FH5, Series 31, Week 2

The weekly challenge was once again a straightforward process, and the Stratos is a decent cheese wedge to drive.

I one-shotted all the PR stunts in the Peugeot T16. Two rubbish SWSs and one that was one-third all right. This was after two excellent wheel spins from the weekly.

Eventlab (1). Ramen Autodromo. As I set off in this one, I noticed that this seemed to be a spaghetti track, but found myself pleasantly mistaken. The creator seems to understand curves, and this was a very flowing kind of circuit. It’s a pity there’s no way to properly smooth the joins between the pieces of track, though.

Eventlab (2). Jardín Día. This, on the other hand, was an annoying spaghetti circuit. I’m surprised that we weren’t in hypercars or extreme track toys for even more larks.

I decided to do Cult Legends to get the DS23 so that I could take a playlist photo of it. (In fact, I already had snaps of all the new cars because the game actually had them all spawning in races last week.) As for the car itself, I’d already tried it again in FH4 for the first time in ages and found it to be a shrug. I even have two, although have no idea where the second one came from. Anyway, the races. I went for the Fiat Abarth Esseesse because it was ready to go. It was pretty close to being a no-brakes challenge. The car wasn’t much cop in a straight line, but absolutely thrashed the drivatars through the corners.

I took a pic of the DS23. I got an emote. My squeals of delight were positively orgasmic. (Aside: Where’s the DS3?)

Who was the genius who thought up Audi Ya Like That? Slightly inappropriate cars in a series of cross-country races. I opted for the Audi Sport Quattro (ready to go) and struggled against the TT RS (2018) and the TT. I persevered for the first two races before switching to the 2013 Audi RS7. Mistake. Yes, I won the final race, but the car was way too heavy even on the easiest of curves.

I managed to survive in the Eliminator after three attempts. I had to keep quitting because I kept getting challenged with no chance of winning before the session was down to the final 30.

Please remove the Eliminator from the Festival playlist. Perhaps they should have a separate game called Forza Minigames which has the Eliminator, PGG, and PR stunts, thus leaving us with a racing game. All right, that’d probably turn the game boring. The problem with the Eliminator on the playlist is that there will be a lot of players who don’t care about it and won’t be there for the head-to-heads, but to lurk round till there are 30 players left so that they can then be done with this barbed arse-splinter.

Three rounds of PGG. I’ve only ever done any of these once or twice before. The flag rush is a pale shadow of CTF. Just about impossible to stop players on the other team from scoring. The king one was in Ek’ Balam. Not sure what to do, but I suspect that if you get the crown, you should circle the perimeter. Same with the infected one. I went round the perimeter of the stadium in infected with another player, thus resulting in a team win. The trick seems to be drive round the edge in one direction only and never change your mind. No one seemed much interested in me (I have no friends; sob!) None of this has encouraged me to ever do this again. Or care.

I went for my old fave, the 2016 Cayman GT4, for the Trial. 4th round the Stadium Circuit and a team win. Tierra Próspera did not go well. The problem that I had was another player, who was slower than me, but didn’t give me space to pass them, and I didn’t want to be Mr Push-to-Pass. By the time I got by, it was too late to affect the race, and I suspect that even if I’d made the move earlier, it would’ve made no difference to the overall outcome. Vista del Mar went the way I was expecting, viz. carnage at the first sharp left, but three of us managed to get into the lead. The player in 2nd had issues with corners, muffing the turn onto the bridge, but not losing a place to the drivatars, and we won the championship.

It took me a couple of goes to get the HW PR stunt for which I got a two-thirds good SWS.

For Super Loops I chose the GTC4 Lusso. Sound choice (but stupidly overpowered), although I absolutely made a mess of things just ahead of the end of the Lava Loop Hazard Sprint because I went too fast into that section and clonked the wall, which caused me to spin. Wrong tyres for the job. Still won, though. Another dull Audi as a reward.

The PR stunt in Sierra Nueva was seriously annoying. I had to download a tune in the end and managed to hit the target by going through the ford. I’ve previously cheesed the speed trap by going uphill, but that was beyond the power of the cars to sufficiently overcome.

For Peak Retro I drove the 1988 BMW M5, although I don’t think it was the best choice. The Santana(/Passat) was a prize nuisance when, I feel, it oughtn’t to have been.