Football Manager 22, GTA San Andreas & Forza Horizon 5: It’s A Bit Of A Gaming Weekend

This week 3 games were released that I wanted to play: Football Manager 22, Grand Theft Auto The Definitive Edition and Forza Horizon 5.

It’s going to be a bit of a gaming weekend.

Although these games are brand new releases I was able to play them all for FREE! Here’s how.

That’s right, I am playing them for free. Two words: Xbox Gamepass.

Technically they’re not free. Xbox Gamepass does cost money, but last year I converted my Xbox Gold (which I used to pay for) to the Gamepass, so I get all of these game included.

This is what I’ve thought so far of these games.

Football Manager 2022 (PC Version)

It’s the game which I spend most of my time playing, and have done since 1993. It’s Football Manager 22. What more needs to be said about this game? Not much.

There’s small refinements which makes the game better, and a few changes which will take getting used to. One of which is the transfer system they seem obsessed with tweaking and changing every now and then.

For buying and selling players, the value is now given as a range rather than a set value. This can mean buying and selling players for a lot more or less than you may previously have done.

Then there’s the scouting system for players, namely the ratings.

Previously the rating was on a scale from 1-100. Pretty straight forward and refined. This has now been changed to a letter based system. i.e. A+ is an epic player, A is excellent, B is very good, and D isn’t good at all.

These two changes have been the biggest things I have noticed so far in the game this year.

As always, I expect to play this game for hundreds of hours over the next year.

I have started my save with Newcastle, as I did with FM21. It seems that so many people have picked Newcastle this year, only because they start with a £200m transfer budget. But of course I am Newcastle as they’re my team.

Forza Horizon 5

I have been looking to play a next gen car game on my Xbox Series X, and Forza 5 Horizon is that. I do have Forza 4, and was hoping for even better graphic detail.

I will assume this has it, but it is very hard to tell when you’re flying around the world at speed trying not to crash.

The game is good, but personally I prefer a track racing game to an open world one. The good thing about Gamepass is that I am able to pick up and play this game as part of my subscription. When it comes to Forza 5 Horizon, I am a casual player.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (Part Of The Definitive Collection)

Rockstar Games announced a new game, and everyone was praying for GTA 6. They were almost right, it is a new GTA for next gen consoles, but it was 3 games that are all too familiar.

Grand Theft Auto The Definitive Collection is 3 of the biggest GTA games being remastered for today’s consoles. These are GTA 3, GTA San Andreas and GTA Vice City.

As part of Gamepass, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is included. I am glad it is this, as I prefer it over GTA 3, but if I remember I did enjoy playing Vice City the most.

I had a quick go of San Andreas earlier today and it feels quite strange. The graphics are better than the original version which is the point, but they’re not as good as GTA V, which I guess is to be expected.

The controls feels a little bit strange too, it doesn’t feel as smooth as the modern versions. But again, this is to be expected from a game which is 17 years old.

When I have more time I will probably play a few more missions and try to see if it brings back any memories of playing it for the first time. We all want GTA 6, but I suppose this is a little cameo of an old game to tide us over until that is released.

And that’s my weekend of gaming sorted. The cost? Nothing! I would have bought FM22 as I do each year, for around £30. I probably wouldn’t have paid the £50 for the GTA series, even though I was really intrigued by it.

The same goes for Forza 5 Horizon, coming in at £50 too.

So that’s £130 worth of games I was able to get a taste of, and can play them for months as part of my subscription. I was hesitant to thinking Gamepass would be worth it for myself, as I am only a casual gamer these days (when it comes to console gaming at least).

But for the months ahead, it’s definitely paying for itself.

Let me know what you think of these games if you’ve played any over the weekend.