when all your vn has going for it is "queer"

couldn't get into this, the writing is below amateurish yet dense, self indulgent and lifeless. the art is ugly yet very scarce. what's worse is the setting justifies it having the blandest ambient soundtrack known by man

feels aimed towards confused teenagers who only read smut webcomics on tumblr and haven't picked a romance novel in their lives while still pretending to be above what it really is. the vn at its core is fanfiction tier and sadly the presentation is nowhere near good enough to give it a pass out of the audiovisual experience alone

After some time playing through the game I realized it would never get better.

FH5 is the final GaaSification of the Horizon formula. Just an endless tangle of player retention mechanics crawling over each other in the form of weekly, daily and seasonal tasks, missable cars, an ever present roulette spin for every time you level up, car-specific XP rewards, forzathon points grind, and probably more I'm just missing. Everything fits together and creates a system to keep the player paying for Gamepass, and just goes to show how much harm this business model could do to the quality of AAA launches.

The story is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I've ever put up with, and a lot of it is non-skippable at that. T10 really went all out to show what it thinks about the player with its cringe, corporate, safe, lifeless dialog, filled with non-characters that are borderline racist caricatures and just won't shut up (Trust me, I tried. The character voice volume slider doesn't even work).

Story events are a huge pain to go through and what's worse is they aren't even fun on their own. Exhibition events got way too big and they're just lifeless and goofy scripted 5 minute stretches at this point. There was a moment of realization when I played the monster truck event where you have to knock some giant bowling pins where it struck me, there's no more denying to it, the target audience's age for the game went down at least 10 years since FH1.

The game perfected the physics and the driving sensations, now enhanced by the vibrating triggers on the Series S/X. That's a big plus and something really solid in the game. There's a big amount of cars (even if the DLC is prohibitely expensive) and despite the absence of a few big brands, it's generally a good job even if some of the models are now generations old. That said, there's a lot of customization options on each car and seeing a lot of them have special body kits now is quite good and allows for a lot of player expression.

However as it comes to the racing itself, it's a game where nothing matters anymore. Railings, trees, stone walls, doesn't matter, the car will just destroy it and carry on. There isn't even almost any traffic at all unless you select a specific offline mode. It is a frustration free package, races are extremely short and rarely ever go past the 3 laps. No thought required, no learning curve of any sort while offline. Online is just rolling the meta car with the meta tune and trying not to get punted out of the track.

Visually the game looks really, really good. Really blows me away at times, it also makes a great use of the console's SSD, making fast travel almost instant.

There are also a lot of bugs in the game. I remember playing it a month or two after release and being unable to fast travel and then drive. The controller would stop responding in game requiring a restart. The text-to-speech would also activate on the main menu screen and the option to turn it off wouldn't work. This still happens.

There are a lot of legacy issues coming straight from FH4 and FH3 even. Namely the auction house still being broken. The controller remap menu still being pretty much useless and even some cars being listed as barn finds (but actually aren't) because apparently they forgot changing that from one of the previous games where they actually were barn finds.

The music choices were interesting. Overall I'm not a fan of it but I took a couple songs for my personal playlists. Listening to the radio stations absolutely butcher already tame songs to fit that E for Everyone rating was some sort of salt on the wound when you pair it with the literal Fortnite dances, the goofy character costumes and the hypercars doing off road, cartoonish stunts to an announcer calling your avatar a superstar in spanglish.

Overall I'm just really unimpressed with the game. I consider it one of the most disgusting things I've ever played and a biopsy of the cancer that eats away the AAA sector. The actual one with the 10/10s, not the latest EA flop people will bash anyways.

