FH5, Series 57, Week 1

We start with the traditional treasure hunt. I drove my Starion past some cars, which seemed to more or less be the solution to the riddle. Then it was a matter of finding where exactly at the hotel the treasure was. I fast travelled and found myself embedded in the hotel jump ramp. Seems the best way to get to the treasure is to drive down the slope to the left of the ramp to the area immediately below it.

Why do they call them weeklies? If it took me a week to do these tasks in the 2002 Nissan Skyline, I’d be very slow indeed.

Eventlab (1). Tokyo Project: Circuit. Night, rain, terrible layout (faux crossover; more barriers needed; too much 2nd gear-3rd gear racing). Probably a valiant attempt to replicate parts of Tokyo. The SWS gave me a 917 LH, which is the second one in my garage.

Eventlab (2). Mizu Pass. I thought this was going to be a CC event, not some paved nature walk. I thought the Tundra TRD Pro would be the car for the job. Actually, it mostly was the car for the job apart from one severe hairpin where I had to reverse. Also, night time again. Ugh.

And for the first time in a while, the Eventlab tiles actually worked out of the box.

As far as I can recall, this is the only series in which we had to do a showcase remix. Hated them in FH4 and haven’t – with a few exceptions – done the FH5 ones more than one. Since the course follows the Goliath (or reverse Copper Canyon), I would’ve thought this shouldn’t have been too difficult, but the car was annoyingly understeery where it oughtn’t to have been. At least the SWS was one-third good.

The PR stunts. The hell that is S2 998 under less than ideal conditions. I tried the Hoonigan Mustang on my first attempt to do the ST on the volcano, but switched to the Jesko. Eventually the Forza gods smiled on my efforts. No, I have no idea what might be suitable for this PR stunt. Rubbish SWS, too. There’s the birth of a theme. One-shotted the DZ for another rubbish SWS.

The location for the photo is the east side of Ek’ Balam.

I’d forgotten it was Rivals week again. The GT-R round Horizon Mexico was unremarkable. The Nissan Z round Plaza Circuit was a matter of finessing a fat little barge on a circuit where it doesn’t really belong unless you think slamming into walls is fun.

And then it was off to do the HW PR stunt. One-shotted, badly, and got another rubbish SWS.

The RA PR stunt was another whim-of-the-Forza-gods event. Why the bloody hell do ramps for DSs often have a little bump ahead of them which flings cars off in random directions? When I did eventually complete this, it was accompanied by the usual question: am I even going to make the distance? In the end I did, but just. And the SWS was rubbish once again.

For the Trial I used the 2000 Nissan Silvia Spec-R. Second on the grid for Reservorio and managed a 5th place overall. Not helped early on by the drivatars getting in the way and slowing my great and glorious progress. Also, we had a couple of runaway drivatars. Fourth at the start of Sierra Verde, and managed to take that awkward right-hander without too much bother. Finished 4th, hundredths of a second behind Teagan, but as on so many occasions, there just wasn’t enough race to overtake her.

As for the next choice of series, I don’t know because they both predate my chronicles here. I know I never did the Trial back in those days, but see that in Series 11, Rami’s Racing History, they were races in stock cars. I don’t think that’s a recommendation, but I see nothing to favour either series.

FH6, progression

It seems to me that PGG is trying to have its cake and eat it with progression in FH6. Or to put it another way #ForcedEngagement because even though my preference is for the proper racing route with the wristbands [Too much alliteration. –ed.], it seems that we’ll still have to do food deliveries whether we want to or not to unlock whole other parts of the game. (However, will I need a work permit because I thought I was some tourist and am probably expressly forbidden from engaging in paid employment while I’m in Japan? Perhaps one quest will be to go the Department of Work and Pensions to get a visa so that I can work in a low-paid food delivery job. Oh, I see, it’s a gig and I’m on a zero hours contract. O modern slavery!)

The race customiser sounds like the exact same thing as we have already, but, it seems, we now have to unlock it to escape from the irritating tyranny of three-lap races. Are we going back to the days of FH4 when the tile for the race told me exactly which sort of car I was in? In FH5 I still can’t tell you whether it’s this sort of car or that sort of car beyond the absolute basics of the class, and I’m not in this to do Anything Goes races because I’m not some sloppy-brained 12-year-old (or YouTuber).

I like the idea of split times with the obstacle courses (what about the races as well?), but is this going to be a variant of Rivals in which crashing into solid objects invalidates the time? I suspect this will be a matter of getting three stars and probably never doing it again (ditto the showcase events in FH5, which I’ve only ever repeated if they’ve been on the Festival playlist).

I also like the idea that hypercars will be available later in the game. It also appears that PGG may have learnt something from the HW Goliath in that such cars need a dedicated circuit in a game where most of the courses are too short and twisty for grossly overpowered cars. I was puzzled by the statement “our longest Goliath event ever – the Colossus, which loops the entire map”. Is the event going to be called the Goliath (as per tradition) or is it now going to be called the Colossus (which is normally the longest sprint race); or should that be “colossus” with a lowercase-c? (Aside: I got the sense that the article was composed using AI and then sort of tidied up by some semi-literate flunky.)

Overall, some sort of progression is good, but it seems that you can’t really play on one side of the fence without having to stray to the other or lose out on a whole bunch of options in the game.