Greboth

Well it helps that they're 3d models and not drawings 😛 I've certainly done drawings similar to this, I think I posted a couple when I started this thread. But God no, I wouldn't want to do that 7 drawings of the same car to that level of detail!

I can't argue with you on that though I have to say, personally, I'm a sucker cars of the 80's and early 90's. Though now I think of it, every car I love from that era are all Group A touring cars or Group B rally cars 😄

So the Artura went by the way side as I got mired in the details. So I started something else instead, a 1961 Jaguar E-type - easily one of the most beautiful cars ever made. And I haven't forgotten you @TurboR56Mini I'm just trying something special for the 300SL but I'm getting there

A few from my day out yesterday Any finally, my favourite of the day 😄

Interesting they've shown wet weather racing off in that preview. I just hope they this comes at release unlike Sport where it got added years later and only to 2? tracks. I also hope they implement it better than Sport where they've made the track look wet and the wet tyres have shit grip but drive a 'wet' track on slicks and it's fine.

So silly season is fully underway with drivers coming, going and switching team. I think most people have seen about Bottas is leaving Merc to move to Alfa Romeo. I always find it slightly odd when a driver leaves a top team to go to a midfield / back of the grid as Bottas will have even less chance of scoring points than he did winning at Merc. Still, I suppose, they're racers to the core so will take any seat they can to continue racing. Though I think it's a shame to see Kimi going, he's very marmite but I fall on the side of loving him. His general no fucks given attitude is great in the very stuck up, media centric corporate world that modern F1 is. Obviously the big news is Russell to Mercedes next year which is fantastic news. Russell seems a star of the future but I do feel it's a year too late as with the new regs next year, I think it would have been better to get him acclimatised to the team and their practices this year ready for next year. In hindsight this would potentially also be a benefit of fighting the Red Bulls as, I like most, think Russell is faster than Bottas. Still hopefully Merc have designed a good car for next year as I'd love to see Hamilton and Russell fighting for the WDC. And finally, announced today is Albon will back and taking Russell's seat at Williams. I still can't make my mind up about Albon though, on the one had he tanked hard in the Red Bull but in junior series, other F1 seats and his stint in DTM he's been pretty good. Added to that, take someone like Gasly, also tanked hard at Red Bull but is killing it now with Alpha Tauri or even Perez who isn't having a great year in the Red Bull. It does make you wonder if it's something to do with the team or the car is so focused on Max that no-one else can drive it. Either way, good to see him back and to see how he does. We've still got some of the 'old' guard around but the future of F1 is exciting with Russell, Norris, Sainz and LeClerc all being young and in top (or top-ish) teams.

While it has seen a significant rise in PC players recently, I think some of the recent rise in popularity is last months launch on consoles. Though as I understand it, the original PC release was different somehow and it got quite the update alongside the launch on consoles.

Anyone else playing this? I missed the launch of it last month on console but downloaded it over the weekend and I'm loving it. For those that don't know what it is then the title pretty much covers it. It's a free to play 4v4 arena based FPS that very much resembles Halo; the standard armour is very Masterchief, teams are red v blue, the standard loadout is (typically) an auto rifle and a battle rifle with special weapons dotted around the map like snipers or a laser weapon (can't remember the name but it's a spartan laser) or a baseball bat looking this that's a Gravity hammer. Not to mention gamemodes like Oddball, SWAT and shotty snipers which have been ripped from Halo. However it also comes with Portals, that work just like in Portal; fire 2 and you can (or anyone else) can go through them and to quote Portal, speedy thing goes in speedy thing comes out, which makes portal jumping across the map great fun. You can also shoot through portals making giving them a tactical element to taking points in domination or king of the hill to just flanking enemies in TDM. A good video review showing off some gameplay too; Gamemodes available are; Team Deathmatch — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. The first team to 50 wins. Free for all - 6 player free for all, first person to 25 kills wins. King of the Hill — 4v4: Score points by standing inside the hill. The first team to 200 points wins. Domination — 4v4: Score points by capturing and controlling the three hills. Once a hill is captured, you don’t need to stay inside of it. The first team to 600 points wins. VIP — 4v4: Each team has a designated VIP. Kill the VIP to score points. The VIP cannot spawn portals, but they have double the health. Team Oddball — 4v4: Grab the ball and run! Control the ball to score points. The player with the ball cannot shoot weapons, but they are free to go through portals and melee enemies to death with the Oddball. The first team to 200 points wins. Team Swat — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. Headshots are insta-kills. Team Shotty Snipers — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. The first team to 50 wins. Gun Game — Free-for-All with Six Players: Kill enemies to advance your gun. Melee kill enemies to decrease their gun tier. Race to the final gun. The first person to get 22 kills with the mode’s 22 weapon tiers wins. Showdown — 3v3: Eliminate the enemy team to win the round. Loadouts are randomized each round. No respawning. The first team to score 6 wins. Takedown — 3v3: Eliminate the enemy team to win each round. Spawn times increase with each death. The first team to score 4 points wins. When queuing you pick which games modes you want to play which I've only excluded FFA and it keeps it more interesting as you don't get bored stuck in one game mode. The standout for me has been Takedown though, it's a twist on a competitive 3v3 mode but the added element of trying to hunt down the last player before the respawn timer counts down to spawn their team mates back or, on the other side, trying to hide so you team mates can come back is great. From memory, the initial respawn time is 5 seconds but the more you die this extends up to 30 seconds so rounds are still over pretty quickly. It's not all perfect though, the UI and menus are rubbish! Luckily as anything offered through buying the season pass or coins is purely cosmetic you don't really need to worry about navigating menu's too much. I'm also not a fan of a couple of the maps (High fall and Olympus) as they're a little too cluttered with too many halls, walls and rooms to have a decent flow to them. There also aren't very many maps (10 I think) so that does limit the game somewhat. As a final note, and most of the reason I mention this game, it also has the option for private lobbies. Private lobbies can be up to 5v5 and, from a quick look, be any of the team game modes above. So if nothing else, could be something to try on an FG Friday as being free no-one can say they don't have it.

I've got the standard PS5 version ordered and most probably will be the version I'll stick with. I can understand getting the gold edition if you're on last gen and looking to upgrade at some point but harder to justify getting the gold version to be able to play last gen. I did think about getting the ultimate version as if it's good I'd be looking at getting the season passes however I've been burned by it before. So think I'll wait and see if the game is good first as if it costs a bit more it shouldn't be too much extra.

I'm easy either way with the manufacturer. Though I liked Kiwi's idea from last week of us having a randomly chosen manufacturer or having you lot choose what we use 😄 It would certainly mix it up a bit.

Nice calendar and looking forward to it. Given it’s not long to the season, are we doing manufacturers again?

I believe that advice should also extend to PC’s 🤣

On that note, I didn’t realise for a while that a long press on the mute button mutes everyone in the chat. Interesting, I prefer the PS5 way of doing things especially in that quick menu does cover up half the screen you can still see the game you’re in. It just seems more intuitive to me that a quick press is the quick menu, long press is the full menu.

I usually end up having a week or 2 off work at the end of Feb to use the last of my leave so that is perfect timing for me. Loved HZD so this is a day 1 purchase for me.