BONE STORRRM- Er, No, BONE SHAKER!
I’ve been playing… Just a little bit of Forza Horizon 5 lately.
It has been a crazy amount of fun. It is an absolute theme park (in only the positive ways) of driving mayhem. Forza just wants you to have fun. All the time. No matter what you want to do. Fun and rewards. When I was trying out Forza Horizon 4 (my very first foray into the series) I didn’t really bother with the seasonal rewards. I knew I’d be moving on in a relatively short time to 5, so I didn’t quite appreciate just how wide the breadth of styles that even the seasons cater to when it comes to allowing players to have their own fun.
It does it in a few ways.
- You might’ve noticed, but both seasonal rewards come in way before the end of the points obtainable.
After completing the 46 points required to earn the AM DBS SL ’19 (Psst: I don’t know what this means), I still had maybe half of the potential event… things… that reward points left. So if there is a particular ‘type’ you’re not fond of (e.g., anything involving other players) you can skip it. - There are more points available to be obtained than are actually required to ‘max’ out the season (64 pts).
Although not by much, granted — I have 2 points left that I could possibly get this season, and I have 3 ‘daily’ challenges left (worth 1 point a piece) and a challenge to complete a Forza Arcade sequence worth 3 points and I think that’s it. However, getting the maximum isn’t required as discussed in point 1, to earn both rewards — or, if you take a look at the whole ‘series’ (a full set of seasons, each running for 7 days) for the rewards there, either. - The range of events available covers the gamut of the game.
From stunt challenges to solo race events to online play — it’s all there. Just pick and choose the bits you like the most. - The best reward tends to come first
e.g., the freaking DeLorean comes in at just 26 points. So if you just want the ‘major’ reward, you can get that done in no time at all.
Jumping straight to talking about seasons and series might be a little much if you’re unfamiliar with the game in its entirety though… So I guess jumping back a few steps, to describe the Forza Horizon experience?
Hmmm… Well, if you can do it in a vehicle, it’s probably represented in some way in the game. And anything at all you do — even crashing into things and making them fly into the air — rewards you points.
Anyway, lately, I’ve been focusing on the online vs. modes — primarily by way of the Horizon Open in Racing mode, a series of 5 races after which a series winner is determined.
I finally got a series win tonight, too!
Although herein lies the reference in the title. There is one vehicle, easily available — on sale from the ‘standard’ in-game store for just 150k credits (a very small amount) — called… The Boneshaker. It’s a carry-over from Forza Horizon’s 3 Hotwheels expansion, for it is, in fact, a Hotwheels inspired car. It’s a bit of a hotrod and comes out of the gate unmodified or tuned right at the top end of Class A (790 out of a possible 800 performance score allowed, before jumping into the S1 class).
You can tune and customise the ever-loving bejeebus out of your cars, but take them two or more tiers above their base class and the difference will begin to tell. Basically, the higher the stock or base starting point, the better.
So if you take this 790 stock Boneshaker, give it a bit of tweaking, and it can absolutely dominate in the A-Class races. Honestly? It feels like cheating. Acceleration, top speed and handling are all superb.
The Boneshaker probably needs something of a nerf as I haven’t encountered anything else in the class that comes even remotely close. I’m somewhat tempted to buy another one and kit it out for S1 tier and see how it goes there. I bet there will be better options, but I also bet it’d perform pretty well even so.
If you’re keen to give it a try, it’s on Xbox Game Pass (for PC and Console) so, a very low barrier of entry!
Just note that Steam and XBox Game Pass versions don’t share progress — so if you know you’ll ultimately want it on Steam, but still want to give it a try via the game pass first, just bear that in mind before going through tooooo much progress!
Other than that, I think a lot of people — even people who might not otherwise typically be ‘car people’ — will find something to enjoy here. Right now I’m having too much fun actually playing it to do a ‘proper’ review… But maybe later I’ll come back and do that. :)