Remake filled with small changes that kill many things that made the original feel special. Graphics look really nice and the game performs well but gone are the original color palette and some iconic visual effects of the original. New character models are more realistic but less expressive. The default control scheme is changed into a more modern one yet the physics and camera are way clunkier than the original. Voice and audio work is far inferior as well, particularly Dormin's echoing voice lacking any sort of mysticism. The saving system being changed into the current day auto save standard in AAA games just absolutely obliterates any sense of place and adventure that the shrines provided.
No additions that would have made it an objective improvement (including cut colossi for example or extra content) were added and we got time-wasting collectibles, a photo mode and filters instead.
Hope this remake isn't the way SOTC will be remembered, and it makes me think twice about taking the convenient route and playing the demon's souls remake instead of the original

Yet another iteration of the ubi formula, capturing fortresses is just fun enough, but said fun gets absolutely obliterated once the actual mandatory story missions get in the picture.

This game features some of the most obnoxious characters I've seen in a video game, coupled with unskippable cutscenes, annoying checkpoints and really boring and predictable missions. The story is honestly a slog and it just keeps padding itself with missions that serve as a time wasting hindrance until the player regains control.

And when that control is back there's not that much to do either. Once the same hunting and outpost capturing motions from Far Cry 3 are seen and done, all that's left is a dead open world full of little annoyances that serve no purpose and remind you you were just checking boxes all along.

One of those racing games that seem good on first glance but once you get past the first 2 races they're plagued with issues, it's like the tracks weren't designed with these cars' handling in mind

If I had to define this game with a single word it would be "Inconsistent". The handling is inconsistent and awkward, the way vehicles react to ramps is inconsistent and deters you from actually using them, AI behavior and difficulty are inconsistent and your race essentially depends on AI deciding whether to fire a rocket at you or not, powerups are inconsistent and they will just randomly decide not to lock on enemies at the worst moment.

This game just doesn't feel good enough, it is wasted potential that feels misguided, misdesigned and never fully exploits its premise.

to me, video games are technology at the service of entertainment. this game excels at that. criterion and ea at the height of their powers drop this absolute bombshell, their very own commercial engine - renderware (persona 4, gta3), displaying beautiful landscapes, cars that deform in real time at perfect 60 fps even on ps2, only to reassert their dominance the following year with 'black'
gameplay is incredibly tight, every race is just so fun it leaves you wanting more, cars physics are on point for the kind of game it is and the speeding sensations, along with the sound design keeps you on the edge of your seat all the time. It's a very addictive video game and feels like a straight evolution of the racing arcade genre into a format made for home consoles, with its own hooks to keep you from boredom
the soundtrack is a very divisive part but personally i've grown to like it, perhaps because it's rather difficult to ignore. I always turn off the annoying DJ however
as for the car selection I love how it's divided in classes where the models are different (unlike revenge, for example), and i like how they're directly referential of their real life counterparts (say, indy racing, f1 or gt1 models). there are subtle but noticeable differences between each model within the same category
the only real downside i can think of the game is there not being enough tracks, there are just 3 regions that are pretty much 3 large tracks that are cut down into smaller circuits. I feel it's not enough and after playing it for so long i just wish there was more to it. read somewhere the game was developed and released in just under a year, so guess that's a consequence of it
as a footnote, the crash mode is decently fun and i like how its kept separate from the racing modes and neither bars you from each others progression (actually my first time i only played crash mode), and some of the takedown trophies required for 100% are an absolute pain in the ass i dont want go through ever do again
so yeah there isnt much i cant say that hasn't been said yet, i really love this game and think it's an absolute masterpiece, easily one of the best racing games ever made if not one of the best games in general, i hope the people who worked on it are proud of their work, it's just that good

"Gentlemen, I do not believe a lady on Earth would be able to resist us now."

Replayed it for the first time in many years.
The story is embarrassing and cringe, the battles are massive and the objective-based mission structure actually allows you to plan your loadout. Very straightforward and arcadey but also with a more realistic touch thanks to the gloomy environment and planes that have more weight than those in 7.
Both gun and air to ground weapons are grossly OP giving it a very fun core gameplay despite the forgettable missions.
Replaying a 2007 game and seeing it have essentially the same ideas as 7 (2019) minus a few improvements on the newer release (and to be fair, 6 is already very similar to the previous releases) gives some hindsight on how creatively bankrupt the franchise as a whole is, but despite that I'll probably be first in line for the next game.