Get away from it all, on a Mexican road trip! PETER HOSKIN reviews Forza Horizon 5 and Age Of Empires IV
Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox, PC, £54.99 or included with Xbox Game Pass)
Verdict: Driving for everyone
Rating: 
What's true of actual driving is true of most driving games: you really need to know what you're doing before you get behind the wheel. Fail to exercise your reflexes and learn all the right button combinations, and you'll be careering clumsily off every corner.
But not in the Forza Horizon series of games, the fifth of which is released this week. Here, the barriers to entry are low. The emphasis is on fun.
Just hop into any one of a hundred different vehicles — from decades-old vans to bleeding-edge supercars — and whizz around some exotic location.
Which, in this case, is Mexico. The Horizon series is known for its stunning graphics, but number 5's recreation of that North American country is something else.
It's photorealism, if reality constantly served up paradisal sunsets, flamingoed waters and great, cataclysmic dust storms.
For the most part, you'll be zooming past this scenery, taking part in various races and imaginative driving challenges as part of an extreme sports festival.
But the game is accommodating: if the crowds and techno beats get a little too much — as they did, at times, for me — then you can switch on the car radio's classical music channel and simply drive around the Mexican countryside. At once, it goes from rad to relaxing.
The Horizon series, like any long-running operation, will soon face the question of what changes with each game — other than the setting. In the meantime, why quibble with something so enjoyable and well put together? The road awaits.
Age Of Empires IV (PC, £49.99 or included with Xbox Game Pass)
Verdict: History at hyperspeed
Rating: 
How fast can you click? I hope it's really, really fast because even after you've mastered the keyboard shortcuts, that's what Age Of Empires IV demands of you.
Click! Create some villagers. Click! Set them to gathering resources. Click! Raise an army. Click! Send them to battle.
And keep on clicking until you've progressed through several historic ages and defeated all your opponents.
It's as frantic as the first game was, almost 25 years ago, with only a few standout innovations (such as more distinct warring civilisations). At this rate, the series will become tired as well as tiring.
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2021-11-05 02:12:00Z
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