Occasional Tales

I knew the detail for the next series would probably be here today (i.e., the usual day late because of the Americans being a day behind the rest of the world). The article on forza.net starts by trumpeting an IKEA prop pack (assembly required?) (and here was me thinking this was meant to be a car racing game). I see these will include the infamous Billy bookcase. The two new races are the Edo Circuit Road Race and the Shuto Charge Street Race . I suddenly thought last night that they’d both be Street Scene. Phew! The three new cars are the 2016 Honda S660 Alpha (never heard of it; and is there nothing more up-to-date they could’ve added?), the 2025 Citroën Ami (another novelty car; Citroën marketing: Il est un petite vache “It’s a great marketing opportunity”) and the 1987 Fiat Panda. Well, there are three cars I’ll probably never drive more than once. I’m sure the Ami is likely to rival other EVs for the title of least competitive car in the game. The not-so-new cars are some 2011 ...

The new update arrived this morning. Quite a few of the comments on Facebook were the usual whine about Japanese cars. No, the topic is the British Automotive update. Focus, children. What are we getting? A new Bentley Continental (probably marketing), but I still want to see the GT3 version return from FH4. An old Ginetta GT40 Junior that already looks rather retro as if it came out of those Cars films (the current one looks better, but is marketed “for 14-17 year olds”). Is this going to be better than that awful E-Type wannabe from FH5? But where’s the GT4 car or the G56? And from the antique end of the paddock, some old Vauxhall Astra. Let me listen. No, I can’t hear anyone screaming for it. The FE Jaguar XJ-S is probably going to be an undrivable mess without a drivetrain swap, although controller players will be all right. I’ll probably have to buy the standard XJ-S (which I had out in FH4 and as usual, the drivatars were all in the same car). I expect that Drift Attack will be o...

I’ve spent much of today trying the Nissan Retro Rides Car Pack, and the cars which Horizon Realms has unlocked. Nissan Retro Rides They’re mostly the same. Same stock tuning – 1/9 (see me after class), the same perks, including the 150% XP racing bonus (probably to entice players to drive them), and whole range of engine swaps. I built all of them in much the same way and raced them round 5 laps of the Stadium Track . 1991 Nissan Figaro. Built to B class. 04:25.359 with a best lap of 00:50.594, which shows just how short this track is if I can lap it in this time in a FWD car. 1989 Nissan Pao. The camshaft boosted this into A class. Overall time, 04:16.551, which was 15 seconds faster than the drivatars. My fastest lap was 00:49.749. 1989 Nissan S-Cargo (escargot – geddit?). In this first race, this blasted into the lead. Another car I built into low A class. Very nose-heavy. Race time of 04:15.505 which was 21 seconds ahead of the drivatars probably because by now I had the measure o...

This week’s treasure hunt was… but first a word from our sponsors, Horizon Realms – playpen opportunities to annoy you to a greater or lesser extent. All your favourite Evolving Worlds™ are packed inside minuscule spaces with maximum opportunities to lose skill chains. Horizon Realms, coming to a PC, xbox, PS5 (delete as applicable) near you. What was I talking about? Oh, the treasure hunt. Do some jumps in the Pontiac Firebird. The weekly was the return of the 1983 VW Golf GTi. It had to include a Street Scene race, and the Street Scene race had to include the inappropriate Porsche Rallye (pronounced “Dakar”). Yes, I won, but that Porsche Dakar… sorry, Rallye, has a tendency to pop up in all the wrong places and being one of those cars that the drivatars make you hate (e.g., the Supervan 3 in FH4) even though it’s quite good. (Aside: I don’t think the Porsche Rallye [Dakar? –ed.] is that good, being too overpowered and too underhandling.) I somehow managed to knock out an ultimate ski...

 Series 43 preview and the 2023 Porsche 911 Turbo S. As I guessed yesterday, the post outline Series 41 was on the forums this morning, The post also covered Series 42 and teased Series 43. The cars. A couple of estate cars. Not my favourite class, although there are one or two decent ones such as the Hammer Wagon. There ought to be one of those stupid phrases to go with estate cars saying, “Get orf moi laaand!” (Irate country sort.) The Nissan Z Nismo doesn’t really interest me. I find the Nissan Z to be a barge and not a worthy heir to its antecedents, and I suspect that, for example, the perks for both cars will be the same. It’s a pity they won’t bring back the Bentley FE from FH4 because that had racing pedigree. I don’t really see the point of adding some chunky luxury barge to the game. Bentley marketing? The BMW M5 CS does interest me. First new M5 since the 2018 model which in FH4 has the most wins of any car I’ve driven. And lastly, in Series 42, we have some ridiculous s...

