FH5, Series 19, Week 2

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But first, let’s crash out of the playlist.

I started this week’s playlist with a CTD (crash to desktop) before restarting the game and taking a picture of the neon tank in Guanajuato. I had a look at the tile and noticed that the road was cobbled. I looked at the road I was on. It was cobbled. I looked behind me, and there was the tank on the wall.

I retuned my Camaro Z28 for the weekly, which was mostly all right apart from the drag race, which was mostly vexatious. I ought to have rebuilt the Camaro, but I can’t be bothered.

The Eventlabs were picturesque cityscapes, although I thought a dirt circuit didn’t fit with that style. I got a good super wheel spin out of the second event.

I completed the break-the-cubes task without any bother. I thought the cubes might be in places that were hard to access, but there was no need to go up into the rocks.

PR stunts. Hotel danger sign, Hoonigan RS200. The car flipped, but… the game didn’t mind. Phew! And I got another good super wheel spin (which is going to be a bit of a theme). Jesko for the speed trap. Super wheel spin good. No problems with the drift zone, but the reward was pathetic. Do better, game.

Racing in the Moonlight. B700 (sigh), Street Scene (scream!) 1993 Nissan Skyline GT-R. I’m doing Carretera (sp?) – I think. The one where you go onto the motorway and then turn left past the Street Scene Festival site. I’ve caught up with the lead drivatar, but I’m going as fast as the car can go and am making no further progress. I’m on the left-hand side of the mo­t­or­way and they’re on the right. My one hope was that when they crashed through the armco to turn left, they’d lose enough momentum to let me take the lead. It sort of worked like that, but if I’d been on the right, I’m sure I would’ve lost a lot more speed doing the same.

In the Air Tonight. A800, off road. I went for the Ex­treme E because the game seems to favour them. The championship had to include the Festival cross country, which I loathe because of the brief section under the bridge, where the water slows me down while the drivatars often fly past. This time I was lucky, but it was an unnecessarily close-run thing. And what was the prize? A Holden Sandman. Ugh!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Porsche. A800, road racing in the dark. Fine. I went for the Porsche 959 because it was already A class. Not a great choice because it appears to be on stock tyres with bugger all grip. I should probably have picked the 958 (right model?), but wonder whether you were supposed to be racing the Cayman GTS, which is one of this week’s prize cars.

I absolutely smashed my old PB for the danger sign that was the PR stunt in the Hot Wheels Theme Park. Came a bit close to it being a fail, too. Another brilliant super wheel spin, too.

Night Shift. A800, super saloons. Went for my BMW M2 which put in a sound performance.

Lastly, it was off to Sierra Nueva. Trust the PR stunt to be a speed zone in the wet in an S2-class car. I opted for the Brabham BT62 and after a lot of pain, I com­pleted the task and PB’ed it as well. For my efforts I got yet another decent super wheel spin. ¶ I wish the PR stunts were like Horizon 4, where I choose the car and class. I disliked the original PR stunts where the intention was, it seemed, for players to choose the lightest car with the most engine and the least handling in a particular class to do the stunt. Never mind the inconvenience. But forcing everyone into S2-class cars is a nuisance in a different way.

Mini-Utes to Midnight. B700, Mini. I ought to have gone for the 1965 Mini Cooper, but I went for the X-Raid barge instead. I should probably have been switching builds or cars between races, but stuck with this chubby off-roader all for a… hat. Yes, all this effort for an item of clothing.

But all this got me past CR300 million. Got both of this week’s cars and the Porsche 911 4.0.

In Horizon 4 I PB’ed Cat’s Bells, which is the speed trap between Ambleside and Mortimer Gardens.

Some final(?) thoughts about Sierra Nueva

Ultimately, I felt the Rally Adventure was 6/10. One good car, but the rest are all a bit of a shrug as they’re largely more of the same. I liked driving the Scumbug, but it struggled in races and for some weird reason, has the dirt perk.

The map isn’t especially interesting. The rock art is all right, but there needs to be something more than a couple of mesas which serve no more than a de­c­o­r­a­tive function.

The main issue is the lack of a compelling feature that makes me want to return voluntarily. Lego Valley had the Falcon Speedway (and why don’t we have one or two of those in Horizon 5?) Fortune Island had the Needle if you were a drifty boy. The Hot Wheels Theme Park has the Goliath as a track where you can properly drive fast cars. But Sierra Nueva has… nothing. At best, it’s a great big drift zone with the physics to match. I think I’ll do the boss races and Goliath as proper races, but I don’t know how much replay value there is in those.

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