Occasional Tales

I was looking for some videos on my old laptop at school yesterday when I came across a video of me playing Most Wanted (2005). I think I was probably testing the game bar to record a video about six years ago (?) when I had that game installed just before I bought Horizon 4. I see that Ericship111 posted a video about FH5 ending too soon. Ending? Another matter. The video I found had me wondering why I played MW (2005) so much even though it had no Festival playlist, the roster of cars was minute, and nothing new was ever added to the game. The game has some progression (which – little reminder – can’t go on forever) in that you did events to unlock new parts of Fairhaven and to challenge rivals on the Black List before dealing with Sergeant Cross and the Corvette Squad. What made the game replayable for me was the police pursuits even though I reached a point where I knew all the tactics to evade them or boost my score because Sergeant Cross would sit behind me in the docks just out ...

Treasure hunt. I did a figure-8 round the crates at the Street Scene outpost. No drifting required. The treasure is not far from the stadium to the south-west. I think I have about 69,000 FPs. Nothing to spend them on, not even Backstage Passes. The weekly in the 2016 CTS-V passed without any issues, although some players may need to buy a new one to spend the credits to get it into S1 class. As I had a second, unused one, that wasn’t a problem. Eventlab, Chemical Plant . Totalitarian use of props. Points off for a night race and a terrible circuit. Points on for at least restricting the race to C-class hot hatches. PR stunts. I added front aero and heavier rims to get the CTS-V to the top of S1 class. The danger sign was a nuisance because on my first attempt I got the distance, but landed on a rock. Got it on the second attempt by aiming slightly to the left. Start from the Lookout Circuit turn (I’ve decided that a long run-up doesn’t really help, especially on that deceptive right-...

Treasure hunt. Burn some rubber, skid or something like that out at the airfield. The treasure chest is near the start of the San Juan Scramble. The weekly in the 1965 Pontiac GTO was uneventful. On the other hand, a D-class 1965 Pontiac GTO was a pain i’ th’ arse because the car had sod-all handling when I was attempting the Mulegé danger sign on stock tyres. Three tries for a one-third good SWS. I one-shotted the speed trap on the bridge by approaching it from the Ek’ Balam side and using the pavement inside the tunnel to help. Rubbish SWS. Then it was time for a pic. I got a scarf. It’s years since I’ve acquired a new scarf. Now there’s something FH6 should have – a clothing editor. I must suggest this at once. Eventlab, Rally of the Ancient Ruins , was actually a good idea, incorporating deliberately or otherwise, parts of Teotihuacán and other dirt races. I forgot that this was Rivals week. Granjas de Tapalpa in the 2022 Dodge Challenger Super Stock. Too much power, too fat, iff...

Two new cars and that may be all FH5 is getting. One is the 2022 Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock which will probably end up being garage filler like the other non-Viper Dodges, and the other is one of those 90s “Mustangs”. The rest will please newer players who are looking to fill holes in their garages. More extended night. Ugh. The night’s already too long and I still don’t understand the point of it. Perhaps in FH6 they could adjust the hours of daylight according to the season. Also, those bloody garish neon lights. Ugh! (but with an exclamation mark). A choice of opening screens is a nice late idea. I’m tempted to opt for the Horizon 4 one, but probably won’t change anything. This looks to be the last series with any new cars because from now on we’ll be voting for one old series or another, although there will be some updates to the playlist such as expansion events with series that predate Hot Wheels or Rally Adventure. Perhaps this is the “new content” to which PGG may be some...

Treasure hunt. Win a race in a track toy. Go to the balcony below the hotel jump. Well, I say “go”, but I flopped in an undignified fashion to get the treasure. I was dreading the weekly in the Ariel Nomad because of the loathsome Hide-and-Seek task at the end of it, but a visit to the forums revealed that the final task never happened, which turned out to be true. When I did the speed zone task, I actually PB’ed one of them. I used the pair not far from the Horizon Tour start area. In spite of failing the Mulegé jump, I actually got credited for the 100m jump. I was going to go drifting for the HA task, but the game has been disconnecting me and only managed to get this done later. Again, my drifting skills, which were never great to begin with, were fairly sus. No sign of wreckage skills as an option. I one-shotted the danger sign and got a one-third very good SWS. Took me a couple of attempts to get the speed zone for a rubbish SWS. I managed to one-shot the trailblazer, although mu...

Treasure hunt. Go to the top of the volcano in an Exocet, they said. Treasure not far away from the nearby telescope. Money in the bank that’ll almost never get spent. I’d already done some practice in the Hoonigan Escort RS 1800 for the weekly challenge. I went with AWD because I felt the car was a bit floaty RWD. I did the drift skills without even trying. I managed to do the speed traps in two somehow. I one-shotted East Resort in the Ferrari F40 Competizione and got an SWS that was one-third good and one-third very good. Green Hills took a few attempts to complete, but I managed it with the tight turn at the end. Rubbish SWS. Trailblazer. One-shotted. Rubbish SWS. Eventlab (1), Ranchero Norte , employed that terrible fake tarmac that cannot be smoothly pieced together. Not a bad basic circuit, but the whole setting felt like it needed more work. I really shouldn’t have bothered because I already have two Hoonigan Escorts. Eventlab (2), The Gulch of Monument Valley . It sounds lik...

Treasure hunt. Near-miss skills on motorway. 300FPs to add to my expanding pile of them. The weekly in the Ultima Evo was a nuisance to begin with because I fiddled about building the car first and then found that you had to spend money on it. I did an engine swap and immediately swapped it back. The drag race was awful, with the car shifting sideways by two lanes during the course of the race. HA. Drifting, which revealed how out of practice I am. I seem to have done most of the work while some other player scrounged off me. I one-shotted all the PR stunts this week and PB’ed the Stadium speed trap. Was variably rewarded as usual. Eventlab (1). El Toro Scramble . This was really just a version of El Pípila . Not a fan of the obstacle course section which is why, I suppose, it was a solo effort. There was one section where it would be easy to sail off to the right instead of keeping left. This is where there needed to be props to block the way, but the decorative elements were mostly j...

We start with the weekly challenge in the ridiculously overpowered Rimac Concept 2. I don’t think I’ve ever actually built the car, but then again, I never actually drive it unless the circumstances force me to. I feared that the sole new car in this series, the Chevrolet C10, might be an undrivable mess in Rivals, but it wasn’t awful. In a similar vein, EV Rivals round Ek’ Balam passed through the history of my life without raising any problems. I took a photo, I got a scarf. I may already have had the scarf. The collectibles task in the stadium was a bit of a pain because some arse of a player, who may already have completed the challenge, was smashing all the dinosaur piñatas, spamming chat with “Ha ha!” and sounding his horn incessantly as if I was going to pay the slightest amount of attention to him. I thought that it didn’t matter whether some other player smashed one of these items, it was only smashed on their screen. This seems not to have been the case because if this littl...