Easy money. Because of the current regime (“You will attend prison all day!”), I’ve been doing much of the Festival playlist first thing in the morning and tidying up the rest in the afternoon. I had enough done this morning to get my hands on the Porsche Rallye(/Dakar) after the first few tasks. I drove round the oval track in under 20 seconds to win treasure, and should’ve stayed there to deal with the collectibles and the daily. Was this some scheme to get players to go racing round the least interesting track in the game? The weekly in the KTM X-Bow went relatively well apart from the race ( Descansar Dorado ) in which a cheating drivatar ran off into the distance. Damn your digital wheels, sir! I already knew that I wanted to use the GTC4 Lusso for the PR stunts. As the car is ridiculously overpowered, it was just the thing for the drift zones both of which I one-shotted and both of which yielded one-third very good and one-third excellent SWSs. I one-shotted the danger sign and g...

I have a shitty Friday timetable, having English P1 with the A2s and English P10 with the A2s. I have a longish lunchtime (Future me: no, even that’s been screwed over) during which I can do some of the Festival playlist, but which in future I’m more likely to use for a much-needed nap unless someone fixes the timetable. In other words, I may not post anything till Saturday or Sunday, depending on how energetic I feel. (I see I said this last week. Well, I tend to forget such things at my age. #GeriatricGit.) We start as ever with the treasure hunt. I used the Audi E-Tron as my choice of annoying EV. The treasure had to be in the stadium maze, but there’s an easy cheat in that you can drive up a ramp near the entrance close to the chest and see from above where it’s stashed. Fast travel to safety afterwards. The weekly was horrid. Peel Trident? Ugh with bells on. I hope the weekly with the Isetta will be less painful. Eventlab. Only one this week, Meereen Creek Oasis , and the tile was...

Lazy. My thought – to anticipate my post about the final week of Series 37 – is that Series 38 looks a little lazy. The Forzathon Shop seems to be alternating between HW and 10th-anniversary merch. Yes, I’m sure newer players will be delighted to be able to acquire such items if they missed out on them. Four new cars in the playlist. The 1995 Mitsubishi Evo III seems to be a refugee from that popular Forza Motorsport which everyone is playing [ They are? –ed.]. I’m hoping it’ll be decent on dirt, but I already have my go-to Evos for seasonals in the game. I’m also not sure about the 2022 Subaru WRX now that I’ve heard AR12 Nick give it a shrug. Again, I have my preferred, ready-to-go Imprezas/WRX/STi Subarus. Is this like an SUV in that it looks like it ought to be out in the countryside, but never ever strays off tarmac? In other words, it’s a saloon car that aspires to be a rally car. As for the Toyota Chaser, I admit I’ve never heard of it. I assume that it’s a rival to the Nissan ...

Oh, and some collab with some shoe manufacturer. PGG gave it away in a video. I watched Ericship111’s video about the video (how meta-video can you get?) which hinted strongly at a hide-and-seek game mode, and then watched JakeXVX’s video last night after the full details were revealed. I guessed that the new game mode would be multiplayer of some sort. On paper, hide-and-seek is not a bad idea, but it’s not for me. If I avoid Playground Games events, I’m not going to be doing this. Dude, where’s my racing game? Like the Eliminator, I wonder whether this will become an event that appears on the Festival playlist once or twice a series (#ForcedEngagement). Like the Eliminator, I can see the OCD boys finding ways of exploiting this whether they’re the hunters or the hunted. I can also see the entire thing being massively frustrating if the hunted gets pinned and can’t use the ghosting power-up. As a keyboard player, I’d be all right as a hunter, but if the hunted is meant to blend in as ...

I happened to be on YouTube mere minutes after JakeXVX uploaded a video on the Series 37 reveal. I assume that Ford are on a marketing spree with the 2022 Ford Focus and the 2023 Ford Fiesta. I hope the Focus will be a good addition to the models that are already in the game. I’ve always felt that the with the Focus in the game, the Fiesta is a bit of an also-ran. (As an aside, I was racing in the Fiesta today; decent PWR in both A and B class, but not my first choice.) I must admit that apart from the name, the (2023) Toyota Camry doesn’t mean a lot to me. It might turn out to be a decent super saloon. As for the last of the new cars, the 2021 Dodge Durango, I can’t see how that fits in with the theme; or why we’d need a second Durango. Prediction: they’ll have the same perks, same stats, and same performance. The series rewards are fine, although the older BMW M2 is the better car, and I don’t think I’ve ever driven the Lucid Air. I can see no compelling reason to do so. I had hopes ...

