Recent reviews by ngiN

I’ve never played any Forza games before as I don’t own a console, also haven’t been interested in buying games outside of Steam, even though I love arcade racers. Heard the name of the series of course, and that it’s basically a synonym of quality content. Once FH4 has been announced on Steam, I waited eagerly, even tried the demo through Windows Store.

Having previously played mostly Codemasters’ racing titles, I am amazed now that I’ve had the chance to fiddle with the full version. The sheer amount of content present is let alone one of its strongest selling points.

Although base map isn’t the largest, it’s thought out well. The multitude of event types available left me speechless – you have everything here in one game that is sometimes scattered between several different titles. I especially like cross-country events because huge verticality of the map in many regions makes them so fun and crazy.

There are rewinds/flashbacks – missed so much in all the latest titles from Codemasters. There is an extensive story mode with dedicated multi-part quests. Online mode is regularly updated with new rewarding challenges and playlists, but offline mode also has a voluntary online element implemented in a way I found very refreshing. You see other players driving through the map, can pick up challenges created by them or take part in simultaneous activities called Forzathon Live. Story mode races have an option to tackle them solo or in couple different online variants.

The graphics is great, the handling very pleasing, the number of cars overwhelms. No such good things can be said about engine sounds, but after few hours I stopped finding them irritating. There are several diverse radio stations – quite OK but that’s a matter of personal taste. Creating your own station is not possible. The level of fun factor hits through the roof. This is a title that can be easily played for years.

The bad? Steam port is not as ideal in terms of performance as Windows Store version as of now. There are occasional stutters. For me most of them happen within cut-scenes which fortunately are very short in this game. I read there are problems with wheels, and… the biggest elephant in the room: for some users the game does not start. This has to do with some registry keys permissions within Windows. I fixed it by reinstalling the OS on top of the existing one, but not everyone was so lucky for that to work. Windows Store demo didn’t have that problem. Keep that in mind, and remember that unlike Windows Store, there are refunds on Steam. FH4 developers have already started working on fixes.

If the game fires up for you, and you’re into arcade racers, I can’t imagine anything on Steam as captivating as this pricey gem. 9/10

The game is riddled with cheaters and VAC is a joke. Valve uses its monopoly on the shooter market to make a joke out of their player base.
The investment in Anti-Cheat seems to be next to nothing compared to the money they make.
Sure, there's a giant amount of cheats online and you can't just ban them all. But i think waiting a while until they get banned is not the solution.
Overwatch is riddled with spinbotters, wallhackers and aimlockers!
Someone is looking at the ground 99% of the time and the 1% they look up, it's an instant headshot? WTF do you need Overwatch for? Do your own work, get a KI! Letting the community do YOUR work is pathetic.

They earn millions from the skin market and it's a punch in the face of any loyal player that they made the game free to play.
Cheating has zero consequences now and there's more cheaters than ever before. But I guess the skin market is booming so Valve isn't too unhappy about this.

Trust Factor is a joke, so is Steam Guard! It doesn't do anything apart from 2FA. On my second account, which has no Steam Guard and arguably more griefing and bad behaviour involved, I get less cheaters and toxic teammates than on my main account, which has a history of 9600h trying to be a good teamate.

A few more things that should not be a problem to add, but are missing in the game:

-more precise matchmaking: I do NOT see any reason why I should constantly get teammates and enemies with 150h and Steam LVL 0 or teammates that have previously been punished for toxic behaviour! Seriously, WTF does your highly praised TruST FaCtOr even do?! Isn't it supposed to prevent match-ups like that?

-matchmaking settings for players that don't have a mic or won't use it. Just let those guys play together, but leave them out of my lobby! It's a massive disadvantage if ony 3/5 players can or will talk.

-same goes for people that don't speak english. Language selection for matchmaking isn't that hard to do and if you think this isn't necessary, just play in a full russian lobby once to change your mind.

---My bad rating comes from the lack of innovative input and the massive flaws that have existed for almost 10 years, while Valve earns a sh1tlo4d of cash from gambling and the skin market.---