Rock, Paper, Shotgun

After the brouhaha at Eden Games, leading to the team going on strike over what they claimed was poor management from Atari, a number of the key players have had enough and broken off to form their own studio. So Blossom Minds is born. There’s ten former Eden peeps in the new team, describing themselves as “veterans and high-profile game developers”, declaring they are done with AAA, and now intend to release games digitally, beginning next year.

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Eden Games – they behind Test Drive Unlimited 2 and the V-Rally series – and have had enough of their treatment from Atari, and in the face of enormous redundancies at the company and have gone on strike today. GI.biz report that in the face of sackings, the French studio has said enough, and are refusing to work. And they’ve a few choice words to explain why.

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Joystiq report that the Exploration pack for Test Drive Unlimited 2 has been released! Twenty new missions, two new mission types, two new cars (a Lancia Stratos and Dodge Charger), new clothes to wear and more, as well as a bumload of bugfixes that include “Cars no longer launched into the air by glitches in the road” and “impact with tress is now less severe”. Boo!

My dream online driving game would consist almost entirely of people climbing out of their cars to examine crash damage, their overweight avatars clutching their face in both hands and making noises of unfathomable sadness. Anyway, you’ll find the full feature listing of the Exploration pack after the jump
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You may remember that Test Drive Unlimited 2 did not have a great Valentine’s Day. Launched to cries of, “Er, could you finish it now please?”, its buggy state did not win favour. Eden Games and Atari are attempting a big old “sorry” by offering not only a patch that addresses a lot of issues, but also the first globule of DLC for utterly free. More info lies beneath.

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If you are a British motorist, like me, then you are more likely to associate sports cars with Jeremy Clarkson’s sad, frantic clowning than you are any sense of genuine style or chic, which is something of a shame. After all, objects like modern Ferraris really are engineering genius pushed to fetishistic extremes, and I think that’s what Atari and Eden Games are getting at with their rather serene Ferrari trailer for Test Drive Unlimited 2, which you can see below.

It’s looking fairly beautiful, and the promises Eden are making for the dynamic, open world are alluring. The game has been bumped into next year, too, so we will need to wait a bit longer to drive its purported 3000km of roads. (Or indeed the rest of the huge terrain, because there will be off-roading this time around.)
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Cheap Punning Rule #48 – if in doubt, tautology. What other Cheap Punning Rules do you know, beautiful readers?

Anyway, the point: Atari has opened up beta signups for its driving/infinite wealth MMO Test Drive Unlimited 2. You should sign up. Why? Because the first TDU was by and large excellent, exploring fascinating and fundamental concepts of virtual-world existence that the vast bulk of MMOs simply ignore. Those being self-indulgence, posing and being completely free of responsibility. Allow me to explain why below.
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Interesting times for racing games, what with the fantastical feature sets of Blur and Split/Second, and then open-worldiness descending this summer in the form of Test Drive Unlimited 2 (and, I suppose, in the form of the Need For Speed MMO). Eden Games have sent word that there’s a limited sign up for the beta phase of the new Test Drive Unlimited, although no details on exactly what that entails. Presumably, getting to play some of the game early, and for free, which is reason enough to take a nose. And the game is looking pretty interesting: the same drop-in open world island as before, and – unusually – the ability to get out of the car and walk around. What’s that good for in a racing game? Epic, pointless journeys perhaps? Maybe… Anyway, looks like sign-ups require Atari.com registration. Yay.