I've enjoyed the Forza Horizon games since their inception back in 2012, but my enjoyment peaked with FH4. Obviously, I'm biased in so much as the game is set in the UK, so I feel a certain affinity for the location. That aside, FH4 is one of the best racing games ever made, and is arguably one of the best games ever made, of any genre. So you can likely understand that I approached FH5 with a great deal of anticipation.

My initial impressions of the game were very good. I mean, it's more of the same. What more could I possibly want from this game, I pondered. Initially? Nothing. I was content with everything the game had to offer me, because, "it's more of the same". I'm now at around 80 hours deep into the game, and "more of the same" just isn't good enough.

This isn't to say that FH5 isn't a great game. In a vacuum, it's easily a solid 9/9.5 out of 10 game. It looks beautiful, the driving is smooth and satisfying, it's wonderfully optimised and an absolute blast with friends. The amount of content is vast, covering a wide range of driving styles. I don't know of a single other racing game that lets you drift a Supra up the side of a volcano, switch to a Jeep to throw off the side of a cliff, then jump in a Ferrari to speed along open roads. The races are varied, there's plenty of different surfaces to race on, the side content presents a consistent challenge and this is all supported by a wide range of custom event options.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the vast amount of cars in the game. There's something to suit every driving style. Yes, there are meta cars, most notably the Koenigsegg Jesko for pure straight line speed, or the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento for that perfect balance of speed and handling. Or you can just slap a load of upgrades on a Datsun and call it a day. Personally, I've been having the most fun drifting in a Supra with a Gawr Gura livery (a Gawr Gupra, if you will).

The livery editor is also back, and as robust as ever. l can never get to grips with it myself, but I will always marvel at the talent involved in making the liveries, especially the anime themed ones. It should be noted here that people have reported bans for sharing "offensive" liveries. In many cases, this is probably justified, but there are suggestions that the bars and moderation are somewhat heavy-handed. I can't comment on this, as I only have one side of the story.

Obviously, there's a lot to praise. Which means it's a shame that the game has many shortcomings. Yes, some of these are bugs which will hopefully be patched out, but it's amazing that some of them made it into the game. I'm willing to overlook many of these, as they're either very situational or just not annoying enough to worry about. Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty that can't be ignored.

A good number of the accolades are just entirely broken at this point in time. Admittedly, a lot of the accolades just push a meaningless number higher, but this doesn't excuse them not working. Obviously, without insider knowledge, I can't say who is to blame here, but I'd be surprised if QA hadn't picked up on this. Again though, these will likely be patched in the weeks to come.

Another issue exists within the livery editor search function. During the lifespan of FH4, changes were made to the search function which broke it in a small, yet very frustrating way. The search would no longer default to "current car", but would instead default to whatever the last car you searched for a livery for happened to be. This occurred even if you initially selected "current car". So if you change cars frequently, having to scroll to the correct car or to "current car" each time gets a little annoying after a while. As I said, this first happened during FH4. It's still present in FH5. I refuse to believe this is an oversight.

Drift zones are another issue. Is drifting fun? Yes, absolutely. Are drift zones fun? No, not really. Drift zones are less about who can pull off long, stylish drifts and more about who can slide their car from side to side at speed. It's a change from FH4, and certainly not one for the better.

As previously stated, the game has a lot of content. Which is great, but a lot of it falls into the trap of being as deep as a puddle. There's only so many times you can repeat the same speed zones before they become dull. Horizon stories are one and done. There's no point repeating any of them once you've got 3 stars. The same goes for showcase events and expeditions. Sure, they look cool, but they serve little purpose beyond driving the story forward. Oh, and they're rubberbanded to fuck, but that's expected by now.

Super 7 is a very interesting idea, but it feels half-baked. There's a lot of work for relatively little reward, and the events have seemed quite poorly curated in my experience so far. Many seem to have been invented for an "easy" win. All well and good, but when the prize is a wheelspin, it feels like a bit of a letdown.

To go further into the reward system in game, I found it somewhat hit and miss. The game absolutely chucks rewards at you in various forms, from credits right up to rare vehicles, and everything in between. It's great to get so much given, and I'm certainly not in the camp of wanting certain vehicles gated in the name of progression. This, I feel would be against the ethos/vibe of the game. However, it can sometimes feel like the reward doesn't fit the effort. I've mentioned this already in relation to Super 7, but it's no more evident than with The Eliminator, where the prize for winning is a Mini. Not even a special Mini, just the same Mini available to purchase with credits.

Horizon Arcade. It's horrendously broken. You frequently find yourself trying to complete it solo, but the requirements never scale to reflect this. It is just an exercise in futility. (whilst writing this review, an update has been released that addresses this issue. I've not yet had a chance to play after this has taken effect.)

For me though, the real issue is that FH5 just makes me want to play FH4. I mean, there's little difference beyond a bunch of mediocre new ideas and a terrible story where you are the absolute best driver ever. Oh, and because we find ourselves in a non-english speaking country, all the dialogue is now in wonderful "English but random words are in Spanish", and it's just as grating as you expect. "Vocho", anyone?

In summary, I don't know what the future holds for FH5, but I hope the issues are addressed, because "more of the same" isn't going to be good enough next time.

I never know quite where to begin when speaking about Destiny. It is a notoriously polarising game, and one that's very difficult to defend due to this. I mean, I have well over 5,000 hours in game, and I'm still not sure if my 4-star rating is too generous.

I'd avoided Destiny quite deliberately after release, owing to the negative reception. I mean, sure, the game looked great, but launch Destiny just didn't have all that much game.

I joined in shortly before the release of The Taken King, on the recommendation of a friend who'd gotten into the game, and reckoned it was something we could play as a group. So, we waited a little for the game to go on sale, and dove in. Honestly, my first impressions weren't all that good. I'd started playing solo in order to catch up with where my friend was at the time, and I just wasn't feeling it. Like, sure, the game was fine, but it was only fine.

Where Destiny shone for me was playing with others. We were by no means the best at the game, but we had tons of fun with it. Be it slogging out matches in Iron Banner, or running Crota's End for the umpteenth time, we were having a blast.

Then The Taken King released. In my opinion, TTK saved Destiny. It is without doubt the best expansion across both Destiny games, and arguably one of the best expansions across any video game. It added an astounding amount of content, more than we could keep up with. Unfortunately, real life events meant I'd lose contact with those friends, but I couldn't stop playing Destiny. Maybe I was in too deep, but honestly, I kinda enjoyed it. It made me do something I'd never done before. I sought out a new group of people to play with, and my affair with the game continued.

This group gave me some of my fondest memories in all of gaming. Making it through Kings Fall challenge mode was something I never thought I'd do, but with these guys, it happened. Sure, they had to be patient whilst I messed up the Tomb Ship jumping puzzle again and again, but they never quit on me.

We moved through TTK and on to Rise of Iron. RoI brought with it Wrath of the Machine. This is where I really shone, and where a lot of my Destiny play time ended up. I'd finally found a game where I was good enough to help others through difficult content, rather than being the one who needed the carry. Along with a particularly angry Scot, I became a sort of guide for WotM. I couldn't tell you how many people I helped through it, but I can tell you that every single time, it gave me this sense of immense joy.

So, is Destiny a four-star game? No. Destiny is a four-star part of my life.