Racing, Slipstream, etc.), which while good, just do not reach the same heights that we saw in the 5th and 6th console generations.

 

All of that to say, I constantly see extremely high praise for the Forza games, but the vibe/aesthetic and open world aspects have always turned me way off.  As someone who loves arcade racing, but generally dislikes modern game design (online/co-op focus/endless menus and stats/open world), is there enough here for me to get over these hangups and enjoy this game? 

 

 

So I'm with you even though I'm the opposite. I'm a massive Forza Motorsport fan, and I always thought the idea of Horizon was BS ... until I fired up Horizon 5 when it launched only to be shut up immediately & fall totally in love with it to the point that I went back to play 4 (and find myself loving it even more than 5 no less!) So why not just snag it from Game Pass, try it out over a weekend & see what ya think for yourself & share your thoughts with the rest of  us!?

[Keyser_Soze]

53 minutes ago, SoberChef said:

So I'm with you even though I'm the opposite. I'm a massive Forza Motorsport fan, and I always thought the idea of Horizon was BS ... until I fired up Horizon 5 when it launched only to be shut up immediately & fall totally in love with it to the point that I went back to play 4 (and find myself loving it even more than 5 no less!) So why not just snag it from Game Pass, try it out over a weekend & see what ya think for yourself & share your thoughts with the rest of  us!?

 

I was the same way actually, although I did play the first Horizon and the Fast and the Furious one, after hearing how many people were enjoying it though I was in that "If it's not sim it's shit" mindset, it was actually very enjoyable. Someone just needed to explain it was more like those Test Drive Unlimited games or like a NFS which I actually do enjoy. I guess the main turnoff was the name Forza was attached to it.

[AbsolutSurgen]

(It's also the day for Rallying!)