Forza Horizon 5 – The Current Peak Of Racing Video Games

A lot of us have played some form or another of car racing video games when we were children. Whether it was the iconic ‘Road Rash’ or the stupendously popular ‘Need For Speed: Most Wanted’. The feeling of even virtually being able to drive a wide variety of cars at incredible speeds on a computer or laptop is in my opinion one of the purest and most simple pleasures out there. When I would get back from school, often me and my friends would sit at one of our homes and play Need For Speed to see who could get the best score in a race, before eventually going downstairs and then playing hide and seek or something. The beauty of these original computer games was that you didn’t even need an especially powerful computer to run them, they used to work brilliantly on pretty much anything. I remember happily playing Most Wanted on an Acer laptop with 2GB RAM and an Intel Celeron processor, an absolute dinosaur compared to the sleek machines available today. However that was a long time ago and a lot has happened in the virtual car racing space since then.

 

 

The year is 2022, the power of processing chips and the visual capabilities of graphic cards is at its peak and because of this, realism in video games is skyrocketing. You can no longer run games on any device and get the best out of them which might seem like a shame to some but there’s an extremely bright light at the opposite end of this tunnel. Provided you have a decent enough device (console, PC, laptop etc.), you will be able to get an absolutely terrific experience from these new age video games and if you step it up a notch in terms of the hardware you’re using and get your hands on flagship components or consoles, the graphics on screen become darn near photorealistic and the attention to detail in every single nook and corner of your screen absolutely baffles the mind the first time you boot up a game.

Forza Horizon 5 is currently at the top of the racing video game food chain. The Forza series of video games has always been impressive and each Forza game that has come out has general topped that year’s standard for gameplay and graphic levels and this year is no exception. Horizon 5 is situated in Mexico and is an absolutely magnificent experience from the player’s point of view.

 

There is an extreme variety of cars which can be driven each of which features an obsessive attention to detail. From an appearance point of view, the exteriors feature exquisite and perfectly executed paint finishes, detailing identical to the actual cars and even the same interior with outstanding precision in case anyone wants to play in 1st person perspective cockpit mode. On top of this all cars can be customised with an infinite number of available paint colours, materials and finishes as well as parts like custom rims and spoilers to truly make your ride unique. However where things really start to get impressive here is in the driving physics of each vehicle. Each vehicle drives differently in the real world and in Forza this variety has been replicated extremely closely to how the vehicle would respond according to what sort of accelerating, braking or steering input it has been given had it been in the real world. They didn’t stop there though, Horizon 5 is on another level here because the driving physics adapt according to surface variation perfectly and even completely change if you decide to swap a mechanical car part; yes you can do that as well. You can change the engine, the drivetrain, the gearbox ratios and the gearbox itself among other things and the entire way the car feels and handles in game will be replicated extremely closely to reality.

 

 

There’s absolutely beautiful locations to race in as well as exciting out of the box campaigns and missions which break the stereotypes for generic racing video games and make Horizon 5 a much more rounded and complete experience. In multiplayer mode you can race with your friends in real time as well or if you want to you can cruise across the scenic roads together as well.

 

Forza Horizon 5 is the current benchmark of racing video games and is a must experience title for anyone who enjoys the world of virtual racing. As for those who aren’t into car gaming, if this doesn’t get you interested, I don’t know what will.