I’ve been playing completely offline. Well, as offline as you can with this thing. I know where to activate online but I don’t know if it’s grayed out because I’m on the free trial. Can’t remember. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be and you only go online after you’re part of the Horizon team? Don’t tell me, that’s my next milestone
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you can join a convoy (or just toggle yourself into the online mode from the pause menu) whenever but it does become the meat of the game and they introduce it more once you finish your first four seasons and get put into the global hopper, yeah
fwiw for general AI difficulty settings I like keeping most of the traction/stability assists on, turning off all automatic braking and steering, using just the braking line rather than the permanent driving line, keeping the option to rewind, and turning the AI up significantly, to either the second or third-highest setting (I find they’re a lot more challenging in street races than in cross-country races). this gets you up to a +60/65% and I think it makes the game more challenging without making it more fiddly.
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My gamepass trial expired last night, but apparently you get 20% off on FH4 while you have one. So I bought it then immediately canceled the pass lol
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I was thinking I’d probably end resubscribing for sunset overdrive PC or Ori 2 (I’m suddenly noticing that microsoft is actually an interesting publisher again for the first time since like… the PS3 compilers were no longer widely hated) so I didn’t bother buying it at the end of my trial but that’s good to know
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I’ll try those settings some time. I keep the driveatars at above average difficulty and it’s making me fight for a top 3 spot sometimes and some other times I’m 1st by several seconds. It’s very random
I just did the Halo Experience race and it was one of the absolute high points of the whole game for me. Truly amazing. Even as someone who’s not super into Halo this was great. I really want to play a new Halo game on my PC now with those kind of graphics! I’m also down for Halo Allstar Racing. Make it so!
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Quick correction (For 12 days ago) but Voice chat is only enabled if you are in a convoy or during Team Adventure mode. Also the honk has kinda codified itself from a “Hello!” if two cars meet at speed or “Come over here and have a look at this!” if you are stopped still, usually to help guide players to a barn find. It’s fascinating how the community has adopted it. If I remember right, Playground added more Barn Finds beyond the expansions onto the base map in FH3 so I can see a few more being added over the course of the year. It’s all so fascinating. They did break their rule on “DLC Cars will be completely new to the series” just to include the Vaxhaull VX220 (AKA the MSR cover car that hasn’t been in a Forza since 4) but their plans included bringing over cars from FM7 that were brand new in there as Forzathon only.
Though they did preview the next expansion. Out next month
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Some months ago, SEGA made an arcade update for Daytona Championship USA (aka Daytona 3) freely available online. With a bit of hacking, people can play the game on their PC computers:
I hope SEGA releases a home version during this current generation of consoles. That I can’t play it right now on my Switch absolutely reeks of cowardice, SEGA!
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I got a Thrustmaster TS-PC with the H-shifter and pedals off craigslist for a song and it’s amazing even for something barely simulationist like Forza. Honestly heavier steering than some actual cars I’ve driven. Looking forward to Pcars in VR but wondering whether it’ll bother me that things are in the “wrong place.”
It does have one really silly thing - the power supply is shaped like a miniature turbo.
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more SB flavor cars!
#18
the 'mug.
#19 Morgan Aero 8
imagine that in the DAYTONAAAAA paintjob.
Yeah, me neither!
#20
Honda City (1980ies)
because:
#21
for no apparent reason, i can so picture felix turning up in this entry,
having his avatar as a reprint in the passenger seat’s footwell, smoking a pipe, and raving on about arch linux, Win Phone and Nvidia stock. If there’s one person that should win the lottery to live that kind of lifestyle, i officially nominate Monsieur Felix, for the record.
and #22
too far ahead of its time
and with built quality/reliability that would pass as good enough today, yet didn’t back then - the ritmo of the night, the night…
sorry… couldn’t help myself there.
more to come!
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Has build quality dropped in the past few decades? My (limited) understanding is that cars have continued to last longer and longer.
I think it’s gotten better in some respects as it’s gotten worse in others, right? Engines and transmissions are more reliable but body damage is now a huge liability and certain scenarios have become fussier.
Is this the same as the move to crumpling bodies to absorb impact and increase safety? i.e., the ‘plastic bumper’ complaint you hear?
not quite
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Exactly, and in some regards, parts are built to last up to a certain amount of time, to start failing accordingly, leaving you with an almost guaranteed stream of income if one should decide to stick with a car for longer than he should was expected to, because advancements in technology!
Which leaves you either
- with people that can afford switching models every four to five years, jumping ship before the bills start to rack up in shorter intervals.
- with a lot of cars on the road which are usually not taken care of anymore after a certain period of time, i.e you start to see cars disappear “suddenly”.
- carparks full of models that are on sale again as “officially approved” refurbished 2nd hand versions, and for prices that now are almost affordable for normal working class people - with the really expensive things waiting in the wings to hit them financially (e.g. replacing the timing belt, turbo that needs to be changed,…) - and it’s that last point that stings, tbh.
But then, owning a car is bonkers anyway, so… idk, if you are happy to pay the bills, keep on driving the wheels off the thing, I suppose!
(one thing that is relatively uncommon these days is rust:
Benz had some issues with rust in early 2000s models, followed by electronic gremlins, so i guess they managed to find a new source of income to offset the cost of proper coating? 
j/k, they had their share of cost cutting that hurt them and bounced back. You can see that kind of cost cutting turning up every few years before they realize it hurts them in the long run if their products are advertisements for shoddy quality, a domain that is reserved for italian and french cars, and they are keen to keep that distinctive trait to themselves!*)
*: disclaimer:
As an owner and admirer of french cars, i am ze officially allowed to say so, pardon! 
yeah, it seems like a lot of these changes are only defensible as part of a move away of private car ownership entirely, but (much like the reports of GM plant closures this week) while that might make sense longer term, in the meantime it’s a) effectively regressive taxation and b) a move away from midcentury relationships to repair and maintenance of machinery that have had an intrinsic value to many people and whose absence feels alternately ridiculous and alienating. So that’s a bummer.
it will be interesting to see how the industry figures out what to do about taxation, insurance and repairing costs, since these will pretty likely not be offset by a single person any longer, if you have a fleet of autonomous robo-taxis roaming the streets.
A monthly fee for using the services will probably be used to cover those expenses, but nevertheless, this will have ripple-effects that are currently hard to graps (repairshops, personnel, insurance agents, infrastructure-providers, lack of road-tax, taxes on fuel, insurance, repair-work etc.etc.) …
in the mean time, while we are watching how this turns out, everyone should catch up on watching éX-Driver, a 2002ish series by Monsieur Fujishima of Berrdandy/AMG-fame. Here’s a crappy ytube dubbed upload for your viewing pleasure:
well, after Mazda did prove they were better at doing british lightweight no-frills sportscars, they nail the Alfa look better than Alfa did for… quite a while, tbh. And there’s a lot of praise this car gets, huh.
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Shame about the rear suspension, but easily the best looking hatch now. Hope the X engine gets into the Miata (your turn, Toyobaru) and these are ~$15k shortly.