FH5, Series 21, Week 4

This week’s treasure hunt (aka pathfinders) wasn’t that bothersome to complete. I had to do some backtracking to find the start of the pathfinder outside Playa Azul after spotting the red balloons through the trees. Two excellent wheel spins. And a Reliant Supervan.

The weekly in the Hummer was mostly good apart from the final event, which was to do an HA when the game was perpetually declaring that I’d been disconnected. Fortunately, things went live, and there was a wreckage skills HA, which I joined just in the nick of time. I also did the daily in the Hummer, but because it’s an off-roader, I did a cross country race only to find afterwards that I was supposed to do a dirt race. As you’ll see below, using the wrong sort of car in the wrong sort of race crops up again.

The spot for the photo was really NNW of the hotel. Another case of spotting the yellow bus with the yellow balloon.

The Eventlab tile was working properly again. That’s two weeks in a row, which is now a world record. It’s a pity the creator decided to stick some little jumps in ahead of corners. What an absolute laugh. We got rewarded with one of those MB tanks from the 90s that everyone raves about because Jeremy Clarkson thought it was the marviest, bestest thing evah. Actually, I think the 190E is the more drivable of the pair. Ghastly either way.

The Eliminator was back, but it took several goes to get to 30th or better, and I may have a strategy for that (or get timed out). I didn’t realise that you couldn’t get to 30th or higher and then quit to complete the event, which meant going back again. Most of the time I spawn near the Street Scene Festival site, but this time I spawned in near the north-east corner of the map, which was well away from the arena. By the time I got there and started circling round the perimeter, there were nearly 30 players left, which made my job much easier, and this loathsome task was complete. (I believe one of this week’s dailies is to get a sideswipe skill in the Eliminator; I can hardly wait to hate doing that.)

The Trailblazer was a doddle, and I PB’ed the danger sign by, I suspect, quite a margin. The SWSs gave me rubbish, and I got more from the subsequent wheel spin from going up a level.

I thought that the donkeys would be fairly visible, but the problem with this week’s collectible (all right, all the others as well) was the vagueness of the location. I can see where Tierra Próspera is on the map, but have no idea of its bounds and spent some time cruising this way and that without spotting a single cut-out. Thanks to a tip from the forums, I found one near the pool of water on the east side of the region and the rest along the unmarked lanes nearby. Much time wasted to little end.

I picked the SLS AMG for Beach ya to it, which was a good choice to win another… Hummer. Ugh. Actually, to be honest, the Hummer did put in a sound performance in the weekly and yesterday’s daily.

For Splash Down I thought the Alumi Craft would be a good choice even if it’s an off-roader doing dirt racing. The drivatars decided to be annoying little buggers. It was the wrong sort of car for the wrong sort of race, but MS (let’s blame the puppet master) probably thinks that expecting players to race in and against appropriate cars is a violation of their personal freedom. I also want the race tile to tell me what sort of car I’m driving (just like FH4) because I shouldn’t have to back out, check to see what type of car it is, and then go back into the race to search for the right sort of event.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt and got another rubbish SWS. Gods!

For Hyper Drive I decided to use the Zenvo TSR-S, which spanked the drivatars. In the Ram’s Head Sprint, I forgot about that impossible hairpin into which I slammed so hard that I took the lead of the race and essentially reversed drifted round the corner without losing the lead. Probably, the drivatars were stunned by my pro skills. I know I was.

I chose the FE 911 GT3 RS for Chomping at the Grit. In other words, the usual car. The racing was scrappy and messy because I don’t know the tracks in Sierra Nueva because I never go there upward of more than once a week, and if nothing there contributed to the Festival playlist, I’d never go there at all. The reward was another horn to add to my collection of things that oughtn’t to be in a racing game. Sorry, I mean, transport-based social interaction experience.

The speed zone, Crateras Secos, was, I felt, indicative of the problems which arise from the insistence that we should use S2-class cars for the PR stunts. I managed to complete the task after trying various S2-class cars, none of which were suited to driving on sand. I think I was close to my original PB, but did not surpass it. I then tried various S1-class off-roaders, PB’ing the speed zone several times over, and three-starring it more times than I did not. I wish FH5 was like FH4 in that the game would leave me to decide which car to use. Crateras Secos is, say, an A or S1-class affair.

And that’s Series 21 more or less done. I have all the cars. I have two pairs of Morris Travellers and have driven neither the originals nor the new additions, and will quite probably never drive any of them unless I’m forced to. I’m still going to stick with my original judgement that this series was a bit too soon after Rally Adventure.

We’ll learn more about Series 22 on Monday, although I’ll leave it to JakeXVX to do the heavy lifting for me. We already know that Donut Media Part II (“This time it’s grindy”) is going to be in it. Perhaps they’ll spell the word “doughnut” because I keep reading is as “do nut”, a spelling which does my nut in. We also know that once again the dialogue will be more stilted than Stilty McStiltface.

We know there’s a new FD car which I can’t wait to not drive. We also know about the Lotus Emira (replacement for the Exige? I suspect a replacement for the Evora; I hope that it’ll be a decent car to drive) and the Pagani Huayra R. And the test track, it appears, is really going to be that, allowing players to change component on cars without having to return home all the time. This is useful given the amount of testing that I’ve been doing of late.

“Now that Forza Motorsport is on the way,” said someone on the forums, “what’s going to happen to Horizon 5?” Well, nothing since it’s not the successor to FH5. I’ll be keeping an eye on the new Motorsport game, but unless it has out-of-the-box support for my Moza direct drive wheel, I probably shan’t bother. FM7 is disappointing because it seems to be aimed solely at the controller jockeys.