Forza Horizon 2 Review

Forza Horizon 2
XBox 360/XBox One
Microsoft Games/Turn 10/Sumo Digital (360)/Playground Games (XBONE)
Review Based on XBox 360 version

What's new:
The setting moves from Colorado to the French/Italian border area.
The races basically open to any car you own. The cars are sepearted into 10 categories (i.e.: Cult classic cars, supercars, classic supercars, dirt, etc.), meaning you can run the race 10 times with ten different cars. There are 32 races and with 10 ways to win them, you really have 320 races.
Each race also has a sponsor slot, meaning that if  you race with the suggested car (Ford, Dodge, Mercedes, etc.) and you win, you get a credit bonus.
In the first Horizon, you smash signs to get discounts on parts. Now there are three types of sings: Parts, Fast Travel and Credit Bonuses. There are 150 signs to smash instead of 100. Many of the signs are off-road, too.
The events you did to get Fast Travel discounts in Horizon 1 are now called Bucket List events (some are off-road also, although most are just off the main road). There are 30 of them.

What's different:
The stereotypical rivals in Horizon are thankfully gone.

What is the same:
Basically most of the cars from Horizon are still here. Even ones that were DLC (like the Top Gear favorite Ford Van, but no Porsche still) .
The feel of the game is basically the same.

Remember, this game is based on the 360 version, which doesn't have weather factored in and is based on the Horizon engine, instead of the XBONE edition based on Forza 5. It's basically the same game as Horizon. Unlike some critics, I'm not pushing the grade down a gigantic amount because of it.

GRADE: A

The Price is Right: Decades (PS3) Review

I bought this game on PSN about two years ago, but didn't play it very much. After the debacles that were the Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune games, I decided to give this (and game show video games in general) another chance.
The selling point of TPIR:D is to play TPIR in different years, the games I played ranged from 1977 to 2008. I'll assume you know how to play TPIR so I'll just skip that part. The obvious selling point to play the "pricing games." I've read from other reviews that not every pricing game is in this game, but the most famous ones are. One game I played was called "Professor Price," which was apparently only played two or three times in 1977. Once you play a pricing game, you unlock it and can play it separately by accessing the archive, which tells you the premiere date, ranking by premiere date and retired date (if the game was retired).
Well at least goofy characters are acceptable in this game, unlike Jeopardy, but your characters aren't too goofy. They physically react to things happening instead of laughing or whatever they do in the THQ game show games. Instead of Drew Carey or Bob Barker appearing in the game, the current announcer introduces the game.
The only problem with the game is the crowd sound. I know the crowd is almost always yelling during the game, but the sound in this game is almost like a riot is taking place in the studio. It's almost constant and even worse, it's loud. Even when I raised the music and voice all that way and had the crowd just one notch above zero, it was still pretty loud.
The game also has a tutorial mode to tell you how each pricing game is played, but at least you could skip those or (unlike the other mentioned games) tell the game to skip them in the options menu.

Overall, compared to Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, this game is a marked improvment, but it's still simple and a game you should probably get if it's cheap or rentable. This game on PS3 is download only. It's on disc for Wii and Xbox 360.

Overall rating: B

Double Review: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune (XBox360)

Basically, these games are fairly faithful versions of their counterparts, but both games have one major problem. Whoever thought up the idea of having the contestants whoop and laugh or moan everytime something happens apparently didn't realize how annoying it is. Yes, I do mean everytime. Now maybe on WoF that might be okay (contestants just clap on the show though) but on Jeopardy it's inexcusable. The male contestant has a laugh that sounds like a horror movie clown. The female contestants are a little better, but it's still a major programming issue. You can't turn down their voices here, because you'll also turn down the major reason for playing this game: the vocals of the hosts of the show (Pat Sajak and Vanna White for WoF and Alex Trebek on Jeopardy). Again, a major flaw with this game.
Another flaw on WoF is that every time you play a game, it still plays the tutorial of the different rounds and prize wedges. Thankfully you can press the Y button to skip them, but still, I've played nearly 10 games on it and it still thinks it the first time it's ever been played.
The last problem with these games are the accessibility of the games. I've read a couple of reviews on Gamefly (where I rented these games) and the online multiplayer is basically empty. Maybe the reason for that is because the price on these games are still too high. On Amazon, WoH is 20.99 for XBox and 22.99 for PS3. Jeopardy is $22.73 on Xbox and $17.80 on PS3. On XBox Marketplace WoH is 19.99 but Jeopardy is 29.99. Why are game show video games so damn expensive? Games like these should never be sold for more than $19.99.
Okay, these games in general are good, but while the basic game is good, the presentation kills a lot of the fun of these games. Rent these games unless you can find a really good deal on them. I'm not responsible if you punch the TV screen when the male contestant giggles for the billionth time.

Wheel of Fortune: C+
Jeopardy: B-