Occasional Tales

Yes, the Trial in FH4. I did the Trial in FH4 for the very first time ever last week because I wanted the achievement from doing so. As I said in my previous post about the Trial, it’s always sounded so irritating that it just wasn’t worth the stress of doing it. As I had nothing better to do in the UK this afternoon, I thought I’d try the Trial again. This week it’s dirt racing in B700 Mazdas, and the reward is a gold jacket that would be embarrassing in almost any situation that wasn’t a 70s disco. I chose the 2005 Mazda MX-5 (the Mazdaspeed) because it had the best stock PWR of the eligible cars. I must’ve built it for dirt racing at some stage because I’d already purchased most of the relevant components. The starting point was the Moorhead Rally Trail . I waited for it to get to the point where it asked if you wanted to join the event, and got most of the way to Derwent Water and back before the Trial started, but with Lakehurst Copse Scramble . Not sure what was going on there, b

No treasure hunt this week. Boo hoo! I so don’t miss you! That meant starting with the weekly challenge and being briefly beguiled by the Eventlab tiles functioning properly. But back to the weekly, which was easy money. The photo op. was the waterfall where the danger sign is. I can never find the waterfall except after much aimless wandering round the right area. Easy was the theme this week as I went smashing the latest collectible in Plaza Azul. The first Eventlab was Sherwood Forest Raceway , which was a looping stone-lined course. The player needs to follow the mini-map because there’s a junction which would have them turning left or right (it’s right). Oh, and this was B700 modern rally. Again. I like rally cars, but modern rally is a small, rather dull set of vehicles that’s all too frequent in the game. The reward was some silly statement that no one will ever use. Probably. The second Eventlab was Mulegé Grand Prix which was heavily predicated on the circuit race. It was nic

PGG have done it again, posting a list of all the actual new cars in Horizon 5 and the recycled ones. Here’s the list, based on the image posted on Facebook, as far as I can recall of cars that are actually new to the game. There are, as I note, some omissions (e.g. Sierra Cars, the Hennessey Venom F5, the McLaren 620R, etc.) for whatever reason. Anyway, here are the 49 cars from the list that are new to the game along with some casual comments about each of them. Audi RS4 Avant (2018) – another of the missing exclusives which at the time of writing, is about to make a second appearance. Don’t care as I’m not much of an Audi fanboy. Like the Sport Quattro, don’t mind the RS7, and occasionally drive the R8/R10 (or whatever it is). Audi RS6 Avant (2021) – I think this is actually new to Horizon 5 as opposed to being a copy-and-paste job from Horizon 4. Have I even driven it? I can’t recall. Tells you how much I rate this car. Audi RS7 Sportback (2021) – this is an Audi I like, but it loo

No, not that one; not yet. After the 1953 Corvette got mentioned a few times in connection with recent events in FH5, I thought I’d turn my attention to this car. From FH4 I know it’s nothing outstanding, but it is a fairly solid performer. Instead, in FH5, it vexed the tits off me. I tried it in D class, the drivatars mocked my efforts. C class, same again. I skipped to A class, and, er… This morning I went through the same process in FH4. In D-B class races, the Corvette was constantly pestered by the drivatars. The one thing I didn’t alter was the drivetrain, keeping it RWD throughout. In A class (sans aero), the same thing happened again. The drivatars made nuisances of themselves, never being more than a second or so behind me. And then I tried A class (avec aero) and I romped off into the distance. I had to do some fiddling with the car, mostly adjustments to the weight, to get it to A800, but it only worked once I’d added all the herbs and spices. This afternoon, it was back to

