u/box-fort2

I know they've been here since Horizon 4, but they've become so copy-paste (like everything else tbf) and it's kind of disappointing. I wish cars really did have unique curated upgrade perks beyond "this car drives on the road, so it gets a renewable road racing xp bonus"

Especially the names too, like so many funny references could be made specific to each car. Imagine a wreckage bonus perk named "Brotha can't drive" for the Ferrari Enzo or something. Would be so funny.

I get the game has like 550+ cars and it's such a minor detail it'd just be a massive waste of time but hey, another perk of resetting the car list if they ever were to do that (they wouldn't)

Holy shit, this band is just dripping with Most Wanted energy. They sound like a perfect modern day equivalent to the nu metal heard in the original Most Wanted.

Pretty much every track they've put out gets my heart rate up and gets me craving to bust through some police roadblocks

Their track "Long Haul" is just actual perfection. Even if it doesn't exist, that's Most Wanted 2's theme song as far as i'm concerned.

I was a pretty firm "middle of the pack" finisher in PVP racing. I'd typically be fifth to third place in most of my solid races. But with spec racing, I am consistently getting first place and if not that second. Even my worst races still has me on the podium.

It really cemented the whole "it's the car not the driver" mantra I hear. I wasn't a bad driver, I just cannot tune for the life of me. I'm pretty sure this problem is compounded by me refusing to run Forza Aero as well as wacky setups like engine/drivetrain swaps. So not only was I capping myself with keeping my car "realistically" upgraded, I couldn't even really figure how to dial in tuning sliders.

It's always just some random supernatural stuff thrown at the wall. Maybe if you're lucky they'll steal a name and give it to something else in the complete wrong context.

Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, humanity's spent centuries cataloguing it all. I probably would enjoy this series' worldbuilding and lore if, say, it's demonology was based on the Ars Goetia or something.

Not saying it needs to be 1:1, but just making tweaks to add that DMC "rule of cool" flair on top of it would do wonders. But no, Empusas (which are more akin to succubi in Greek legend) are apparently big mutant ants. Geryon is a horse and not a three-headed snake monster.

Sure, there's some nods (Cerberus' ice affinity, Malphas being a massive bird) but it's mostly just thrown together stuff that nobody ever actually believed existed.

Even just allusions would be nice. Like renaming the "FILE" menu to "GRIMOIRE", even that'd do wonders. Or a boss referring to Dante as a Cambion as some kind of slur.

This franchise is mostly built upon vibes, but for people like me I really think you can't have vibes without deeper context.

I really just don't care about them, and honestly I probably have tons of credits worth of them.

I'm really thinking about selling them all except for one to do the VGT races when they pop up in weekly challenges (I'm thinking the Lexus) and maybe the Tomahawk cause it's just a total meme car.

Besides that they can all hit the bricks. I'm sick of getting a 6 star car ticket only to get some VGTslop I don't care to use

I have MC:LA on Xenia Manager and fooled around a bit trying to get 60fps, I gave up and as a last ditch effort used the "Optimize game" feature. That did precisely the opposite. Everything looks and sounds fine but the framerate is super slow and inconsistent.

Let me explain.

Forza Horizon 1's map easily mogs the rest in terms of game design. It's not perfect, especially in size and appearance but there's a unique quality to it that no other Horizon map has.

The entire map is a giant race track filled with smaller race tracks inside it.

The other maps don't feel this way, especially because of how open they are. Miles upon miles of dead, open space. Farms and wasteland. The Colorado map absolutely has that in spades, but it's set dressing you can't access. You're kept on the roads.

Ironically, this closed off design really does wonders for the experience. You're kept on the track, you have to engage with every corner. You can't just drive over everything nor can you get thrown off the road.

This is also double downed on in the actual race routes. Everything is 100% closed off via concrete barriers, unlike the modern titles where barriers only exist on the outer corners. Each public road genuinely feels like a full blown race track in presentation, experience, and even layout.

Also, the handling physics are pretty interestingly done. It is extremely easy to flip your car hitting bumps offroad. This opens up a dilemma, as certain sections of the map the road has extremely uneven terrain on both sides. If you need to gain some ground quickly you can try to cut through the grass at the risk of ruining your entire race.

This seems intentional too, pretty much any of the races that run through more open areas (like the golf course) has checkpoints set in such a way that you can cut through them and save tons of time at the risk of absolutely wiping the fuck out (in street races of course which don't have barriers)

You also have several little isolated pockets like the abandoned foundry, the town of Bunker, and Red Rock Amphitheater that essentially are just super tight autocross style race courses with like 8 different possible layouts.

This is interspersed with incredibly long technical roads leading into Finley Dam and Red Rock that basically work like touge roads you'd see in Japan.

Meanwhile the modern Forza maps may be prettier, bigger, and more visually varied but I think in terms of raw gameplay experience Horizon's little fictional region of Colorado stomps the rest into dust. It's a world you're actually forced to engage in on a gameplay level, not a wide open wasteland that 90% of players will just send their 900 HP hypercar off a cliff into trees to get to the next event faster.