FH5, Series 43, Week 3

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 of range, but show no interest in me (perhaps the character is based on a cat).

FH5 has its replayable aspects, but that’s the games-in-a-sandbox for the kiddies, which you have to play online. As I’ve said before, I don’t have any interest in the Eliminator, Hide-and-Seek, or any of the other events in this category. These seem to be another MS attempt to create a social network from a game, an idea that makes me cringe. Horizon Tour is sort of all right as a mini Trial. Horizon Open is a fest for the car-and-tune exploiters, and FM is not a viable alternative for us keyboard players because of its loose physics (slidey LMP cars?)

At the moment I do at least have the goal of reaching prestige 8.

So now that we appear to have reached the point where no new content will be added to FH5 apart from something called Horizon Realms (private lobbies? Sounds like Realms in Minecraft), what next for me? I’m not going to stop playing the game since I want to keep my hand in ahead of FH6. The question is whether I’ll continue to do the repeated Festival playlists, but I think that’s going to depend on what’s on offer. Next month, I predict, we’ll get the Alfa Romeo series, which is fine, but as I said in a previous entry, I bought all the cars before unlocking them; and don’t really need third copies of any of them. (Aside: somehow I have four Hoonigan Napalm Novas; how?)

In other words, I’m probably going to do bits of future playlists and only for cars that I’d like a second copy of. I’ll continue with the PR stunts because the rewards are random. I don’t really need any more Backstage Passes as I believe I now have 19.

As for FH5 ending, that depends on the player. There will be a lot who see the repeated playlists as the end of their involvement. I would go off to ACC, but I’d need to be able to have my wheel permanently set up for that for which I don’t have the room. FH5 is easier choice because I needn’t remove the shelf under my desk, bolt my wheel base precariously onto the desk, etc. Everything’s ready to go for Mexico.

Week 3.

Treasure hunt. I was already aware that there were issues with this, but I sat between the barriers at the start of the drag strip and beeped my horn for which I was richly rewarded.

The weekly in the Titan Warrior did have an issue. I thought I’d do the cross country circuit over at the airfield and knock the daily out as well. No, it seems that you had to do a cross-country sprint.

I also stayed in the Titan for the photo, which is a hut down on the beach at Bahía de Plano. If it’s night, the neon sign is actually quite obvious.

PR stunts. Stayed in the Titan. “Incorrect car,” said the game. A D-class Titan. I rebuilt it, adding a racing exhaust and chunky rims to get it to the top of D class. As I found, the danger sign needed a long run-up from the far side of the motorway. A one-third excellent SWS. I one-shotted the speed trap. Usual strategy of barrelling down the hill (which always seems to me a bit of a cheat). A one-third very good SWS.

Eventlab (1), Sunset Circuit. The part through the motorway junction was a pain, but the rest was all right.

Eventlab (2), Boulder Lake Raceway. Another night race. Gods! However, this was a decent layout, although I thought the technical section was a little too spaghetti-like, but it wasn’t a terrible flaw.

The HW PR stunt was all a matter of aim. I think I got the distance every time, but found that it was best to aim a bit to the left. Rubbish SWS.

I one-shotted the RA PR stunt in the Lancia Stratos for another rubbish SWS.

For the Trial, which took me several attempts to join, I tentatively went with the 1979 Camaro Z28 because it had the most scope for building. I was stuck with wider stock tyres, but that didn’t prove to be as much of an issue as I thought it might be. I was on the back row for Bola Ocho and managed a 4th (kindly gifted to me by another player crashing into a solid object), but the race was too short for me to catch the drivatar in 3rd. Team win. I was on the front row for Panorámica and came 1st after the player who briefly took the lead (with shoving) missed a checkpoint, while sensible, competent cornering kept me in first. Team win again. However, the kiddies still kan’t korner.

Just so that I could get another Backstage Pass this week, I did Hustle and Muscle. The 1993 Ford SVT Cobra R was fast in a straight line, but hated corners because it would’ve been on stock tyres. It was already B700, and all I did was tinker a little with the tuning.