FH5, Series 25, Week 1

Oh the pain. The pain.

As everyone must know by now, FH5 has been being a colossal pain for the past few days since the latest update, dishing out a 0x0 error. The solution, campers, seems to be to move the game to the D:\ drive (where it didn’t work at all) and then back to the C:\ drive (where is did work). It should also be in the C:\XboxGames folder (mine is by default).

The game now “works” in that it skips the big splash screen, may take ages to do anything, might sync successfully or might not, might crash at this point or might not, might switch on the on-screen reader, might give you the fallback Festival playlist, might load you into a world filled with players, and then might disconnect you for all the rest of the session, but allow you to do multiplayer stuff (but not every time).

From what I can tell, this seems to be an MS problem. The MS shop seems to have issues, and the xbox app. I uninstalled the Minecraft Launcher from my main laptop because something went wrong with a recent update. When I tried to reinstall it, the MS shop had a tantrum, but when I checked the next day with the intention of trying again, the program had been installed and ran without demur – on the second attempt. But on the machine I’m using at the moment, the Launcher failed to, er, launch, and then started working. In other words, this doesn’t appear to be the fault of PGG.

I started this week as ever with the treasure hunt which was basically to do the danger sign overlooking Copper Canyon and drive to the stunt course, which reminded me of that awful thing which, I think, was part of a Horizon Story in Horizon 4. The creation was far less annoying and it was for an easy CR100,000.

The weekly was in the Elise 190, which is a car I rather like. The biggest pain was Rivals as I opted to do it in my RWD A-class Elise and got put up against a car that outpaced me in a straight line (Sierra Verde). I switched to a different event (Gran Pantano) and managed to complete that task.

I managed to do a Horizon Arcade because for once, I was online in free roam. I suspect that once again, I did most of the graft to complete the events and get the points.

The first Eventlab event, Dunas Rallycross Circuit, was an actual race, and a quite decently designed course that looked like a proper course and not a tangle of confused spaghetti. ¶ I appreciated the idea of Scinaty Part 1, but no thanks, and the reward was crap. ¶ The third Eventlab event, Horizon Mexico Rally (Short), was irritating and not even remotely fun.

At this point, I did the daily, popping over to Eventlab Island to have a look. I thought I’d try an event. The game crashed instead.

The PR stunts were all in the Nissan 240SX. I went for max. engine and more than nailed the motorway speed trap, which gave me such a bad SWS that the wheel spin I got for going up a level at the same time gave me about twice as much. The stadium speed trap was a matter of barrelling down the hill, and that was also the answer to the speed trap in Guanajuato. I started up beside the danger sign on the road from the southeast and managed to hit the necessary speed. The two SWSs for the latter pair were one-third good.

The photo challenge got me yet another stupid, infantile statement which I’ll never use.

It was also Rivals week. This was another event that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. The new BMW M2 was slidey. The stock BMW 850CSi was much more manageable. I had to do Herencia (including several restarts) twice in the Rivian SUV to get it to register. The car is an annoyingly fat barge which like every other American car, can’t cope with corners unless you start braking early. However, the Rivian pickup is even worse, having bugger all grip. Luckily, I was up against a very slow opponent, but had to be so careful round corners. What are these sodding awful things doing in the game? (Advertising, whispered a voice.)

Seasonals. Two of them, but one, Y2K, had to be Street Scene (scream). Clearly the car you were meant to use was the BMW M3 GTR because that was the drivatar cheatmobile that once again showed that all A800 cars are equal, but some A800 cars are more equal than others. I used my Silvia Spec-R because… Oh, all right, it has a colourful livery. The reward was an SLS AMG. I vote for that.

I picked the Renault 5 Turbo for Retro Active, which was B700 dirt racing. It was annoying to have RWD cars being pests when they should’ve been spinning in corners and generally looking foolish. The reward was the 1993 Nissan Skyline, which feels a bit common-or-garden.

It took me two attempts to complete the Eliminator. The first time I got challenged by some player in a Levante while I was still only in my Beetle. They tried to provoke me into racing, but I was having none of it because the disparity between the cars was so great, and they eventually vanished off and won the race. The second time I got down to the last eleven, but when I got eliminated, I accidentally hit Enter instead of Esc, and did the Eliminator a third time. This one went quite well until I appear to have run into a cheater. I was in a Bronco and challenged another player who was pointing the right direction, whereas I had to turn round, but when I did, I couldn’t see my opponent anywhere.

The HW PR stunt was a drift zone, but in an A-class 1997 BMW M3. A-class. Keep that in mind. I managed to complete the task, but it was a struggle.

Intensity. Driven. was another seasonal which proved that all A-class cars are equal, but some are more equal than others. My first choice of car was the DB5, but it became clear that the car you were supposed to use was the V12 Vantage S. I switched to that and won. However, the Ram’s Head Speed Sprint (violent vomiting) is a hateful piece of shite. The reward was a 2019 Aston Martin DBS, which is fine. At least it wasn’t the 2019 911 GT3 RS, which went from feeling exclusive to not-another-one.

The Sierra Nueva PR stunt was also a drift zone, also to be done in the 1997 BMW M3. What did I discover? I’d only specced my M3 up to B class when I’d done the HW PR stunt. The odd thing was that I still managed to complete the earlier task in spite of the car being in the wrong class. The SWS was rubbish.

The seasonal, Turn up the Heat, was C600 (scream!) retro hot hatches (scream!!). I went for the Clio Williams which was better once I’d shortened 1st gear, but it was frustrating to watch the drivatar in the car you were probably meant to use, blast off into the distance while you languished. The reward was a Lancer Evo X, which feels a bit lacklustre, but that’s “modern” rally for you.

I decided to do the Trial as well in my Ferrari F430 Scuderia. Slippery conditions and team mates who were even worse at driving than I was being, but we managed to take down the drivatars in two races for the Porsche 918 Spider. There was a huge amount of lag in Llanuras. I missed a checkpoint by a sliver, but by the time the game caught up with that, nothing happened. There were cars bouncing all over the place, flashing into existence and flashing out of it. One of the drivatars came first in Llanuras on my screen, and I came third, but the lag was so wacky, that I came second.