Take away the pretty looks, and Forza Motorsport 5 is a sterile mess of gaping holes where features from previous games once were. Forza has never had a serious career mode, but an overhaul to the established formula seems overdue. Other than the new graphics and the Drivatar system, there isn't much that differentiates it from the prior release. Its saving grace is that the racing is so refined that once you are in a race, a lot of its shortcomings seem to no longer matter. Forza 5 will do as a holdover racing game for now, but for all the bombast that next-gen brings, the game is awfully stagnant, and its lack of competition has never been more apparent.
Ryse: Son of Rome is a solid game and arguably has the best graphics of any console game to date. The combat is engaging, and the multiplayer extension feels like the Shadows of Rome multiplayer that never was. Although the title does come across as a one-trick pony, a fair amount of care was put into that element. Ultimately, I found the game to be the most enjoyable of all Xbox One launch titles, and putting this much emphasis on a new IP is always commendable. If you want the best-looking game on the new Xbox One console, Ryse is the easy choice to make, and the combat is enough to keep your interest until the end.
Unfortunately, it all adds up to be a less-than-stellar experience for Battlefield 4. There is little doubt that the game will see patches to address some or all of these issues, but as it stands, it has an underwhelming single-player campaign and an unstable multiplayer mode that severely hampers enjoyment. The launch of a game used to mean that something close to a polished product was made available. In that regard, the Battlefield 4 launch can only be seen as an embarrassment. Hopefully, the game will be better after some patches, but in its current state, it shouldn't have been released in the first place.