FH5, Series 56, Week 1

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Treasure hunt. Five jumps in the Austin-Healey Sprite. I thought the land between Mulegé and the main Festival site would make it easy, but the car seemed determined to stick to the ground. The treasure is in that open cave in the south-east of Ek’ Balam.

The weekly. The FD Corvette. I did a bit of fiddling with the tuning, which seemed to help, and had no problems completing the various tasks.

Four Rivals events, three of them in EVs that I otherwise never ever drive. It was nice to drive the Lynk & Co. 02 with its gears.

I one-shotted Cara Este by a decent margin and got a third FD Nissan. I did the same to Polytunnels (one-third good SWS) and Camino del Montaña, but in the latter, I just managed to hit the target at the end of the DZ. Got a Ferrari Dino out of the SWS, which I gave away.

Took a photo, and did a drift HA.

Eventlab (1) was Don Joe Won Song’s Utopia Gardens Recension is a very artistic piece of work, but clearly aimed at the more stunt-driving end of the market. Rubbish SWS.

Eventlab (2) was Turbine Raceway. Good use of props, but a 3rd-gear layout. Let’s hope in FH6 there’s not another stadium where they insist on squeezing squitty little karting tracks.

Eventlab (3) was Butterfly Tunnel Run. I’ll give it marks for props, remove marks for night time, and a couple of marks for that ridiculous jump at the end and a narrow start-finish gate.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt in the Xpeng (again, a car that I’ve probably driven only for the second time) for a rubbish SWS.

Same car for the RA PR stunt. I knew there was a way to do this because the car needs quite a long run-up. I switched to off-road race tyres and took the sand road that approaches from the south-east (?) before doing a little cross country and then getting onto the road ahead of the jump. I didn’t give it enough distance the first time, but even with a longer run-up, I still just got the required distance. One-third good SWS.

I did a small amount of testing for the Trial, but left it too late. I then decided to use the 1970 Corvette (more or less randomly), but saw that the 1967 model had way more power (and was the popular choice). Second on the grid for Mulegé and came 3rd overall because of handling problems. Too much power and not enough handling. Bahía de Plano did not go well. Started in fifth and ended in 7th. In spite of doing what I could with a car that wasn’t really fit for purpose, I couldn’t catch the group ahead of me at all and we lost that round. It was then off to Horizon Mexico, where I started from second on the grid and finished in 2nd after clawing my way through the field. Team win.

However, I then rebuilt the car afterwards because I feel it needs better handling and want to try the Trial again. It won’t have the straight-line speed, but it should do better in the corners, where I was often sliding whether I wanted to or not. I’ll report back.

As for the next series, I think I’m turning Japanese, not because of FH6, but because the alternative, I believe, is more of the annoying extended nights. If you want to drive at night, turn the gamma of your monitor right down, and squint a lot.

The car vote is mostly a shrug. We’ve only just had the Rebel again (I think I now have three), but I like the promo Camaro (shoes or something like that?)

Forza Horizon 6: progression

Pity they wouldn’t give us weekly titbits about the game. For instance, I’m curious to know how progression will work. I had to look it up in FH1 as I never played the game. According to Google, it takes about 15 hours to complete it. In essence, in spite of the fanboys screaming for progression as somehow superior, this is just #ForcedEngagement of a more limited sort. I assume they switched to a different system in Horizon other games to keep players coming back or they were merely going to hear that tedious chorus of “I completed the game!” (No, I’m not going to say “beat”, which has always sounded so stupid to me; the game is not an opponent, but an arena in which you complete challenges to progress.)

It also makes me expect that the Festival playlist will continue to be a thing.

So, the races. Like the seasonals with the drivatars on the default level of difficulty? The boss monster a bit harder? A car with a limited scope for building and tuning? Do tell, PGG.

Forza Horizon 6: the size of Tokyo

Something I have to mention because if you watched AR12’s video, you may have noticed – if you’re aware of such things – he made that classic n-times-the-size mistake. Using the FH5 map which was released ahead of the game, Guanajuato is about 3.45cm². Five times that is 17.25cm², which is a square with sides of 4.15cm as opposed to Guanajuato, which is the equivalent of a square with sides 1.86cm long. That’ll make the sides of Tokyo, if it was a square, 2.23x longer. That is, it’s much bigger, but not as big as a lot of people will be thinking it is.

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