Forza Horizon 5

[footle]

You’ve never played before? Best price of advice: when you want to, and you will, it’s ok to filter the map!

[Meers]

9 hours ago, davejm said:

@Meers Just tried again with the wheel.  It crashed on me after completing a race, but it felt sublime.  Like really good!  I did a circuit race with the Lambo and absolutely loved it.   So it's definitely good with the wheel this time around.

 

Nice one mate! I actually went to New Zealand last night on the Xbox One X and played the opening bits on a controller, and absolutely loved it. It's really good with a pad, mate. Just recline and have a drink whilst playing it like that. Then get competitive with the wheel. 😀

 

I can't believe the graphics on the One X. I haven't seen it on a Series Xbox so I can't compare, but on my old One X is looks  a b s o l u t e l y  gorgeous. Switched to FH4 briefly, a stunning looking game as well, but they've managed to make the visuals even more eye-popping in this. FH5 runs at a rock solid 30fps on the One X, by the looks of it. It's really smooth.

 

The PC has been downloading and installing it overnight. Curious to see how it runs on my creaky laptop.

 

One question though - where is the performance/quality option and where can I adjust the HDR setting in the Xbox version(s)? Couldn't find the options anywhere in the menus.

 

47 minutes ago, JoeK said:

The opening sequences are such a wonderful way of introducing the mechanics to you - do they do this with all the Horizon games? 

 

Since FH3 (the Aussie setting) they've had it like that. It's ridiculously over the top but it's a fresh breath of air, especially when you've been playing hardcore racing sims for a while.

 

 

[Meers]

47 minutes ago, JoeK said:

I haven't changed over to 60fps yet, but the way they've implemented things, 30fps is possibly the smoothest 30fps I've seen in a game.

 

I'm all for 60fps or higher, but when 30fps is done this well, you really can't argue against it.

[JoeK]

Is the game always online when you're not doing solo racing? My dodgy skills as a digital driver have already caused multiple accidents and I'm getting terribly embarrassed...

 

[davejm]

16 minutes ago, Meers said:

 

Nice one mate! I actually went to New Zealand last night on the Xbox One X and played the opening bits on a controller, and absolutely loved it. It's really good with a pad, mate. Just recline and have a drink whilst playing it like that. Then get competitive with the wheel. 😀

 

 

I tried, but I can't control racers with the pad   And it feels so good on the wheel.

[Meers]

15 minutes ago, JoeK said:

Is the game always online when you're not doing solo racing? 

 

No, but the drivatars (your online friends' AI) will be in your offline game at all times (not sure if you can switch them off).

 

 

14 minutes ago, davejm said:

I tried, but I can't control racers with the pad   And it feels so good on the wheel.

 

The Forza franchise is therefore the best bridge between arcade and sim. Want full arcade? All assists on (or off if you're adventurous) and have fun with a controller. You want it more sim? FFB wheel and assists off. Best of both worlds and everyone's happy.

[djbhammer]

Happy launch day for the standard Gamepass edition users like myself! 🙂 Downloading……. it’s a good day.😀

[Fletch]

So I found it the Taycan can do 150mph in reverse. That's gotta be the fastest reversing speed in the game right? 

[gossi the dog]

1 hour ago, JoeK said:

I have never played a Forza game before!

 

After playing 10 minutes of this, my eyes have popped.

 

The opening sequences are such a wonderful way of introducing the mechanics to you - do they do this with all the Horizon games? 

 

Also, after going from an arcade racer - Horizon Chase Turbo - the feel is going to take a bit of getting used to. 

 

But, man it feels good already.

 

Edit: 30fps or 60fps? 

 

I haven't changed over to 60fps yet, but the way they've implemented things, 30fps is possibly the smoothest 30fps I've seen in a game.

 

60 all the way

[gossi the dog]

25 minutes ago, JoeK said:

Is the game always online when you're not doing solo racing? My dodgy skills as a digital driver have already caused multiple accidents and I'm getting terribly embarrassed...

