The Forza Horizon games get a lot of love, and I can see why. It's a game series that really combined all of the racing game trends of the time into a well polished and fun package. You have a big detailed open world map, beautiful graphics, lots of cars and upgrade options and interesting online modes. It's really like an updated version of the Test Drive games for the mass market. There is so much to do in this game. Now this may be great for some people, but it felt a bit bloated for me. There are the collectables, finding new vehicles and smashing through boards. You have skill tasks and jumps. There are the speed traps that you need to drive through as quickly as you can. These all add to the bulk of the game and can make free-roaming around the beautiful map fun if you are into that type of thing. The races themselves are fine, they do their job, but one major issue I have is that the game wants you to complete each race multiple times with different car types. Of course, these are optional, it is just one of the ways that game goes down the "more is better" route. Now, I'm not a huge fan of open world racing, as I think specifically designed tracks and more fun to race on. This issue persists in this game a little, but the decent controls and other racers AI did keep it enjoyable. In this regard it is one of the better open world racing games in terms of the actual racing. It's probably a case of a good game, which is just not for me. I don't care about a clustered map full with collectables, we get enough of that from Ubisoft games. I also am not a fan of the Mid 2010s edgy banter and festival design. I don't love a lot of the features of modern racers with its open world races, rewinds and style points. However, if you do like these things, this is a great game and a pretty decent sequel to the first one on the console, without really changing much. In terms of pure racing, it's pretty fun and better than a lot of racers on the console, and I can recommend it based on that. I do still think its a bit vapid though.