Recent reviews by a large pie

Seriously fun, especially for an early access game. I've been waiting for years to have a fun arcade-y racer again and this feels like salvation after being sorely disappointed by TDU Solar Crown and blueballed by the agonizingly slow updates for Night Runners. Mind you, I've never played a TXR game before now, and have had basically no exposure to the franchise, so I'm very out of the loop on how the older games handled things.

Things I like:

- The customization. I lived in near Tokyo for about 6 years, and the tuner cars you'd see in that region of Japan would be set up in pretty much the same way you'd see here. I would like to see more options for customization, particularly in the wheels department, but I really like the direction the game takes with it.

- The gameplay is very simple, but very fun. Sometimes I think the highway battles can be a little too one sided at times, but when you have an evenly matched race, it can be properly intense.

- The map is very detailed and very well made, if a touch small. Frankly, it feels smaller than it actually is, which I'll touch on further down.

- The car selection is a pretty good representation of the tuner cars you'd see in Japan, particularly the smaller cars like the Suzuki Swift. I would like to see a more fleshed out car list with stuff like the Toyota MR2, Nissan Laurel (biased because I had one in Japan), and Mazda/Eunos Cosmo (also biased because I had one), and perhaps some non-Japanese cars that you might see on the highways in Japan, like the BMW M3 and the Porsche 911. I do love that sedans are included, though, with the Toyota Chaser and Crown Athlete making features in this game.


Things I'm not so fond of:

- The soundtrack just doesn't do it for me. Part of it is because the soundtrack in the game as of now is very repetitive and doesn't have a whole lot of variation, and part of it is just my music tastes. Transplant the soundtrack from WMMT or Night Runners into this game and it would go from an A to an S+ in my book.

- The car sounds aren't really all that good, and the pitch changes depending on which camera angle you're using. I don't get why hood cam is much higher pitched than bumper cam.

- The handling model is a bit confounding. The cars tend to be very grippy and forgiving, which would almost bring me to recommend this game for someone who's never played a racing game before, but the initial snap with steering input is very strong and difficult to get used to. (I am aware there's been an update to this, but I haven't played since the update came out. I'll update this review once I get a feel for it)

- Kind of a side piece, but with the car selection, you'll notice there is not a single Honda in the game. I have a feeling it's because Honda doesn't want to get involved with a game about street racing (which is also why you didn't see any Hondas in the 2005 Need for Speed Most Wanted), but it really is a shame they're not in the game. I'd love to have an original NSX or an S2000 in the game.


Things I really don't like:

- The difficulty curve can be absolutely ridiculous at times. Some of the bosses, including major bosses, are almost insultingly easy, even while you're very underleveled, while other bosses are nearly impossible to beat fairly, even with every upgrade you can get your hands on.

- Touching on the map bit again, I love how detailed it is. What I don't love is how there are no turnaround points at all. There's no fast travel system (and frankly I think the game is better off for it), but if you're driving southbound and you happen to pass your rival who's driving northbound, you're kinda SOL if you don't want to retreat to the garage and re-enter the world. Even if it's just something like taking an off-ramp and rejoining the highway in the other direction, that'd be an improvement over driving for 15 to 20 actual minutes to plot a route to intercept the last guy you need to beat. God help you if you're on the Bayshore route or the Haneda line.

- The camera angles aren't to my liking. Bumper cam and hood cam are fine (especially with the update adding the rearview mirror to the hood cam), but the two chase cams are extremely stiff and rigid, and they're a bit disorienting to use. Also, I'm not sure if it's in the cards, but a cockpit cam would absolutely rip.


My gripes about this game didn't detract from me having fun at all. I think this game is absolutely worth the $30 asking price, and you'd be remiss if you didn't try it out.

This game was so close to being great, but the myriad of technical issues means it just barely misses the mark. In its current state, I can't recommend buying it, though further updates could change that.