Stick red-hot, rotating forks in your legs and pour acid all over them. Another series that immediately forces you into a Horizon story, but let’s get on with the actual business of the game. The treasure hunt began well in that not a single traffic car spawned until I went to the Street Scene Festival site, exited it, and got the usual line of cars heading west. I traded paint with about four of them before the job was complete. Was it meant to be like that or was that an error? The weekly challenge was in a 2015 Dodge, but as they all look the same and have the same names, I got in the wrong one and then in the right one. None of the tasks were that difficult apart from taking a picture of the car as I was driving along. You probably know that when you take a picture as you’re driving, the action freezes and you take your snap. This time, the car kept going. I should’ve stopped, but I managed to complete that task before the car vanished out of sight. The SWS from the danger sign was

With a Taycan?! I knew it was Porsche’s 75th anniversary, but I hadn’t considered a gift car in FH5 to celebrate this. I went to the forums this morning where there was a post to say that we’d be getting a, er, Taycan as a gift. Really?! If you think of an iconic Porsche, you think of a 911 (although if we’d got yet another 2019 911 GT3 RS, even I would’ve squealed in annoyance). Be nice if instead it was – surprise! – the Cayman GT4 RS (which was to then arrive in the Super Speed Car Pack). I’m still missing three of the exclusive Porsches (which means they’ve not been seen for a second time in over a year), one of which could’ve been the gift car. Yes, I’ll admit none of them are desirable, but they represent Porsche better than the Taycan. The Taycan, I confess, is not a terrible car even if it is an EV, but it is a chunky barge and it isn’t exclusive or special. I’ve had more than a few of these thrown at me since the game was launched, whether it was from wheel spins or from gifts

The content of Series 23 has been revealed, but immediately overshadowed by the news that Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Lancia will be returning to the game in Series 24. Although Series 23 may be called Summer Party, it really ought to be called the American Automotive Update (which as we now know sometime later, is series 27) since all we’re getting is a bunch of American muscle cars, the McLaren 765LT, and an SF90. This will be the third time the last of these has been a reward and yet there’s still no sign of the F8 Tributo making a second appearance in the game. The Deberti Mustang returns, although I can already hear a chorus of complaints about yet another Mustang. I like this particular car, but I could do without the other fat old American bangers that are about as redolent of summer as Christmas decorations. Of course, cue the usual hysterical sorts who think American muscle cars are the greatest ever etc. I assume the YouTubers will all claim this is the greatest update ever

I started as ever with the treasure hunt. Do a Street Scene race (scream!) in a B-class Honda Prelude (scream!!) The weekly was doing stuff in the 1998 Toyota Supra. Fortunately, there was nothing painful such as go 401kmh, necessitating the biggest engine swap and the least handling. For the photo, I had to swap to the 1992 Supra. Why didn’t they let us use the same model as the weekly? The stadium in Guanajuato is marked on the map is you squint a bit. For the drift and speed zones, the 1971 Nissan Skyline GT-R was fine. The speed trap was an incredible annoyance. The GT-R got close before I had a look at the forums to see what the tuners were suggesting. The 1953 Chevrolet Corvette. I should’ve guessed that this is the car you were supposed to use. I used Cashless’ tune on it which might’ve worked first time if the traffic hadn’t strategically positioned itself at the corner before the bridge and the corner after it until I finally got a clear run at the speed trap. This was an imme

The treasure hunt was a drag race in the Dodge Challenger. Easy money. The weekly challenge was in the excellent Holden Torana (see below for more excellence). No real problems apart from trying to get an ultimate burnout skill which I can only do buy driving the car into a barrier and turning very slowly to get the rear wheels spinning. The photo of the Porsche 911 3.3 Turbo was another doddle. The Eventlab tiles were working first time. Is that three weeks in a row? It’s a Christmas miracle! Circuito de Mulegé was interesting, but a  bit of a start-stop affair for another stupid American hat. Racers in the Mist gave me a choice of two off-road cars, neither of which I liked. The reward was a horn (colour me indifferent) and a rubbish wheel spin (colour me annoyed). I unwittingly PB’ed the danger sign and one-shotted the speed trap, but it was messy and untidy. The speed zone nearly made me sick from the stress and frustration. It was twenty minutes of hell for which I got a rubbish