FH5, Series 51, Week 4

I started with the weekly in the 2003 VW Golf. I was all right for the events apart from the jump, and as I didn’t want to rebuild my B-class Golf, I bought a new one for that and the speed skills.

I got a horn for taking a photo of the 2003 BMW M5 on the bridge. Now I can be as irritating as all the annoying 12-year-olds who insist on blasting me with their stupid horns in races or outside of them. [You don’t need a horn to be irritating. –ed.]

I one-shotted the DZ in my BMW X6 and got a one-third very good SWS. I thought the TB in the crappy old Beetle might be a pain, but I also managed to one-shot it. The strategy is to head towards the road to the right and then go across the sand which is sparsely covered with plants. Rubbish SWS. The ST took a couple of goes because I needed to lower the aero settings on the car. One-third good SWS.

Eventlab. VW Rally. Well, half true because about half the circuit is tarmac. Quite a good use of the German flag throughout the course as a decorative element. Decent length circuit, but no way of knowing that the final jump sends you into ditch diggers unless you know they’re there.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt for a one-third excellent SWS before dealing with the RA PR stunt, which took me a few attempts as it was that damned irritating SZ again. I managed to PB it in the FE BMW X6 mostly by taking the first section cautiously and then gunning it round the final curve. I fear we’ll have a lot of SZs like this in FH6.

The Trial was a trial. I started at the back of La Selva and won along with a team win. I was front of the human grid for Cordillera, but couldn’t catch the annoying drivatar in 1st. My teammates were making arses of themselves and not quitting when they ought to have been. Team loss. There were only two of us competing in Desierto, but the race was like Cordillera, with one of the drivatars taking 1st and being uncatchable. Meanwhile, my teammate, who started well, may have missed a checkpoint, and that was the end of that.

I restarted the whole exercise. I was on pole for La Selva and won again for a solid team win. I was second on the grid for Cordillera and won the race. Team win again, but not by such a margin. Job done. I was surprised I did so well because the only thing that you can tune on the stock Audi Quattro is the tyres.

This week’s Horizon Tour was merely one of many. This one was A800 AG cross country. On this occasion, I opted for my Porsche Macan (all right, no surprise; it’s either this car or the Range Rover SVR). I was third on the grid and won because the exploiter in the Bone Shaker missed the checkpoint as he flew down into the car park, a mistake that he didn’t make again. His driving was a little sus because round Herencia, he went too deep into the corner on the first jump across the circuit and came barrelling out of it as if nothing had happened. When we had to drive to Ek’ Balam, one of the players reached the start in record time because they’d arrive when no one else was even close.

There’s already been a lot of whinging about Horizon Track Day winning the series vote, which isn’t unwarranted; but honestly, if I had to choose between some dull domestic car and something fun and exciting, I’m not choosing the former. My one thought about these votes is that sooner or later, the choices are going to be between one shrug and another.

The Backstage Pass vote is a bit of a waste of time on both counts because whichever pair lose the vote, you can get the car anyway.

This is why FH6 needs to make it possible in some way to acquire cars from previous series without resorting to the present arbitrary system. My suggestion is permanent seasonals which can be done at any time regardless of whether you’ve been playing the game since launch or not so that new players can get their hands on exclusives without feeling they may have missed out forever. Once you’ve done the seasonal, that’s it till the next time. What I learnt from FH4 was that it was possible to acquire all the cars (although only if you’d played the game when the Quartz Regalia was accessible), but might take some time for the rarest cars to be rewards.

FH6: Japan, the map

Bigger, less empty, and with more Tokyo, which is all we currently know. There are calls for the expansions to be directly accessible from the main map. I’d certainly vote for that, but the main map may be as much as the game engine can cope with.

I assume the map will be a single bloc as ever, but it could also reflect that Japan is an archipelago, with bridges or tunnels between islands, which as far as I’m aware, no Horizon map has ever featured. But I also hope it won’t be a flat expanse with all the variety pushed to the margins.

As for seasons, they do need to be more distinct than those in FH5, but more nuanced than FH4 in which snow covered the whole of the map even though this is no British winter. In other words, the seasons should be slightly different across the map from north to south. In the north I’d expect snow in winter, but not in the south where, I’d guess, winters are probably dry.