3.5/5 ★ – mrtestarossa's review of Forza Horizon 5.

good, but not perfect by a wide margin. when i first saw that the series would head into my home country of mexico for its fifth installment, i was delighted with joy and excitement, and its rightfully justified. buildings have water tanks or "tinacos" on the roofs, there are destructible street vendor carts lining the city streets, multiple archeological sites and even unfinished brick walls with steel frames poking out of them. everything seems to be captured with immense detail and love for the country's wild and rich environments. yet after the 10 hours or so it takes to complete the main campaign, everything feels so lifeless and vanilla. the map is barren most of the time, no matter how many live "arcade" events it has going on at the same time and the multiple festival hubs it has. the only reason i've seemed to return to this game is to do the few weekly challenges to unlock one of the many cars they've added post launch, and even these range in various degrees of quality. from recycled cars that were cut from the last game to much requested fan favorite additions. the devs claim they brought in a consultant for all the dialogue and cultural representation in the game, but it all sounds like it was written by a guy who just assumed that all mexican people speak poorly worded spanglish all the time. the game can't go on for 5 minutes without calling you a superstar and how someone needs help fixing their abuelo's old vocho. on the flipside, this game has one of the most varied and largest car lists out of any other racing game i've seen. granted, some of these models lack key details or proportions (please fix the s15 silvia, its been ages), the customization parts for most of them consist of ugly generic spoilers and splitters that have been in the franchise since the start of the xbox one era, or the sound might not be completely right, but there is something pretty much for everyone. at the end of the day, if playground games' mission was to turn gamers into car guys and car guys into gamers, they've succeeded. the game is most fun when cruising with friends or beating them in rivals leaderboards. there isn't really a current game that comes this close to making racing your dream car across a beautiiful backdrop this amounts of fun, and the easy access through game pass and the countless accessibility options now make it easier than ever. but i just wish this game went the extra mile and had more of a proper identity and edge that made the first game back in 2012 one of my favorite games of all time. i'm excited to see where this franchise goes to in the future, with the upcoming forza motorsport reboot utilizing a new engine and the power of the new xbox consoles, we should hopefully be in for a treat.