We start with the 1992 Jeep Wrangler Sahara. Tuning 1/9 and Car masteries actually all right. Nothing great, but nothing that made me regret unlocking them. Sluggish old thing stock. I built it into B class and then decided that I ought to make it the top of the class. Raced it in the Titan. Very manoeuvrable and managed to keep the revs up round curves and corners. A solid performer. I had high-ish hopes for K.I.T.T. Tuning 1/9 (bah!), and car masteries included dirt (really?) and a 150% XP bonus along with drag racing (why bother?) I built it to the middle of S1 class, but it has no aero upgrades, which it needs, or failing that, AWD. I expected that the body kit would add aero tuning. Yes, but only to the front. What?! And this version of the car was understeery, although that was probably because of how I tuned the aero. I succumbed and did an AWD dirt build to see what the car might be like. Again, I ended up in mid S1 class. Again, the lack of aero was felt round the Mangrove Scr...

I recall the end of that May as if it was 35 years ago, which it was back in 2024. Terrible weather. Leaden skies threatening rain and occasionally delivering the goods from its gruesome maw. But in particular, I recall it was one of those weeks in Horizon 5 when the Festival playlist didn’t include a treasure hunt. I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered from the trauma. I started with the weekly in the old Countach, which I’ve been driving a fair amount. The weekly was a bit grindy, but otherwise all right. I filled in some of my pointless 8km by doing Copper Canyon . I’d already been practising the PR stunts, hence I knew a stock Sián could be upgraded to S1 900 and would have no problem with the speed trap (utter rubbish SWS) or the speed zone (403kmh; better than my practice run) with its one-third good SWS. I’d also tried my Diablo SV on the speed trap. Yes, it could’ve done, but only just. I took the photo as I flew off the jump outside the hotel. I got a helmet. This reminds me that t...

Move along, nothing much to see here. All right, the 2021 Lamborghini Countach is a welcome addition. I’m hoping that there might be something else that turns out to be a nice surprise. The Citroen BX4TC is apparently a failed Group B rally car, but might be all right on dirt. I can’t imagine the 1986 BMW M6 will be much different from other BMWs of the period (probably right down to the tuning and the perks; #CopyandPaste). I tried the Lotus Esprit in FH4 last night and found to my surprise that I must’ve driven it fairly recently because I didn’t need to retune it. It wasn’t bad to drive, but struggled to get away from the drivatars in the Colossus by a decent margin. I must try the BMW 850CSi again as well, but I didn’t think much of it the last time and doubt whether I’ll like it better this time. The motorway decorations will sync to your music, but that can be switched off. Might work well with the yoof stations or the new station, but perhaps not with Radio Eterna. I wonder whet...

 The weekly challenge was in the 2018 911 GT2 RS. I used Street Scene for the Rivals challenge for reasons I’ve previously mentioned – I’ve not generally used Street Scene for Rivals. I tried to use one of this week’s Eventlabs for the Eventlab task, but it didn’t register, and I used some circuit created by DJS to deal with this. Eventlab (1). Park Valley Raceway . I drove my BMW M3 GTR again round this nice, flowing circuit and got an SWS that was one-third good. Eventlab (2). GP Mantavo . Went with the Elise 190. This was another good, flowing circuit. The reward was a BMW i8. I’ve actually seen one of these unpopular cars in real life. Eventlab (3). Kruos Circuit . Rubbish. Another track that’s mostly ridiculously tight corners in 2nd gear. Might improve with a good deal of practice, but there’s good technical and bad technical. I started the PR stunts with the 1966 Porsche 906, which did the Riviera Maya speed zone in one go for an SWS which the critics said was “utter rubbis...

I had to drive my Zenvo TSR-S fast to win the treasure which was placed in the least accessible location for a hypercar. O Game, th’art such a wit. The weekly in the 2017 Ford GT posed no issues at all. Eventlab (1) was Red Bramble Raceway by YouTuber, HokiHoshi. A decent circuit, but made out of that pretend tarmac that’s just a bit too viscous. As others have noted, it’s all flat. A one-third good SWS. I thought we’d already had a Circuit de Mulegé GP as an Eventlab event. I opted for my (RWD) AM V12 Vantage, but am not sure whether this was a bad choice or the circuit was awful. Probably a bit of both. I seemed to spend about 90% of the race in 2nd, wondering where the next ridiculously tight corner was. Better done in an AWD car after a lot of practice. The reward was a Zenvo TSR-S. My third, I think. It was back in the CC8S for the Lodge Raceway for which I was rewarded with a 2002 Nissan Skyline. Not my favourite version of the car, and I need to see how many of them I have (a...