Things I like:

- The map is very detailed and very fun to drive on, unlike some other games starting with "F" and ending with "orza Horizon 5". I don't feel a need to fast travel anywhere, even though that option is presented to you basically from the start of the game.
- There's a very fun game underneath the mess of bugs and poor optimization, though the level of fun you derive from this is dependent on your level of patience. It's a bit like Cyberpunk, albeit not as hilariously unstable.
- The handling model is (kinda) decent, certainly better than Need for Speed as of late.
- The art style is very pleasant to look at and gives the environments plenty of life

Things I don't like:

- The soundtrack is absolutely not befitting a racing game. Nearly every track I've heard in the races hits like lukewarm tap water, and you can not change the song mid-race. It's like going to a metal concert where Imagine Dragons is headlining.
- The balance between the early game cars is hilarious. The Audi TT RS is your god now.
- The acting is really bad, though it was also really bad in the other TDU games. It almost adds to the game's character.
- The cars' sound design on the exterior views is great, but the interior sounds are flat and boring.
- Speaking of sound design, all of the other cars in your race can be heard at all times, no matter how far ahead of them you are. It's very annoying, like a fly buzzing in your ear. When the other cars are close, they're so loud that they almost completely drown out your car.
- There seems to be a lot of features in other arcade-y style racing games that this game doesn't have. For instance, you can't change the AI difficulty, which makes some races comically easy, while others are nigh impossible to win. You also can't restart mid-race, you have to either abandon the race completely and start from scratch, or finish the race and restart from the post-race menu.
- The library of cars seems a bit lacking. TDU's never had a giant library like the Forza games, but I can't help but feel like something's missing.
- This game starts at $50. Certainly not bad given the current state of the industry, but the polish on this game doesn't exactly reflect the price as of right now.

Things I REALLY don't like:

- This game's optimization is absolutely horrendous. I'm using an i9 with a 4080, and to get any decent framerates, this game has to run on LOW. Even on medium, I'm lucky to hit 60 FPS. From medium to ultra, performance is roughly the same on my computer, though they're all bad enough to where I'd just rather play on low.
- There is no offline mode. Always online games can go straight to hell.

Overall, the majority of the issues can be fixed with updates and patches (even if it shouldn't have needed post-release patches to begin with). It's far from an egregiously bad insult to the fanbase like the latest Forza, but it's certainly not where it should be either. In its current state, I don't recommend buying it for full price. If you can get it on sale or as a gift, give it a whirl, you'll probably like it. As for the patches this game needs, we'll just have to wait and see.

Very fun game, but be prepared for very long queuing periods

I hate this game
I can't stop playing it

Update 1/14/2024: After 50 hours playing, I finished all of the single player tours available. I categorically refuse to play multiplayer solely because of how cancerous every lobby is. Unless you really like free play/rivals, there's really nothing left to do once you finish the single player tours. It's got exactly the same problem as Horizon 4 and 5, where the game gets very boring very quickly when you finish all of the main content. I told myself I'd give it a few months to see if the updates made the experience any better, but now that Turn 10 has announced the most lackluster update I've ever seen, I really don't have any reasons left to continue playing. I might give it another chance when/if the Nordschliefe finally gets released. All I'm waiting for beyond that is for TDU Solar Crown to come out so I can finally drop this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ studio for good.

I played Forza Motorsport 4 religiously when it first came out, and it maintains a place in my heart as one of the best racing games of all time. Playing this new game fills my heart with sadness at times gone by, because I can say with 100% honesty that this game doesn't hold a candle to Forza 4, one could also say that it's a noticeable downgrade from Forza 7.

The racing is fine (except the blind AI that have rammed me off the road on numerous occasions). The cars feel decently weighty and the handling is fairly engaging, like I'd expect from a Forza game. It does feel a little dead to me, but I'm a masochist who plays Assetto Corsa with a gamepad, so take that for what you will. The sounds are decent too, save for some engine oddities like the Sauber C9 sounding almost nothing like the actual car and the slightest of bumps between cars sounding like being hit by a truck full force. The circuits are fine too (barring no Nordschleife on release), but the inclusion of a fictional track in Hakone is a bit confusing to me. Hakone isn't too far from where I call home, and I would have loved to see some of the actual roads in the area modeled in-game as they'd make for wonderful free drive or 1v1 race tracks. Hell, there's even a real racetrack in the area, Fuji Speedway, that could have been modeled. Twisty mountain roads aren't new for Forza Motorsport games either, just ask all the people who are begging for Fujimi Kaido from Forza 4 to come back.

The cars, frankly are nothing new for Forza, save for the Cadillac LMP car and a few new-ish road cars. Everything else is just a rehash of cars from older Forza games (and that "from the ground up" business is an outright lie, some of the models for cars in this game are grossly outdated, like the S15 Silvia and Evo 6). Not really much to say on that front beyond that. The fact that the only F1 cars you get are from before 1995 and that other racing disciplines like NASCAR and Indy are completely absent is not lost on me either. This whole situation stinks of "recycling cars as paid DLC and calling them new" syndrome that Turn 10 has been so awful with in recent years.

