Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“Codemasters: Birmingham” really doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Eidos: Montreal” or “2K Czech” does it? But despite its inauspicious origins, their F1 2011 is looking pretty snazzy. Also, from my non-F1-caring-about perspective, massively daunting. It reminds me of when F1GP2 came out in 1734, and my tiny brain couldn’t understand why you’d play a game where touching gravel once in three hours was a game over. But that’s because I’m an idiot of the highest order. Check out the launch trailer for the game below.

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Trackmania 2 Canyon is available right now as a digital purchase straight from its very own official website. It’s the game with an obscene amount of player-controlled cars racing around thousands upon thousands of physically impossible tracks. The game uses Nadeo’s own ManiaPlanet system for updates and downloads, which is why it’s only available direct from the website. That may change but don’t count on it. As we reported previously, despite Ubisoft being the publishers they have stated that there will be no always-online DRM check. John checked exactly how the game does work offline and his findings are below, along with a launch trailer.

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You may remember Proun, the puzzle racing game we first mentioned in 2009. The one with that blisteringly pretty trailer. The good news is, it’s out later this month, on the 24th. The better news is, it’s pay what you want. There’s an exclusive look at the new trailer below.

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We all react differently the first time we learn there’s a game called Cargasm. Jim’s reaction last August was to demand that Twitter come up with other ‘gasm names. Mine was to go into denial until there was video evidence. There is now video evidence.

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Come on open world racing games, smarten up. After the weak Need For Speed World, and the almost great Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, I’m now banking my hopes on next year’s big-money, big-car Test Drive Unlimited 2. The original Test Drive Unlimited also fell into the “almost great” category, so I’m very much hoping to see even more this time. To get an idea of whether that’s happening, there’s a new trailer below.

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Criterion’s approach to the Need For Speed franchise, an all new Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, is out in the UK today. I’ve spent an awful lot of this week racing about its many challenges, and have clocked up enough miles to feel ready to tell you Wot I Think.

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Here’s a peculiar trailer for Brit-based racer, Split/Second. It’s like a report for a gaming TV show, but without the gaming TV show. And it’s an American pretend TV show, which offers the rather hilarious opener that Black Rock Studio’s home town, Brighton, is “quaint”. But forget all that, because what you’ve got here is a neatly packaged explanation of what Split/Second is – a racing game where you blow stuff up – along with thoughts behind the development, and most crucially, lots of in-game footage.

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It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the slightly slipped Disney racer, Split/Second. But it’s reappeared at GDC ahead of what’s now a May release. It’s a trailer that asks that all-important question one should always raise at the car dealership: can it outrun a building?

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I’m not one to leap with joy at news of a new racing game, but when I see a trailer like the one below the joy-leaping muscles begin to clench. Proun, which is a splendid word, is a 3D obstacle-avoiding puzzly racing game set in a bizarre world of geometric shapes. You rotate around a cable, rather than steering, in a gorgeous looking environment. The project by Joost van Dongen is due to be released early next year, and will be freeware, according to IndieGames.

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Do you like France? Are you crazy-excited by Streets? And does the idea of racing send you a-shiver? Well, it’s safe to say, that today is going to be the most exciting day for you since that time you ran down a seedy rue in paris, naked, screaming, glad to be alive, just glad. Team6 have released a demo of their self-explanatory French Street Racing. It’s about the streetracing champions of Nice, Paris, Marseille, Toulouse and Lyon getting together and racing. In streets. And you have to beat them. In a Race. A Street Race. 230Mb. You can get it from here. And some grabs beneath the cut to illustrate the game’s Gallic charms.
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No-one at RPS is a great racing game aficionado. Is this because we’re all impossibly geeky men obsessed with science fiction worlds and the devoted worship of Horace the Endless Bear? Or is it because racing, once one of gaming’s main pillars, is growing ever more niche? Certainly, it has spent some years standing still, polarising into the opposing camps of simulation and mod-culture arcadey things, and in both cases avoiding the sense of whizzbang newness necessary to excite a mass audience. So will it go the way of the flight sim, making do with a small but impossibly devoted audience?

Clearly not. But it does have to change. And so Edge have rounded up some of the genre’s most luminescent luminaries – men behind the likes of Project Gotham, Colin McRae, Motorstorm and Sega Racing – to discuss racing’s future. It’s an amazingly frank chat, shining a light on some deep-running problems with the form.
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