I thought I was going to have problems with the treasure hunt because I’ve probably done S1-class rivals in every road race on the main map and didn’t fancy trying to get the Lotus 2-Eleven to do the job until I realised that I’ve never done rivals in Street Scene. As practice for the seasonal, I did Ruta Norte in a clean time and got a decent reward. I also got a crap wheel spin as well. I mustn’t have driven my McLaren P1 in ages because the tuning was decidedly antiquated, but I managed to get through all the tasks in this week’s weekly without any bother. I also did the HA along with some other people who actually contributed to it. Eventlab (1) was Italia 458 Race Track . Mostly decent track but completely flat. Not helped by the race being set at night, which meant that the tyre bundles tended to vanish into the gloom, making some of the corners tricky to negotiate. The SWS was rubbish. Eventlab (2). Green River GP . I raced in the Porsche Carrera GT for this one. A decent circu...

I was hoping to be playing FH5 when this got unlocked because the progress bar was down to a sliver of a sliver last night, but it probably took until after midnight my time. I had a brief play with the car this morning, and more prolonged spell in it this afternoon. A-class (739), 486hp, 1,736kg (fat boy), front 53%. Tuning 1/9 (I suggest you book a ticket on the down train.) Car masteries aren’t worth bothering about. I started with an A-class build, but when it came to tyres, the available options sent the car into S1 class. I limited the tyres to increased width, but was cautious round corners. I did try the car with the body kit, but with the other tuneable (yay!) wing. I thought that the one which goes with the body kit looked a bit silly. I tried a race in the car and then went back to the stock body. I built the Mustang into low mid S1 class and tried it in various races. Nice to drive and had rather good acceleration because I was passing the drivatars sooner, not later at the...

As the 2023 Ford Ranger Raptor has finally been unlocked, I thought I’d see whether it might be a replacement for the 2019 Raptor. Out of the box the tuning is 1/9 (pitiful). I tuned the tyres and went for a jaunt in the Titan . The car was decent, but the tyres weren’t great as the vehicle tended to slide round corners. I upgraded the Raptor to the top of A class and tried the Titan again. Again, it was all right, bit of a barge, but I don’t think I’ll use it in place of the 2019 Raptor which has always put in a sound performance in seasonals. Series 33, Prometheus speculates JakeXVX had one of his speculation videos about Series 33 the other day, which got me thinking about it. First, I’m inclined not to get too hopeful about this one. The mention of road racing has the kiddies immediately jumping to cars like the Bolide (unlikely, I think). I doubt whether this will be a series focused on (extreme) track toys since there’s a very wide range of cars that might feature in road races. ...

a.) Is the Sabre that bad? b.) Is the Artura that good? a.) No, but it’s not good in races. My issue with it is the weird launch. 1st gear is languid to about 7,000 RPM when it goes utterly wild. In the meantime, the drivatars are all off down the track. I tried the Ginetta Solution by lengthening 1st gear, but it made no effective difference. The other issue seems to be poor manoeuvrability in technical sections, which makes the car feel heavy. It’s not a terrible car just to drive once you get past 1st gear, but it’s not competitive, either. Also, it looks like a Speedtail with a ridiculous body kit. b.) I feel the Artura is all right, but nothing really outstanding. I tried it against the 570S in Línea Costera and round the Horizon Festival Circuit . It’s a bit faster (e.g. about 2 seconds over five laps of the Festival Circuit ), but I think I prefer the way the 570S drives. I wonder whether the Artura’s lauded to the skies because the Sabre is so poorly regarded.

Unlike prominent YouTubers who are obliged to declaim how marvy [sic] splendid each new FH5 update is, I’m not constrained to keep PGG happy by making similar declarations. The past two series have been a shrug. The car packs have been a partial to complete shrug. Series 32, on the other hand, seems to mostly be heading back in the right direction. The series cars are repeat screenings. The Acceleration Car Pack cars are a bit above middling in my view, although I wonder whether the drivatars are going to massacre everyone in the Supervan 4 as they do in the Supervan 3. Nice to see Ginetta arrive in the game. The seasonal reward cars are mostly one good, one shrug, but that reflects my comparative indifference to off-road racing. Week 1, we get the Artura which as I suspected, is the new 570S (watch the car masteries and the stock tuning settings be the same as the 570S’s). In week 2, the 2020 Audi TT falls into the same category as the VW Golfs we’ve got over the past six months or s...