Occasional Tales

So much for the Barbie cars. “Have a couple of Barbie cars,” says PGG at random one day. I had thought we might have to do some themed Eventlab event, but the cars are gifts to remind Horizon-5-playing parents to take their target demographic children to see the film. “Barbie is much better than your stupid car game.” How so? “Because dressing up is a core game play mechanic with Barbie.” I drove round in the battery-powered Corvette for a bit. Ticked that box. ( Later. I watched AR12 Nick’s video on YouTube about the car, which gains next to nothing from being upgraded; it’s a bit like cosmetic upgrades in the game, the wings and spoilers that can’t be tuned, but which you’d add if you were a photographer, but have no point in races.) I took the Hummer EV (the Barbie one) up the volcano after tuning it. 318kmh, it claimed. I got about 100m from the danger sign that faces the main Horizon Festival site and the Hummer ground to a halt. I had to crab my way to the top so that I could d...

It’s pink and it’s smooth, and I be afraid of it. The Racing Car Pack wasn’t listed in the MS shop. It wasn’t listed in the xbox app. A lot of people went to the obvious places to get the new DLC for Horizon 5. No, you had to update the game and purchase the new car pack from within the game. Meanwhile, a lot of people were outraged – outraged! I say – that they were expected to pay for this even though it was never listed as part of the Premium version of the game. (And we had the same nonsense with the HW Car Pack which came to FH4 as an extra.) I tried all of the cars stock. The Emira is nice to drive out of the box even on a keyboard. The Nissan Alti… (whatever) can be tuned, but is – let’s face it – another clown car. Floaty front end. The Pagani Huayra R can also be tuned out of the box, but suffers from the usual problem of being an RWD car with too much power. It also has, I think, the worst cockpit view in the game. The Saleen pickup is another F150, which I took up the side o...