the end of the world

[spaceboy]

I was stinking up a couple races tonight trying to earn stars and just not winning.  I was in Star Gazer's Heights btw.  I wound up taking a heli to the southwest helipad.  I had a choice from their about equi-distant. Another challenge or a livery.  Well since my racing skills were off tonight, I headed south.

Amazing how close it looks on the map.  The gist of it is once I got there I realized I was pretty close to the edge of the map.  So I headed further south picking up quite a few credits along the way by smashing barrels.  Oh and this a beautiful snowy area.  I'd long since left the evergreens and was now on a tundra basically except with some snow packed roads and the general fair of broken down cars, little shacks, etc.

I got to the edge, waited for daylight, and I saw what basically looks like the rest of the map - some mountains off in the distance,  I drove a fair distance past the line (the location message pops up "Out of Area" I think it was) and there were even more barrels to pick up credits.  Before too long and without warning, the FUEL logo came up and I got popped back to the map. It treated it like a crash.  Best part was all my barrels got reset (and the old ones remained on the ground) did that a few rounds and called it a night.

[Fiach]

I kinda dont mind that "You cannot progress any further in this direction" message, that you get at the gams boundries .... YOU SHALL NOT PASS!  :P
When I hit them, I feel like I have achieved something!

Didn't know you could fly helicopters in tha game, will definately put it on my list now, was a bit leery of it as it didnt have proper race tracks.

Cheers :)

[Art Blade]

Fiach, you can't fly that heli, it is a teleporter. There are helipads scattered across the map so you can pick one and jump there :)

[JRD]

... was a bit leery of it as it didnt have proper race tracks.

As far as I know, there are no enclosed race courses, like those you race lap after lap till its finished (correct me if I'm wrong guys). But there are asphalt...... oh, lots of it, miles and miles, kilometers and kilometers, but races are not confined to it, you can cross cut any path  8)

[Art Blade]

There are also circuit races, like 3 times around a track, but unlike a formula one race. More like cross-country, literally. Those races usually require you to pass checkpoints, then. How you get to the checkpoints, however, is up to you  ;D

[PZ]

Yeah, you can make use of the asphalt if handy, but that might not be your best choice to win the race.  The only crucial thing I noticed is that if you miss a check point, then you'll need to back track to find it before you can proceed with the race.  You could ignore it, but then you'd not be competing in the race any longer.

[Art Blade]

Missing a checkpoint happens quite often to me LOL  :-X

I just escape and restart, then  ;)

[spaceboy]

Missing a checkpoint happens quite often to me LOL  :-X

I just escape and restart, then  ;)

exactly.  As PZ had mentioned once before there is only gain for winning first place  2nd is as good as last.  So if you know at some point your out of it, you can just restart.  Keep in mind though some of these races are 18 checkpoints and pretty good distance between each one, so early enough on in the race you can make up for crashes or bad driving. 

But part of my problems last night was falling sliding off a drop off the road and unable to get back up in the vehicle I had.  The races can be tough but it feels like a real accomplishment on some of the harder ones when you pull off a come from behind win!

It's funny to me too that if you quit mid-race and go free-roam it just leaves you right where you are at in the car you were racing.  Sure you can change your ride it or go anywhere from the menu, but I like that immersion that it's just like you quit the race.  I normally drive off skulking about quitting like a loser...

[Art Blade]

I've never been able to catch up after a mishap on legend. You have to stay put or restart... But yeah. Apparently it's not essential to absolutely win each and every race on legend. Win is win, the level seems unimportant (apart from the prize money)

[spaceboy]

Well the extra star on the legend level will open up new areas quicker for you...

[Art Blade]

ah... cheers... didn't pay attention to that. So each win is one star, meaning if I win legend (skipping rookie and expert) at once, I gain 3 stars at once?

[spaceboy]

yep, and I think if you hover over the other regions of the map it'll say how many stars you need in order to unlock it for racing.  Of course you can drive there free roam if you've got a few hours...

[Art Blade]

yeah, I've seen the info about how many stars needed to unlock an area. Now I understand why I unlocked serveral in a short period of time, during which I hadn't even explored the first area  :)

[Art Blade]

accidently got out of bounce myself... but still kept myself in game ;)

[smg id=1017 align=center width=400]