FH5, Series 25, Week 2

Once again, Igor, it’s alive!

Yes, FH5 is working again, although I feel the solution is specific to me rather than a general fix. When I got home yesterday afternoon, I tried FH5 again, but it refused to sync and crashed when I clicked on Reboot (well, died without a whimper). I then tried Minecraft Bedrock and was able to log in to my MS account.

There was also an nVidia update for which I used my VPN partly to make sure that I go to a website that speaks English and partly because the download is probably faster. I installed the patch and ran FH5 again, but left my VPN running. I don’t normally do that, but thought an experiment was in order. The game synced and I was finally off to Mexico.

I started with the treasure hunt, quickly spotting the location of the obstacle course not all that far from the Horizon Apex site because I thought it might be tucked away to the left somewhere. I’ve been hearing stories of people heading all the way to Playa Tranquila. I made the mistake of using the Land Rover Defender Series 3, which was too narrow to effectively control, although I did get the treasure with it.

The weekly was in the Lamborghini Diablo SV. I like the car, but my driving was awful. One day away from the game and all my skills fly out of the window faster than a randy nun’s undies.

The Eventlab tiles were all working and some good examples of some sensible custom circuits. I thought Autodromo del Lago Trasimeno should’ve been larger in scale, but the layout was good.

Mudslinger’s Scramble was actually a decent race in sticky, gooey, soggy conditions. My Class 10 Alumi Craft did a sound job, Pity about the naff reward.

The Playa Azul Scramble was a job for the Lancer Evo X. Again, another pretty good course, It wasn’t over-engineered with a plethora of props. Pity about the naff reward.

Autodromo del Lago Trasimeno was actually a road race, but I thought it was off-road and opted for the Alumi Craft Class 10 which was not as bad as you might expect. The SWS was one-third good.

The trick to the PR stunts this week seemed to be race weight reduction and maximum engine in the Colorado ZR2. I did some experimenting the volcano danger sign before I managed to attain the required distance. The SWS was one-third OK (and this is a bit of a theme). I one-shotted the desert lighthouse, but came so close to rolling the Colorado, which did a kind of pirouette. The SWS was one-third OK. I managed to beat the target for the runway jump by about 30m and got an SWS that was, er, one-third OK.

The photo was easy, with the painting being on the main road through Playa Azul. I also got an accidental accolade because of the time of day when I took the snap.

I decided to pick the Lamborghini Veneno for Hyped Up, which is about mid S2 class. It was fine round the Horizon Festival Circuit, but there must’ve been rubber banding in Descansar Dorado because my lead suddenly vanished. In Bahía de Plano, a drivatar in an Aventador J got ahead and stayed there. If the race had been twice as long, I might’ve caught them, but the game decided to be annoying. The reward was an Urus, which is all right as SUVs go.

Jumping Juggernauts was another example of how ridiculous the creed of “anything goes” is. I chose the Casey Currie Trophy Jeep, but the most nuisance drivatar was in an Audi. Yes, an Audi saloon in a cross-country race series. That makes so much sense. The reward was another 1970 Camaro Z28. Why?

The HSV Maloo dominated Out for delivery in a dirt racing series. The reward was a 2017 Ford Focus, which… Fine, I’ll delete it sometime.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt in the McLaren 570S and got an utterly awful SWS.

For We don’t need roads, the choice of cars is surprisingly small. I picked the Porsche Macan Rally Raid, which was an oddly good choice in what was road racing with speed bumps. I retuned the world… No, wait, that’s RahXephon. I mean, I retuned the car to a dirt racing spec to better match the conditions. But why in the name of the gods was the reward a Mini Countryman (essentially, a BMW micro-SUV/podgy cartoon car)?

I one-shotted the speed zone in Sierra Nueva in the McLaren 570S. I thought we might get lumbered with some annoyingly twisty speed zone, but instead, it was dirt, but I kept the car as it was.

The Subaru 22B STi proved to be a good choice in Back in Blue. I admit I was a little pushy, but I don’t have much patience with the drivatars in Sierra Nueva. The reward was a 2011 Audi RS5. Colour me indifferent.

The Trial. Not yet, but it was getting late by the time I did with all this. ¶ The next day… And that’s the Trial done, although it took me about three attempts to connect to a session. Nothing much worth mentioning. I need to stop trying to be too clever when I’m driving because I bumped into the traffic a few times, although nothing that was detrimental to my progress. Humanity had two solid wins and I got myself a third 2012 Nissan GT-R.

As for the weekly reward, the BMW IX, ugh. Shan’t be driving it. The Emory is another car to tick off my missing car list from last year’s disastrous reset. We got one of the Rivians which again, I’m never going to drive unless I’m forced to. As I said in a previous entry, I’ve never heard of Rivian and I assume their presence in the game is advertising aimed at the US domestic market just as the iX is advertising. Overall, the car rewards this week were a massive shrug.