FH5, Series 47, Week 4

I haven’t managed to do the treasure hunt because that’s dependent on the right sort of treasure hunt (i.e., wreckage skills) turning up. I’ll get it done in due course.

I’ll be glad to see the back of this series and the interminable night and night-time races. The weekly challenge was in the 2012 Nissan GT-R. What did we have to do? A Street Scene race. Scream! I smashed (literally in the game) three STs. I had to check to see whether I’d completed the challenge because I got no notification of it. I’m not even certain whether I had to callously mow down one camera or both.

I one-shotted the ST, but had to redo the DS because the car went tail down. I one-shotted the SZ in the Brabham. A single one-third good SWS and the other two were rubbish.

Eventlab (1). Ejime Race Track. Another bloody night race. The lights are guides rather than a source of illumination. The track is mostly all right, but I wasn’t impressed by the excessively tight hairpin. It’s the sort of circuit that’s probably all right if you’re prepared to practise it.

Eventlab (2). Bahía DRS Holiday Resort. The layout’s not bad, but in places it becomes too open and needs arrows or walls to signal that there’s a turn coming up. The SWS was one-third excellent and one-third good.

For Horizon Tour, I ended up in A800 unlimited buggies, finishing with two 2nds and a 1st. The latter was a bit weird because a couple of players in Rip Rods, which were clearly faster than my Alumicraft, should’ve won. One of them may have got disconnected and the other possibly missed a checkpoint.

The Trial succeeded in being a right pain. “Drive an MB E63,” the game said without mentioning that there are two of them. I tried to enter the Trial with the one I’d built only to realise that the other model was intended. It was awful – a fat, German barge. I can’t understand why any sane, rational human being would want to drive stock cars in FH5. On my first attempt, I started in last place and came 3rd because Cow Shed Corner claimed more than one victim. I was also at the back for Gran Pantano, but quit because I wanted to build the car properly.

Went back. “Computer says ‘no’,” said the game. What?! The car was A750, but was A751 when I built it. Quit again to add a flywheel. I was on the front row for Dunas Blancas, but got shoved out of an early checkpoint (not accidental, I think). Restarted the Trial. Back row of Dunas Blancas. 1st, but team lost. Front of Gran Pantano and came 2nd, but that might’ve been because of too much aero in a race that only slightly needs it. Team win. Forza counting said, “Humans win.” I didn’t argue the toss.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt for a one-third good SWS.

I one-shotted and PB’ed the RA PR stunt, and was richly rewarded with a rubbish SWS. Well done, game.

Forza

As we all know, there ain’t gonna be no Horizon 6 this year. I feel there ought to have been, but suspect that MS is less worried about GTA 6 (which, in turn, I suspect is only a factor in the minds of the GTA V generation, who think it’s the goodest, bestest game evah [“And I have a note from my mum”]) than it is about celebrating 25 years of xbox (and as I don’t own one and have no interest in them, I was unaware of the forthcoming anniversary). Also, PS5 players are absolutely vomiting money at MS, which also makes a release of FH6 this year an unlikely prospect. Keep milkin’ that cow, lads.

But would it’ve hurt them to tell us where FH6 is going to be set and what issues might genuinely be delaying things? Has FH6 been sitting on someone’s HD since 2023? Every time someone from MS turns up, they all run round pretending to integrate the differential subroutines into the wave-form matrix to make it look like someone’s doing something.

The PS5 players are all right since there’s still a swathe of series for them to do, but for the rest of us, there would appear to be nothing to look forward to for a considerable amount of time.

I’m now thinking that prestige 9 may not be the unattainable goal that I’d previously thought it was. I also have over 100,000FPs, a feat which I didn’t manage to achieve in FH4. 88,000FPs in that game, I think.