FH5, Series 55, Week 4

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Treasure hunt. Picture of off-roader in Teotihuacán. Treasure in stadium again. Thank the gods I’ll never have to do that again. Meanwhile, in Horizon 6 …

The weekly. The Jaguar E-Type. For bonus irony points, I drove the one with the Lunar New Year livery. I have three with this paint job because not long after we did that series, less enlightened people seemed desperate to get rid of them.

The ST was no problem in the GTC4 Lusso for an SWS that was one-third good and one-third very good. And then we come to that sodding SZ. It was a case of bashing away at it in the Ferrari Enzo until – as on every other occasion – the Forza gods smiled with malign benevolence and gave my car a nudge to just pass the required speed.

The tank detective is on the hotel balcony off to the right of the jump. I knew it was somewhere around there, but I ended up one level down. Made no difference when I took the piccie.

The HW PR stunt was another nuisance thing, where I’d appreciate it if either a.) any A700 Nissan can complete the stunt or b.) we get told precisely which one can do it. I ended up engine-swapping a 2010 370Z and taking the final turn by coming in from the left side of the track. One-third good SWS.

I did the RA PR stunt in the Stagea. Downhill in a relatively straight line from higher up the quarry. Rubbish SWS. Well done, game. Bloody little weasel.

Eventlab… tiles dead again.

I did some testing for the Trial. My pick was the Clio Williams even though I rather suspected that it was going to be outclassed. My reason for preferring it was that it was nippy. I tried some of the more recent Renaults, but didn’t like the handling in Sierra Verde.

Anyway, only two of us were in non-stock cars (the other player was in the R26.R), and most of the other players were in 2017 Alpine A110s. I was fifth on the human grid. Not a great start as I fell behind, but as there was a bit of a gap, I thought I might be all right round the first right-hander. The other player in a B700 car went crashing into me. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but it was damnably annoying when I could’ve made up several places. And then it got worse.

I was behind one of the Alpines heading towards the first bridge when the player oversteered and missed the right-hand checkpoint. I went into the back of the car, backed off, and then did it again because I expected the car to ghost. In fact, the player quit and off I went only for William, the little bastard, to go sailing past me on the outside. This wasn’t going well.

Then we got to the hairpins, which is where my car showed its nippiness and I was in 5th overall behind another stock Alpine. I knew as we got to the bottom of the hill that your man would go clunking into the wall (I’ve done it plenty of times myself) and passed him to take 4th and a team win.

I was second at the start of Rocosa. Something odd was going on because I glanced at the mini map and saw I was well down the order. I clawed my way through the field and took 3rd on the turn along the straight where the Horizon Mexico Circuit icon is. The player in 3rd seemed to vanish because suddenly there was me and the drivatars, and humanity was in a parlous state. The drivatars had been being aggressive little buggers, too. It looked like an unequivocal loss. “Just kidding,” said the Forza gods with a wry smile. Team win. There was some weirdness going on because we looked to be on a thrashing to nothing.

The Eventlab tiles were working this morning. Green Plains Motor Raceway was an old-fashioned circuit with banked turns. Quite fast, but easy to get overexcited. Enjoyable layout and the props gave a good sense of period circuit. More practice needed. One-third good SWS and one-third excellent.

Eventlab(2). Slice ‘n’ Dice Course. Good arcade-style props, but the circuit is all 3rd gear apart from an occasional 2nd. One-third very good SWS.

I didn’t quite get enough points to unlock a Backstage Pass, but I looked at the seasonals and shrugged. I’ll get the other points from the dailies.

The Lunar New Year won the vote. That’ll probably be down to players in Asian countries where this means something and where no one has the faintest idea that in the English-speaking world everyone was screaming for the other series. I screamed for neither. I wonder whether the E-Type in the New Year livery will be back again. I think it was a car that was gifted to us.

However, I’m looking forward to FH6 because it’ll be a change of vista and, I hope, a more interesting vista with a good deal more character than Mexico. I don’t doubt that the real Mexico has bags of character, but it was poorly represented in the game.

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