 

 

I think you can turn that off (you could in FH4). I'm offline but then I don't have Xbox Live at present.

[SnoopZakaDaVe]

Pretty sure in one of the menus There is an option for horizon solo which uses drivatars

[PikaStu]

So how’s the wheel in this? I found FH3 and 4 pretty much unplayable with a wheel and went back to using the standard controller. I’m sure I read this had been tweaked to make using a wheel a bit better?

 

60fps or nothing for me these days, I always played them at 4k 30fps on my OneX until I had my back operation and connected the console to my bedroom TV which is 1080p. What a difference! I couldn’t go back after that, even though my 4k tv looked blurry with a 1080p signal. 
I’m going to be on PC this time so 1440p 60fps should be easily achievable. 

[davejm]

24 minutes ago, Meers said:

The Forza franchise is therefore the best bridge between arcade and sim. Want full arcade? All assists on (or off if you're adventurous) and have fun with a controller. You want it more sim? FFB wheel and assists off. Best of both worlds and everyone's happy.

 

Totally understand, but I bought the game to play with my wheel and I don't want to play it with the pad   I don't have the patience to learn throttle and brake control with the triggers.  I've never been able to get to grips with it (which is why I've tried and discarded so many racing titles in the past).  The steering felt good with the analogue stick; but I was still all over the place.  I just have limited playtime, and want to play with the wheel especially as it feels so good.

 

Just gonna hold out for a patch.

[davejm]

10 minutes ago, StoooTube said:

So how’s the wheel in this? I found FH3 and 4 pretty much unplayable with a wheel and went back to using the standard controller. I’m sure I read this had been tweaked to make using a wheel a bit better?

 

Feels like a noticeable improvement over FH4.

[Uncle Nasty]

11 hours ago, layten said:

Day 1 on Gamepass tomorrow.

 

Or right now if you set your PC/Console region to a somewhere it is already Tuesday.

 

  

11 hours ago, footle said:

the regular gamepass edition has more content than you’ll ever need until the dlc is released.

 

Much obliged.

 

Happy new game day everyone not living in NZ!

[CheekyLee]

I haven't played a Forza since the original Horizon, which I rented and bounced off very quickly. (Played quite a lot of Motorsport 2, though.) Sim racers have left me cold for years, but ...

 

Oh my god this looks incredible! I had high hopes for Driveclub, which started rockily, became very good for a while, but ultimately died an earlier than necessary death. It would seem that Horizon 4 was still viable up until about last week, so chances are this one will stick around for a while. God damn, I love Game Pass! I'm not even bothered about the "£35 to play now" version, although can see why some find it scummy.

 

I started this downloading last night, hopefully it's ready to play by now, as this is probably all I'll play today. Gamertag is CheekyLeeTV, and I would like to be considered as a member of the club/guild/thing. However, if there are strict limits on number of members I'll not be upset if someone who will be more active than me gets a slot instead. I just want some leaderboards to come "not last" on. 

[Stanley]

It’s quite comfortably the second best game released this year, so far. 

[MattyP]

9 hours ago, TehStu said:

The Goliath road race was just amazing, I need to go back and do that again (perhaps as the seasons vary). It's made me realize that as much as I liked the idea of hooning it about the UK, it doesn't make for much of a varied map, unfortunately. It does make me wonder how the holy grail of Forza Horizon Japan that we all want would work.

Have to agree. As much as wanted Japan to be the next location don't think there is enough diversity there and perhaps after the initial blast around it would become a bit boring ?!

 

Mexico on reflection is a great choice - plenty of elevation changes and places to have fun around. Really enjoying blasting around the off road sections and the diversity of landscape is great. Something for everyone in here.

[womblingfree]

I mean, this is excellent, but the awfulness of the character selections and their voices is beyond belief.

[Eighthours]

I hope that Fable has better lipsync than this. It's practically non-existent in the cutscenes, like they couldn't be bothered.

 

Everything else about this game is AMAZING.

