FH5, Series 47, Week 3

The treasure hunt was doing Basejump in an Aston Martin. This DS is painful because the target is a smidge to the left, which meant failing the jump because I was either landing on rocks or failing the jump by landing to the left on, er, something. I tried the Valkyrie and the Valhalla, but completed the task in the Vantage since the game seemed not to like the other two cars. All this for 300FPs. I must be very close to passing 100,000FPs.

From the weekly challenge I find I have five 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500s. I have no idea how I come to be in this position. The ultimate burnout was annoying because the car kept sliding off the road. I painted the car, but as I’d done that previously, wasn’t wasting a slot. I zipped down the motorway and completed another weekly challenge.

I PB’ed the DS, but it took several attempts because of annoying obstacles. One-third good SWS. I managed to one-shot the SZ in the MB CLK GTR. Phew! That’s an SZ that can be a massive pain i’ th’ posterior. No, the crappy SWS was the pain i’ th’ posterior. I used my ridiculously overpowered S2-class International Scout for the TB. The biggest pain was the start until I slowed a little to stop the car from rotating. I managed to get through the trees at the bottom without making a fool of myself. No, the SWS blew a raspberry at me.

I tracked down the location of the neon tank near the caldera and took a snap. What did I get? Indifference. That’s what I got.

Eventlab (1). Hot Wheels Super Scramble. Opel Manta. Nothing much to say about the aesthetics. The layout wasn’t the most spaghetti-like thing I’ve seen. I’m surprised we didn’t get stupidly placed boost pads, but some of the high-speed sections seemed to end a little abruptly.

Eventlab (2). Osaka Sea Port. This seems to have been inspired by Tokyo Expressway in GT7, a track which I know from YouTube and that SuperGT boy. AWD super saloons seemed to be longhand for Audi saloon cars unless you wanted to drive some podgy EV (checks notes: not bloody likely), Excellent props. Marks off for all these tedious nighttime races. Many marks off for another dreadful SWS. Come on, game! I only have hundreds of millions of credits.

The Trial was in a stock 1993 Nissan GT-R. Well, in my case “stock”. I managed to unlock the final drive, which helped with the otherwise horrible gears and probably gave me a major edge over the rest of the team. Second row of Cathedral. 1st by seven seconds. No real issues apart from the drivatars. Decent team support. Front row start round Plaza. 1st place again by seven seconds from the drivatar behind me. Again, solid team support.

I PB’ed the HW PR stunt for a one-third excellent SWS.

It took a few attempts to deal with the RA PR stunt, which I also PB’ed. Like last time I drove over a short section of the dunes between one road and another to help maintain a good speed.

And because this is another week of three seasonals, I did Home by midnight. I did it in the BMW M6. This was a mistake because the car was a fat barge on stock tyres. Terrible launch. I admit that I’ve never ever done anything much with GT cars in the game, but should also point out that A-class GT cars is a bit like B-class modern rally, with too little scope for building cars into effective racing vehicles.

This got me another Backstage Pass. I see this week’s choices are rubbish or… rubbish. What a choice. Sophie’s choice rather than Hobson’s.

Horizon Tour

In two Horizon Tour series, one after the other, I had encounters with two different, genuine prestige 10 players. Many podiums if not wins for me this week. I keep racing against new players (PS5 crowd?) in stock cars. Oh, children, not stock cars. Even I’ll win against you. Or I’ve been winning because the lesser players quit, leaving me to give the drivatars a well-deserved spanking [Kinky. –ed.]

I’ve also had quite a few connection issues this week. I’d try joining a Tour only for nothing to happen. I’d then break the connection, return to the starting point, and find the same race series on offer. Doing an HA cured it on one occasion. Doing the Goliath fixed it on another. Doing the Eliminator didn’t help. Probably I ought to switch to Horizon Solo and then switch back to Horizon Life.

I keep ending up in cross-country races either in the Jeep Trailcat or the 2015 Range Rover SVR or the Porsche Macan. But in some cases the series is AG, which means that everyone else turns up in the least suitable cars because they’re not paying attention to the races.

Horizon 6 announcement?

I believe the xbox conference or whatever they call it is taking place on the 8th. Will we get some announcement about Horizon 6? No idea. Can’t say that my expectations of an announcement are that high. I keep imagining the whole game being delayed because MS are insisting on copilot being incorporated into the game to replace Anna. “Copilot will be there to help players find optimal lines,” says the voiceover to soft-focus, airbrushed, AI-generated game play of cars sweeping cinematically round corners. Reality: “Ram the bastard!” screeched copilot. “Ram them to Hell!”

Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps we will get an announcement. Perhaps.