FH5, Series 34, Week 1

A couple of near misses got the treasure hunt done in about ten seconds. I wasn’t even trying.

The weekly in the 1992 Honda NSX passed without any real issues. I had to do an engine swap for the CR20,000 worth of upgrades, but left it alone and got six stars in speed zones in two attempts (Punta Allen).

I did the PR stunts early because I was waiting for the timer on an HA to count down. I knew the stock 1987 Pontiac Trans Am could do the stunts. The only bother was the speed zone because I kept having issues with that nuisance of a right-hander, but knew that the car could hit the right speed after that point. The SWSs were two-thirds good, absolute rubbish, and one-third good.

And the HA was done after that. I was going to do the drift one, but another player turned up and I didn’t want to find myself doing all the work. I switched to the wreckage HA, and then other people turned up. Possibly newbies because I kept fast travelling and doing a goodly share of the graft before anyone else arrived.

Eventlab (1). Temples Rally was an interesting variation on Teotihuacán, but I discovered that taking photos in the race (the new Citroen appeared) still causes the game to crash. So, a fix that was meant to have been applied in October (?) last year appears to have failed.

Eventlab (2). Oh dear. The Tiny Tangerine was a flat course overlarded with 90° turns that were bordered by vicious kerbs. I started in the Diablo SV, but the tarmac was the stuff that lacks any sort of adequate grip, and I switched to my AWD Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale so that I could take the corners with more confidence. Nor was there quite enough distance between corners to make it worth leaving 3rd gear until the main straight.

Photo. Clothing. Does anyone actually care about such irrelevant fripparies in a racing game? I remember the days when games had hot girls in bikinis. Now I’m the hot girl in the bikini. Sigh.

This was also Rivals week. Fortunately, the game was working again because this morning I saw there’d been issues. I had to beat a time of 59 mins. to complete Las Laderas in the Lotus Esprit. My heart pounded with anxiety. Would I manage to get to the finish line before the time was up? Anyway, once that was done, I went off to Playa Azul. Rubbish wheel spin afterwards (and by now I already had the 2021 Countach). I had to get round Los Jardines in under 13 mins. in the new Hyundai. Fortunately, it’s not some overpowered EV and wasn’t a pain to drive. Since I know Descansar Dorado quite well, the Evija wasn’t too much of a bother, but without gears and audible cues, curves and corners are a wild guess.

I survived long enough in the Eliminator to get the job done. I even found a car drop up at Las Ranas while I was busy eking out my time.

I’d already been doing some testing and had decided that the Nissan Nismo GT-R was probably a good choice for Red Sky at Night. The races mostly went well apart from Carretera Chase in which I was pestered as far as the motorway before the drivatars retreated a respectful distance. Normally when you get to the motorway, they come blasting up behind you or drive in the right-hand lane and then smash through the armco like it’s not there.

Above and Be Honda was the same as the other seasonal. I’d already decided to used the Ferrari 512 TR, which rather ironically unlocked the 512 TR in the Festival playlist. The annoying part was that both Lookout Circuit and Chihuahua had wet tarmac. I’m surprised it wasn’t nighttime as well, along with plenty of neon lights and spray.

The Trial is where things turned embarrassing for me. Once again, I’d already chosen a car, the Elise GT1, because it had sufficient scope for a decent range of upgrades. I’d experimented with a couple of other cars (1993 Skyline and the R390) which were very fast, but lacked adequate grip. I came 2nd in Llanuras after blasting past the drivatars on corners, and we got a team win.

Sierra Verde includes the location of the start-finish line for the River Scramble. Marking the apex of the left-hander before the start-finish line of that race is a tree which I normally avoid, but tend to get a little close to. Today I drove into the tree, which put an end to Sierra Verde even though I’d been doing quite well.

I restarted the Trial. 3rd in Llanuras with all players on the podium. In Sierra Verde I fell to the back at the start of the race and was carving my way through the field. I got past the tree and saw an opportunity to pass another drivatar. What did I do? Missed the checkpoint just past the start of River Scramble. Doh!

Third time lucky, and it was lucky. I looked to be coming 3rd in Llanuras until the player ahead of me slid sideways (understeered?) just ahead of the finish line. We’d been catching the lead drivatar, but ran out of race. Back to Sierra Verde where I vowed not to crash into the tree or miss a checkpoint. As we got to the final downhill section, I’m in 2nd. The player in 1st rockets away, but I catch him probably because he wasn’t as circumspect through the turns as he ought to have been. And then bizarrely, the other player does a (deliberate) 180 with the finish line probably another 50-100m away and ends up on the side of the road pointing the wrong direction and giving me 1st place. He still came 2nd in spite of this, but I wonder whether the game was being laggy and our man thought he was about to cross the finish line. Anyway, job done.

The FE Corvette was the car to use for the HW PR stunt and the seasonal, When the Hemi Drops. The latter was yet again Dragon’s Fall (but no hypersonic drivatars today), Ram’s Head (sliding round the irritating hairpin, but nothing fatal), and Nexus (me 1st; drivatars still in the 19th century). The circuits were back to three laps. Grrr.

I managed to one-shot the RA PR stunt in the FE Exocet and got a one-third excellent SWS. I stuck with the same car for the seasonal, Fish out of Water, to get my third Opel Manta. The races were fine, although marred by the excessive use of sharp corners in Sierra Nueva.

I had a play with the new Countach. It seemed all right stock. Pleased it’s made it to the game, but it seems to be a fashion statement.

I listened to the new radio station long enough to unlock the badge, but switched back to Radio Eterna because the new music really does nothing for me. A Music teacher I once worked with hypothesised that I like Baroque music because of its sophistication, whereas this Synthwave stuff doesn’t seem to have any. The new music is inoffensive and tolerable, but better suited to a disco in a Duke Nukem game.