[Gotters]

Anybody complaining about the cut scenes in this should grab the Riders Republic demo if it still exists and play the first hour or so.

 

This is fucking Shakespearian in comparison and you'll never moan again after experiencing the constant interruptions and drivel from the Ubisoft game. 

[Boothjan]

My biggest issue with this is the lack of facial hair for your custom character.  I can't be doing with beardist behaviour in the year 2021.  

 

Get it sorted, Playground.

 

(Otherwise I'm having a blast).

[Siri]

2 hours ago, moosegrinder said:

Guess which colossal dickhead didn't set this going overnight? 

 

Oh well, only 99gb to go.

On the bright side, you're not the dickhead who downloaded it throughout the evening, and then had to turn off the PC once the download was done so he could go to sleep for work tomorrow. At Midnight. When the game is unlocked 

I did try it this morning though, and good fucking god, Mexico as a location is so pretty during the initial introduction with the Extreme preset. I did run into some Low Streaming Bandwidth problems, though - game simply isn't getting the road rendered quick enough, so I'll either have to stick it on a faster drive (very likely the culprit) or update the drivers on the graphics card so it knows what to do via Game Ready drivers, I guess. I'll figure it out before I'm unfortunately stuck indoors with this and a certain Switch game!

[jonathanhoey]

12 hours ago, scoobysi said:

I don’t have assists on, sim steering, no TC or stability.

 

12 hours ago, footle said:

Sim steering will be shit on controller.

To be fair, simulation steering is pretty bad with a wheel too.* Standard is fine.
 

 

 

 

*I haven’t tried it in FH5 but it was the case in FH4 and FM7, and I’m assuming it’s the same engine.

 

 

[Meers]

1 minute ago, jonathanhoey said:

To be fair, simulation steering is pretty bad with a wheel too.* Standard is fine.
 

*I haven’t tried it in FH5 but it was the case in FH4 and FM7, and I’m assuming it’s the same engine.

 

Indeed, it had nothing to do with simulation. Hopefully we can test it properly after it's been patched for the Fanatec wheels. @davejm confirmed it feels great, but it crashes after a while. No idee if he used normal of sim steering though.

[davejm]

11 minutes ago, Meers said:

 

Indeed, it had nothing to do with simulation. Hopefully we can test it properly after it's been patched for the Fanatec wheels. @davejm confirmed it feels great, but it crashes after a while. No idee if he used normal of sim steering though.

 

Simulator steering.

[Quest]

This is wonderful. Just the clarity of everything is really striking and makes it much easier to judge upcoming turns. I think Shimmyhill is right, though, that it's the sound that's made the biggest impression coming from FH3 and 4. Feels like a big step up in terms of engine sound variety and environmental sounds. 

 

Some questions: 

 

- No Lancia? 

- I haven't seen any of the scenic spots on the map - are they gone? Obviously there are still scenic spots but I haven't seen any as mission markers where you get the nice camera sweep.

 

 

[MattyP]

40 minutes ago, womblingfree said:

I mean, this is excellent, but the awfulness of the character selections and their voices is beyond belief.

I think they would have been awful no matter how they tried not to make them. I'm guessing it isn't Playgrounds idea to have them in there somehow...  

[PikaStu]

Pros so far:

Runs amazing and (mostly) looks fantastic.

Bald avatar choice is available!

 

Cons so far:

Voice acting, particularly my character.

Lack of facial hair.

Despite everything being on Ultra setting, reflections draw in about 2ft in front of my car?!

DLSS would’ve been nice, would’ve allowed me to set everything to extreme. 

 

The biggest one for me though… the cutscenes are in 21:9 and I’m running the game in 21:9, so why can’t they zoom in so the video fills the screen?! Surely it’s not that hard to implement?! (Says the guy with no programming experience at all!)

 

Edit: I believe there’s no Abarth 595 either. I loved them in the previous games. Had one in real life for a couple of years and it was a hoot!

[MattyP]

6 minutes ago, Quest said:

- No Lancia? 

 

No Alfas either I noticed. Probably didn't license them this time.