Forza Horizon 5

[Matt2000]

I have no idea if anyone else still plays Forza on here and to be fair I wasn't keeping track of the release schedule. I saw that it was releasing today for 'Premium' package buyers so I pre-ordered on Steam. I always buy the premium pack because I know I will want the expansions and it ultimately saves me money.

For better or worse the festival is now in Mexico! Lots of people were hoping for Japan and mount Fuji but maybe that's the next destination.

I downloaded the game last night and just gave it a go during my lunch break. I played through the introduction race and then the game crashed, losing my progress. Great start.

 

[Matt2000]

Game has a few bugs.

 

[Matt2000]

What's more fun than playing a game properly? Finding the bugs and funny situations, of course!

 

[73GMCSprint]

I'll definitely be getting it. At the moment I'm utterly swamped with work so I might as well wait and see if they have a black friday special before I buy it.

 

[ahpadt]

You guys wanna make an FG club?

 

[Matt2000]

I'd join. I think the last time we had the FG club was in Horizon 2.

Edit: Just remembered something. While racing against Drivatards I still see Viper's tag show up fairly regularly, however yesterday I saw another online player with a tag starting in Viper007. Strange because there's no connection between a Viper and 007.

 

[Matt2000]

So far, my report of this game is that it's incredibly needy and still quite buggy. You can't do much with the game nagging you to do something else and the entire UI failed to load in one race, among other bugs and glitches.

 

[93Flareside]

I hardly played Horizon 4 TBH. I liked it, but couldn't get the driving mechanics figured out that well. It felt like the game was forcing you to use a wheel and shit and for the past year or so, I am not in the position to invest in such a thing. I liked the graphics.

 

[Matt2000]

Yeah it's not for everyone, Horizon driving mechanics are very different from Forza Motorsport too.

I haven't played it much in the last week or so but I did get some photos. it's nice to have a car that I can apply decals to the lights of again. It may have been the case in Horizon 4 but I didn't realise.

 

[TechZ]

I started with Forza Horizon 4 and got totally sucked in. Started 5 a few weeks ago and I can't believe they still don't allow you to skip cut scenes and haven't figured out how to set the volume levels at the splash screen based on your settings, i.e. I don't want to go deaf. Besides that, Mexico was a really good choice!

 

[Vette Boss]

Horizon 5 still has a load of bugs that need to be sorted, even on my modern PC, it is laggy and will sometimes freeze or crash. This PC is rock solid on everything else. When the game works, it's mostly enjoyable and the scenery is great, although the story bits are quite childish.

 

[TechZ]

Horizon 5 still has a load of bugs that need to be sorted, even on my modern PC, it is laggy and will sometimes freeze or crash. This PC is rock solid on everything else. When the game works, it's mostly enjoyable and the scenery is great, although the story bits are quite childish.

Every time there's a big scene change, i.e. all the time with the toggling between your "Home" and such, I worry its going to crash/lock-up my PC.
I appreciate its a ton of texture and such to load, but they've made it a bit unencessarily complex (not to mention the needless cut-scenes and animations which you can't turn off) need to be toned down in favour of stability. This isn't their first game so its disappointing they haven't perfected this yet. Sadly, this sort of fluff sells and that's what the gamer kids want.

 

[Matt2000]

Every time there's a big scene change, i.e. all the time with the toggling between your "Home" and such, I worry its going to crash/lock-up my PC.
I appreciate its a ton of texture and such to load, but they've made it a bit unencessarily complex (not to mention the needless cut-scenes and animations which you can't turn off) need to be toned down in favour of stability. This isn't their first game so its disappointing they haven't perfected this yet. Sadly, this sort of fluff sells and that's what the gamer kids want.

I've seen this since one of their major updates, yes it worries me every time too but I don't remember it properly crashing.

I've been playing more Horizon 4 recently, after watching the Land Rover episode of Guy's Garage I wanted to make my own course in that style. Mexico just lacks the terrain for it so I went back to the UK.

I'm surprised at how little I want to play Horizon 5 now, it may be because the online elements just didn't work properly and I still get disconnected if I try to play online. I think they would've been better with the idea of setting it in Japan.

 

[TechZ]

Anyone have personal recommendations for which steering wheel/pedals combo works well with FH? Looking for something basic, no shifter necessary.

 

[73GMCSprint]

Welp. I'd play it if I could. It crashes every time at the legal/copyright screen, no matter what I do. The only thing I haven't tried yet is reinstalling Windows, and that simply isn't an option right now.

 

[TechZ]

Welp. I'd play it if I could. It crashes every time at the legal/copyright screen, no matter what I do. The only thing I haven't tried yet is reinstalling Windows, and that simply isn't an option right now.

You could also try a reinstall of DirectX and Visual C++ Runtimes (TPU has a nice pack: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/). After that reboot and then let Windows Update grab any newer updates to Visual C++ before loading the game.
There's also the usual fix which is grabbing the latest GPU drivers for your card and re-installing the game.

 

[Matt2000]

It works for me but I just don't see a reason to play it, it completely lacking anything that kept my playing the previous games for 6+ months after release. The game pushes you so hard to complete the festival 'stories' and then you're just left with a bunch of boring side missions and races against the wonky AI. If I ever hear 'Vocho' again I'll scream.

The old games probably had this same arc, although I can't remember them getting old quite this fast. Horizon 4 took me quite some time to 'complete' and I think I could still go back to Horizon 3 and progress on festival upgrades. Maybe it was the bugs that put me off, the last time I ran it I couldn't retrieve Car Pass cars that should have unlocked.

Anyone have personal recommendations for which steering wheel/pedals combo works well with FH? Looking for something basic, no shifter necessary.

I missed this, I can only point to whatever Logitech is making now and say 'buy that'. They have always made good wheels that work well with PC and consoles. Looks like its the G920.

 

[73GMCSprint]

You could also try a reinstall of DirectX and Visual C++ Runtimes (TPU has a nice pack: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/). After that reboot and then let Windows Update grab any newer updates to Visual C++ before loading the game.
There's also the usual fix which is grabbing the latest GPU drivers for your card and re-installing the game.

Like I said, I've tried everything I came across, short of reinstalling Windows.

I've been wanting to reinstall Windows for a while; it's given itself some gremlins that need ousting. I just won't have time to do it for a while.

 

[73GMCSprint]

And many moons later I finally had time to do a clean reinstall of Windows.

Horizon 5 now works fine. I have a bit of catch-up to do. So far it runs well. The physics are a little different from 4, so that's taking some getting used to. The graphics look great, and I've already noticed some car sounds have been updated for the better (such as the CTS-V).

 

[awdrifter]

Just got Game Pass and I've started playing FH5, it's very fun so far. The handling is very arcady, but it's intuitive and predictable, much better than NFS Heat (another arcade racer that I've played recently).