Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a car, but they’re pretty clever things. Most people use them for staying out of the rain and storing obsolete cassette tapes and CDs in. Apparently, though, they can even be made race each other, which has been the topic of simulation for Project C.A.R.S., which is a crowd-sourced(ish) game developed by Slightly Mad Studios. That project is now one year old. It’s started to take its first steps, and can even say a few words. Bless. The team have talked proudly about its accomplishments, saying: “The title’s content has been expanded broadly as well as over 26 cars and 36 tracks are already available in Project CARS. Several high-profile car manufacturers have joined the game as Project CARS will feature vehicles from manufacturers such as BMW, Ford, Briggs Automotive Company, Classic Team Lotus, Gumpert & Ginetta among others.”

A rather fetching celebratory video can be found below. If you like shiny cars going quite fast, then it’s worth a look.
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Project CARS creative bossman Andy Tudor has dropped us a line to say that the company has raised €1,000,000 for their crowd-sourced racing game. As we explained previously, the game is relying on community commitment to making the racing game work for its funding, and for some of its creative content. Tudor says: “We wouldn’t have been able to do it without the passion, enthusiasm, and dedication of the gaming community so this is also a big thank you to all those that have contributed so far, and an encouragement to others with big ideas for games and want to see them get created.”

It’s interesting to note that there are plenty of community-driven projects, where large sums of money are being raised, which have no link to Kickstarter. The internet’s direct-funding revolution has many forms…

Atari have affixed a serious face to announce the next Test Drive game. I tried to make them smile as they did it by capering about, but the news was so grave and grim that not even a glimpse of a smile appeared. No Hawaii, no holidays, no career mode where you take a busboy all the way to luxury car owner, no balloons and bouncy castles. Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends has 50 determined classic Ferrari cars and 36 no-nonsense tracks. If it could be represented as a smiley, it would be :-|
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Fast, you see, because racing cars are fast… I am good at this, eh? Anyway, Slightly Mad send word that their ongoing community-focused racing game, Project CARS, has a new release version available to everyone who has signed up, and has supplied a fancy gallery of car-images from the game, which you can see here and below. (Clicky for full size.) The new building includes a “brand-new 2011 Formula A car” with “more than 700hp of engine power.” As well as new content “including the Ariel Atom V8, the 250cc Superkart and the Northampton circuit.” Also, somewhat bizarrely, they have announced that the game has new force feedback features which are tuned against the racing skills of the man who used to be The Stig from Top Gear, Ben Collins. So that’s a thing that happened. Fancy racing pics below!
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Hugely ambitious crowd-sourced racer Project CARS aims not only to look utterly gorgeous but to allow a full career, beginning with karting and ending up in the motorsport of your choice. If it all comes off it could be the definition of definitive. There’s more on the development process here and the official site contains plenty of details. For now, here are some screenshots that have been cleverly disguised as photographs of vehicles. Racing game images often convince me that petrol-burning simulators will soon reach the point at which they look more like footage of cars driving fast than actual footage of cars driving fast.

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The next Need For Speed game, Shift 2: Unleashed is headed for the PC in Spring 2011. It’s looking rather strong, too, and you can see Executive Producer Marcus Nilsson talking about the project in this GameTrailers interview, below. In this video Nilsson talks about improvements to the engine – a new “helmet cam” view makes it look even more like the real-world view of racing – but also specifically about the “Autolog” feature, which also turned up in Hot Pursuit. This basically allows you to network with gaming chums, and to compares your accomplishments in the game against theirs. It’s looking good.
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