Dog, Piss, Forza

I survived Christmas 2014 and I'm a bit sad it's already over. I used to hate Christmas, because I've experienced it many times in a family with four teenagers and a pair of stressed parents, whose marriage had broken beyond repair many years ago. But things are pretty chilled out in England, there's just lots of good food, everyone's happy and I'm actually getting presents, which is something that hasn't really happened to me anymore since I was about 16. Everything was just... good. You know, like this:

You can't look much happier than this whilst surrounded by family.

We took Hugo Bosc with us when we came over to see the family and he was a little boring at first. He has this annoying habit of hiding under the sofa, a table or anything else that makes him difficult to pick up. He does it at home, too - hide under the sofa and stalk the cats. Because the moment he comes out from under there, chances are somebody might grab him and put him back in his cage and he doesn't like that. He wants to roam. Which is okay, but sometimes I have to work and if I'm the only one at home, he just can't run around outside all the time.

So he sat under the sofa when we sat together for our Christmas dinner until the smell of food lured him out. Big old lizard decided to check out the kitchen, so he got his share of the tons of meat we had and he just ate until he went into a food coma.

He just kept on sleeping in the living room...

...and in the car.

Last night we even had a bit of snow. Some of the biggest snowflakes I have seen in my life, in fact!

Snow makes everyone in Nottingham lose their shit.

Unfortunately, this stuff never stays around for long over here, so I had to be quick. I'm not super satisfied with the result and I hope we'll get some more snow, soon, so I'll get another shot at it. But it's a start...

I need to drink less to make it yellower.

The first two letters turned out okay-ish, but then the wind got so strong that it became impossible to create any legible writing. I think next time I'm gonna try keeping the hat on for more precision.

I'm not one for new year's resolutions, so I won't come up with any. I couldn't be bothered to keep up with them, anyway. Unless... Claire's sister asked if it's possible to survive 40 wanks (long story). I can do around 20 on a good day, so maybe this is something to look into. For science!

Oh and I am now the proud owner of Forza Horizon 2 on the Xbox One.

I've added a custom paintjob - can you tell?

It's easily one of the greatest racing games I've ever seen. Unfortunately, it's also solid proof that I'm starting to outgrow my hobby and I'm too old for next-gen racing games. I can live on with the tacked-on "story" told by a bunch of metrosexual brodudes, one of which represents the player. You can't change his looks or gender and the game strictly addresses the player as male, because there are no female gamers in 2014. Doesn't fucking matter, it's all about the cars anyway.

What does matter to me, however, is how Forza Horizon 2 dangles all these choices and possibilities in front of me only to take it all away whenever it damn well feels like it. I chose a BMW Z4 for my very first car, because I think it's a cool car and I like having the possibility to tune up any vehicle beyond recognition. I turned that thing into a beast, powerful enough to take on any Ferrari. Problem is, no matter how much you power up the Z4's performance, you're only allowed to race other sports cars. What's worse, every sports car championship comes with a so-called cross country race, which takes you off the road and through corn fields and forests and tall grass and other such happy shit. Which sucks immeasurable amounts of ass when you're in a car with rear wheel drive and an ultra-low, stiff suspension and gear ratios set for speed over acceleration, i.e. a car tuned for street-racing.

Eventually I switched to a Lamborghini Countach to avoid all that cross country crap altogether, which worked well until I managed to finish all of the retro supercars championships. That's when I could no longer progress through the game until I switched to a different vehicle class. Which is something I reeeeeeally didn't want to do, because I've put hours into my Lamborghini painting it, tuning it and what have you. In the end I drove around this thing:

...why?

A bunch of championships later I was told that I could no longer progress unless I changed to yet another type of vehicle. BUT I JUST WANT TO DRIVE MY FUCKING LAMBORGHINI, GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!

So I started up multiplayer mode, hoping I could hop on my favourite car there. Instead, the host had decided to use weak, low-ranked cars, so I was forced to pick a shitty car I didn't want to drive, because the game doesn't let you cancel and opt out of multiplayer until you've chosen a car you didn't want to drive in the first place. Then you get teleported to a race, then you gotta wait for the race to start, THEN you can fucking quit multiplayer, drive (or teleport for ingame cash) back to the nearest garage to switch back to the car you want, join another multiplayer session and be forced to switch cars again. I tried three different sessions, I was never allowed to use the car I want, I could never just cancel and bail when the game told me I had to pick a shitty car and I had fucking voice chat forced on me in ever session. You can only mute each player individually by opening up their profile, which is super convenient IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING RACE!

Hey, anyone fucking remember Need for Speed: Porsche BACK IN FUCKING 2000 where you could just pick any fucking car you wanted, join a game and fucking race? And you didn't have to listen to a bunch of teenage douchebags the entire time? Yeah, that was great. 15 years into the future and online gaming is so fucking awful, I just can't be arsed to put up with it. So yeah... thanks for an entertaining 5 or 6 hours there, Forza. If I can ever just drive my favourite car in single- and multiplayer and ON THE FUCKING ROAD at that, I'll be back. Meanwhile I'm just gonna work on that 40 wanks thing or something.

But wait... there is more!

Oh, while I'm already bitching: can we stop making fucking EVERYTHING a goddamn achievement? You manage to drive a couple inches without crashing? BAM! "Clean Driving!" Extra points. You hit something? BAM! "Wreckage!" Points for you. Just about dodge another car? "Near miss" (also available in great near miss, awesome near miss and ultimate near miss, I shit you not). More points for you. Fail to dodge that car? Doesn't matter. "Trading paint" aaaand extra points. Drifting, high speed, fast acceleration, it's impossible to play for more than two or three seconds without bonuses or achievements popping up left, right and center.

This shit right there is why I play Dark Souls. A goddamn boss comes out of nowhere and his favourite thing to eat is your face? You get killed in one hit? TOO FUCKING BAD, go and get good at the fucking game! No, "At least you tried really hard" achievement or some shit. Achievements are for winners. They're for getting shit done. Modern game designers are like whores. They tell you over and over again how damn awesome you are at everything you do. You know they're lying, they know they're lying, but everyone feels a little better about themselves and the customers will come back to spend more money.

-Cat