{"id":1608,"date":"2022-07-25T23:37:27","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T03:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2022-07-25T23:37:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T03:37:41","slug":"game-ramblings-151-1-forza-horizon-5-hot-wheels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=1608","title":{"rendered":"Game Ramblings #151.1 &#8211; Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/games\/forza-horizon-5\">More Info from Microsoft<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Genre<\/strong>: Open World Racing<\/li><li><strong>Platform<\/strong>: PC \/ Xbox Series X<\/li><li><strong>Also Available On<\/strong>: Xbox One<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=1452\">Original <em>Forza Horizon 5<\/em> Ramblings<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Forza Horizon<\/em> always plays that line between fun and realistic at a base game.  Their expansions then either lean towards one of those.  For <em>Hot Wheels<\/em>, it&#8217;s definitely leaning into the fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1609\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Intro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This feels a bit like deja-vu in that I&#8217;ve already done an x.1 ramblings on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=186\">Forza Horizon Hot Wheels expansion<\/a>.  However, that&#8217;s not a bad thing in this case.  The original run of this theme felt like a layer on top of the existing gameplay.  It threw some Hot Wheels tracks into the normal environment and called it a day.  This is very much a step up.  They&#8217;ve built an entire new world for this expansion, consisting of three environment archetype islands (desert, snow, and jungle) set in a large interconnected world in the sky.  It&#8217;s an incredibly well constructed landscape that really pushes the Hot Wheels theming far better than the previous run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Compared to the previous one, this also just feels much more playable than I remember.  That one had some weird things with physics where opponent AI would have problems staying on the track or staying on all four wheels.  I didn&#8217;t see that at all here.  I think some of that has to do with a much increased use of magnetic tracks that keep you really locked down, at least compared to my memory.  On the general driving side there feels like a much larger inclusion of randomly fun track elements.  There&#8217;s things like water slides, corkscrews, a giant half pipe, boost fans all over the place, and more that just make you feel more like you&#8217;re in a childhood playroom than in the base Forza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1610\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Slide.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s not to say it&#8217;s all great, but what&#8217;s weird here isn&#8217;t really a surprise.  The events aren&#8217;t really that different to the base game.  The AI is still rubberbandy as all hell.  Like the <em>FH3<\/em> expansion, the Hot Wheels cars are largely impractical if you use cockpit view and you end up depending on regular cars.  It&#8217;s very distinctly an expansion to widen what <em>Forza Horizon 5<\/em> is, which is the pattern they&#8217;ve followed in the past and isn&#8217;t really anything of a surprise here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1611\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FH5HW_Dragon.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This is ultimately a case where you know what you&#8217;re getting into.  If you liked <em>Horizon 5<\/em>, you&#8217;ll like this. If you didn&#8217;t the theming isn&#8217;t going to be enough to get you on board.  It&#8217;s a stupid fun bend on the core <em>Horizon<\/em> gameplay, which is really all I want.  It adds some more events to a game that I will routinely come back to every few months for a few hours, and give me some things to do until the next expansion comes out, and again that&#8217;s expected and for me is perfectly in line with what I wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Info from Microsoft Genre: Open World Racing Platform: PC \/ Xbox Series X Also Available On: Xbox One Original Forza Horizon 5 Ramblings Forza Horizon always plays that line between fun and realistic at a base game. Their expansions then either lean towards one of those. For Hot Wheels, it&#8217;s definitely leaning into the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=1608\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Game Ramblings #151.1 &#8211; Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,239],"tags":[63,200,23,25,201],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-racing","category-xbox-series-x","tag-forza","tag-microsoft","tag-pc","tag-racing","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1612,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions\/1612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}