It's been really fun playing forza 4. The last one I played was horizon 1 on 360. I skipped 2 and 3 because I went the PS4 route. I'm not really a big racing game guy, but I've really liked horizon. It blends arcade and the sim really well. To be clear I mostly played single player.

The good?

In terms of gameplay, open world design, visuals, customization. It's obviously very polished and well done. Tons of variety. "I did like 4 Street races In a row let me try out dirt racing, or like some of the story events"

Personally for me I stuck to more dirt racing and cross country because street racing has been done a million times. And some of those dirt tracks are so much fun. Taking huge jumps, going through water slipping and sliding. All with a smile on my face.

They mix it up well with giving you wheel spins to win cars, emotes. Looking for barn finds to find classic cars. Did I mention the environments are beautiful? There's different seasons. Although the winter season is miserable, good lord. Some of the championship races are pretty good.

I think its a good "podcast game" turning the radio off sometimes and listening to a good podcast.

The bad?

I think the driving AI in single player is always too predictable and drive in straight lines. I play on highly skilled and I could just PIT maneuver my way to 1st place with no issues. I was hoping that it would be more dynamic some how. It can make the game repetitive very quickly. I think for Horizon 5 I'll definitely try mutiplayer.

It has progression issues. It's just super confusing at times because of all the icons on the map. Which one is the championship race? I have no clue. It needs more sense of accomplishment I think. In forza horizon 1 you had different color wristbands which was a really neat idea.

The endless menu's and UI. what is horizon life? What's the point of the festival playlist? It shows like different seasons with challenges? Just like what is even happening?

I don't know if it's just me but the game crashes on PC is pretty bad.

It's a solid game. With this game being the forth one in the series its going to be polished and very well designed with lessons learned from previous entries. I'm not a big racing guy but the forza horizon series is pretty special to me. I think the games will get better and better on 2 year cycles.