Forza Horizon 4 Review: 6 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs...

3. The Long-Winded Interface & Loading Screens

Forza Horizon 4
Playground Games

Like a lot of content-rich games, you can practically feel Forza Horizon 4 straining to keep its (mostly) well-oiled machine chugging along, resulting in the overall user interface and organisation feeling a bit clumsy.

Though the menus themselves look slick enough, manoeuvring around them can feel a tad sluggish, and it seems designed more for aesthetics than efficiency or simple ease-of-use. Considering you'll be spending a lot of the time in the game's menus, that's somewhat disappointing.

Worse is the sometimes infuriating loading screens, which can last close to 30 seconds for a race on the original Xbox One, to say nothing of how long-winded it can be getting a match going online.

There are also a frustrating abundance of glossy, unskippable splash screens transitioning between gameplay segments, which is clearly a not-so-subtle attempt to mask yet more loading screens.

The overall experience is absolutely worth the sometimes lumbering framework, but given the mind-melting scope of the game, it certainly would've benefited from favouring function over fashion.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.