Occasional Tales

Treasure hunt. Deberti Mustang + speed zone = job done. The wheel spin afterwards threw an International Scout at me, which was ironic because it’s also a reward for a seasonal for those players who are too indigent to buy it from the AH or the Autoshow. The weekly in the 190E posed no problems. I need to rebuild the car, though. Took a photo. Got some clothing. I’m surprised MS hasn’t forced PGG to market real-life Forza-branded clothing. “Milk the franchise, Luke.” I one-shotted all the PR stunts, but had practised them beforehand, finding that the International Scout needed an engine swap to be able to hit the targets. SWSs, one-third good, one-third excellent, one-third very excellent. My testing for Going International was a prize pain. The category for it was D500 cult classics. I started with the Fiat-Abarth Esseesse, which – if I remember rightly – had been a sound performer in a previous seasonal. No, underpowered. The Gremlin was a possibility (just) and the Datsun 510 (just...

 I happened to remark to Fitztalbot (I was at the club) that there was no treasure hunt in FH5 this week. “None?!” he spluttered. “Disgraceful!” I know he enjoys the treasure hunt, but I can’t understand his enthusiasm for it. And so I started this week’s Festival playlist with the weekly challenge in the 2010 Nissan 370Z. I more than passed the drift target in two runs along one of the more benign drift zones. I resorted to another Street Scene event to deal with Rivals. I had 4½ hours to complete Cañón Run . Seriously, the worst time was 4½ hours, and it was flagged. Does the game not time players out? I one-shotted the speed trap for a two-thirds good SWS. The speed zone took a couple of goes and requires finesse in a car which it wasn’t possible to build properly. (I get a bit annoyed with stock+ cars for PR stunts and seasonals.) Rubbish SWS. The drift zone also took a couple of attempts. I almost got it the first time, knew the target was 75,000pts, thought I had it, and miss...

Treasure hunt. Nevera. Easy money. The weekly in the CC8S was mostly straightforward apart from the showoff skill which I got, er, somehow. I had to stop racing to find out whether I’d completed this especially vexatious task. The Eventlab tiles weren’t just broken again, but really broken. Normally I can restart the game and they be fine. Well, probably fine once I’m outside, but it took a reboot to get the tiles functioning. Grrr. Eventlab (1). Sunset Palms Raceway . Apart from a lack of elevation changes, this was a good GP circuit with its sweeping curves and well-designed technical sections. Eventlab (2). Calvo’s Karting . Oh dear. If the game had karts, this might be quite fun, but this was an irritating tangle in the stadium. It was also another event where you won the car (the Mustang Boss 302) you needed for another event. Eventlab (3). Cordillera Rally . Oh dear (part 2), someone didn’t proofread the name of the event. Two l’s, one r. Not bad, but suffered from my lack of fam...

I started this series last night, which meant that today’s MS outrage… sorry, general MS outage didn’t inconvenience me quite as much as it might’ve if I’d waited till today to deal with the Festival playlist. In accordance with long established traditions, I began with the treasure hunt, driving over some bumpy terrain north of Playa Azul to randomly complete the challenge. The weekly was in the Honda S2000 CR. It included the Volcán Sprint , which was also in the Up to Grade seasonal. Did no one at PGG notice this reduplication? I one-shotted the Coast View speed trap from the north, just picking up enough speed without taking too long of a run-up. As I predicted, I was too slow to be able to complete Océano Azul from the north, but had no problems starting from the main Festival site. The two SWSs were one-third good. One-shotted Punta Allen from the south and got a rubbish SWS. I dealt with the HA and the picture beside the statue. The latter got me yet another ridiculous outf...

We start with a copy-and-paste from FH4, the 2017 AM Vanquish Zagato as the main series car. The Deberti Mustang is the 80% car. So far, a good start as I don’t mind the belated return of the Vanquish Zagato. In summer we’re getting yet another version of the Lamborghini Aventador (yawn) and the good ol’ Ferrari Dyno… Er, Dino /diːnəʊ/, Jake (there you go, mate, phonemic transcription at no extra cost). In autumn the season rewards are something called a 1976 VW SP-2 (never heard of it; sounds like a VW Beetle and probably has the same engine) and the Emory 356 (will this also be my third one?) I notice the prominent presence of Do(ugh)nut Media items. Curious considering that it seems to have been falling apart recently with various members of the team departing. Is Coffee and Cars meant to have been the third part of the Do(ugh)nut Media story? I believe the Mazda MX-5 RF dates from 2022. Well, it’s about time we had a newer MX-5 in the game, considering the most recent model before ...