Graphically, the game looks pretty good. That's really all I can say about it. It's very nice to look at, but it's not breaking any new ground graphic-wise. It does have ray-tracing enabled 100% of the time, which does give it a leg up over Gran Turismo 7, but that's really the only advantage I can think of. It runs okay-ish on my hardware, save for some cutscenes lagging like a bad host in a Call of Duty lobby. I'm using an i9 paired with a 4080, so I can absolutely see why people who aren't running the latest and greatest would be having trouble with this game's performance.

The soundtrack is as close to non-existent as you can get, which is a crying shame. Forza's soundtracks have taken a huge step backwards in the last 10 years, to the point where I would outright mute the soundtracks in Forza 6 and 7 and either play my own music in a separate window or just race in silence, which is what you do in this game anyway since there is no soundtrack when you're actually racing. At the very least, the menu soundtracks are unobtrusive, but they're also completely forgettable. Spend an hour playing Forza 4, then spend an hour playing this game, and you'll see what I mean.

The career mode and progression system is a joke. Not a single racecar in the career mode, and car-specific XP being required to earn upgrade parts makes this game an absolute slog to play through. Not to mention that an internet connection is required to play the single player career, which I find absolutely ridiculous. Even the F1 games managed by EA of all companies are playable offline.

Concerning the bugs on release, I'm astounded that this game released in such a barely functional state. The game crashed out completely after finishing my first race, and while I would love to play more to get more experience for this review, it won't even start now. You could make the argument that Horizon 5 was just as broken on release, but that was also completely unacceptable, and I find it astounding that Turn 10 have learned absolutely nothing from this.

Overall, this game is a gorgeous, barely functioning shell of what Forza used to be. It's completely soulless, and I can't pin down if this is because of corporate intervention from Microsoft or if Turn 10 have just gotten complacent and lazy from the lack of competition in the genre. "Built from the ground up" is an absolute lie, this game just feels like a rehash of the last few Motorsport games. I've spent the last decade or so pining for a game that can capture my attention like the older Motorsport games, only to receive mediocre game after mediocre game. Maybe that's partly my fault since I got so attached to Forza 4 in my younger years. If this is your first Motorsport game, give it a whirl, I'm sure you'll like it. If you're a veteran player, don't waste your time. All you're in for is disappointment.

jesus take the wheel

The gameplay is fun, the story is okay for the most part, but the ending is absolutely infuriating.

Say, for instance, you go to a well renowned bakery. You order a nice big slice of apple pie. You love apple pie, and reviews of this restaurant say that their apple pie is the best around. You're building up anticipation for this pie, probably more than you should. You wait for a bit, then the waiter comes to the table with the pie in his hand. However, instead of giving you the pie, he pokes you in the eyes. Then, journalists tell you that the poke in the eyes was avant-garde, that you should be proud that you received such a magnificently crafted poke in the eyes.

Spoilers below

None of the Far Cry games from 3 have had particularly happy endings. 3 ended with you becoming the monster you had started out trying to fight, 4 ended with one crackpot dictator being replaced by an even worse crackpot dictator, and 5 ended with the secret-but-not-a-secret nuclear armageddon after spending the past 20+ hours building up to these last moments. I walked away from 3 and 4 feeling satisfied, but the same can not be said for 5, primarily because you are denied the opportunity to kill that smug piece of ♥♥♥♥ Joseph Seed. If Metal Gear Solid taught me anything, it's that if you want to dismantle horrific operations such as these, you have to erase the source. I had accepted all of the negatives with Far Cry 3 and 4 because I was given the catharsis of bringing about the untimely end of the driving forces behind the atrocities witnessed throughout their stories. With 5, however, nuclear armageddon has struck, all of your companions are dead, and you are locked in a bunker for the rest of the foreseeable future with Joseph, who makes it very apparent that Eden's Gate will rise once again. All of your work was for nothing, end of story, roll credits.

Some plotholes aside, Far Cry 5 was a great way to kill 22 hours and was very fun to play, but the last 10 minutes of the story mode assured me that the best course of action was to uninstall the game and never touch it again. 7/10 would recommend.