My 2018 prediction: the demo is coming back, baby, back. With so many games to choose from, and so many big names that haven’t chart-topped with the expected ease, The Man will pursue new ways of making people crave his output. By new ways, I mean old ways. Free, limited demonstration editions of videogames: they are the future.

Earlier this week, Bethesda offered a belated Wolfenstein 2 trial, and now Project CARS 2 has also embraced the promotional techniques of yesteryear. There’s now a three car/one track demo available for the hyper-realistic, ultro-graphics racer.
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Slightly Mad Studios flashed the starting lights for their racing game Project CARS 2 [official site] yesterday, sending it roaring into the night and onto Steam. Stirling Matheson celebrated it (with some reservations) in our Project CARS 2 review, and I know I’ll certainly trust the racing opinions of someone with a name like Stirling Matheson. Read the rest of this entry »

Yep. It’s racing, alright. There’s a new trailer for Project Cars 2 [official site], featuring — no surprise — lots of different cars racing round lots of different tracks in lots of different weather conditions. Oh, and there’s a release date, too: 22 September. Read the rest of this entry »

I worry about the cars in this new Project Cars 2 [official site] trailer. They’re out in snow, ice, and torrential rain without so much as a scarf, mac, or mittens – dressed in the same liveries as on a sunny afternoon! I appreciate that weather systems with complex consequences are a big feature in the sequel to Slightly Mad’s crowdfunded vroom ’em up but it seems irresponsible to make cars suffer just to prove a point in marketing. Look at this shameful display: Read the rest of this entry »

Now that Project Cars (I refuse to roll with that daft ‘Community Assisted Racing Simulator’ backronym) has been out for a whole six weeks, it’s time for a sequel. Yes, really.

Developers Slightly Mad Studios yesterday announced Project Cars 2 [official site], a follow-up to their 2015 race ’em up. It’ll bring new ‘loose surface’ track types, co-op career, and more. Slightly Mad are once again crowdfunding it and does this feel a bit weird to anyone else?

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“Here in my car I feel safest of all,” sang Gary Numan. “I can lock all my doors,” he added. “It’s the only way to live – in cars.” But what would our electric friend say about Project CARS [official site]. I phoned his agent, and, well, looks like I’m writing this news post.

After delay after delay after delay (I’m missing a few there), Slightly Mad Studios’ partially-crowdfunded car ’em up finally came out yesterday. It has a lot of cars and you can drive them around lots of places, but really you’re ‘supposed’ to drive them fast.

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There’s something about watching trailers for racing games like Project Cars [official site] that makes me feel like I’m going to have to confess it to my nearest priest. Even the taglines are full-throttle sex. In fact, let’s play a little game of Who Said It:

Who said the line “What matters is finishing first.” Is it:

a.) Project Cars
b.) Caligula

Find out in the sweatily placed trailer below. Read the rest of this entry »

Project CARS [official site] – that racing game which should be coming out mid-May following a bunch of delays and shiny pictures of shiny cars being shiny – has a new trailer. It’s far less about “racing” and far more about textures and surfaces and loving and caressing vehicles through camera angles.

Here are twenty (20) thoughts about the whole thing:

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Numbers are very important to car fanatics, I understand. Torque, litres, cylinders, MPH, MPG – top numbers, great stuff. A new Project CARS [official site] trailer also focuses on numbers, even when showing all the pretty places it’ll be racing around.

About the California Highway track, for example, it says simply: LENGTH 26.4 km; TURNS 107. What of the fragrant Douglas-fir! The distant roar of the Pacific! The allure of redwoods! The bigfoot chainsaw sculptures at every roadside stop! I bet you can’t even get out and swim in a river. Tch, no romance, those car people. It is quite pretty, though.

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Back when I used to write about console games I remember covering racing game Driveclub’s repeated delays – how the game slipped from a launch title for PS4 to an early 2014 title to a slightly later 2014 title and eventually came out in October of that year.

Great times.

It’s nice, then, that Project CARS [official site] is trying to fill that delayed console game void in my heart with another delay of its own.

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My steering wheel is sat on the floor collecting dust, while the pedals below my desk are used more for footsie than for acceleration. Project CARS will be the reason I next set it up, I reckon. I’m not a huge fan of racing games – I prefer my vehicles to be driven within a speed limit in service of the delivery of goods – but it looks so pretty. I want to see the puddles go sploosh and the cars go shimmer, and the latest trailer isn’t enough.

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Project CARS? More like Project DELAYED! When we last gawped at Slighty Mad’s oh-so-pretty drive ’em up, it was slated for release in November. Now that November is almost here, they’ve announced hey, wait, no, it’s been delayed into next year. Until March 20th, to be precise — a delay of four months. The official story is that this “positions the title away from the competitive holiday scene dominated by household names” and, sure, gives more time to work on it too.

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There’s all kinds of things I like to pretend I’m above, like throwing recyclable materials in the normal rubbish when there’s no space left in the recycling bin. I feel no need to pretend that I’m above loving some shiny videogame graphics, though. The Project CARS Gamescom trailer is, like every image of the in-development racing game, absurdly gorgeous. And embedded below, obv.

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Project CARS may not have the open America and sightseeing adventures of The Crew, but it’s a supremely attractive game. With a variety of motorsports and historic goals, the game sees your driver attempting to take a place in the hall of fame. To do that, you’ll have to drive really really really really fast. Make sure not to crash as well, I guess, but definitely concentrate on going fast. I’ve analysed the E3 trailer, which arrives with a reiteration of the November release window, and you’ll find a complete breakdown below.

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Project Cars is a ludicrously pretty game. I’m not the kind of fellow who feels the need to have a cold shower every time a fancy car drives past but I do appreciate attractive machinery. The cars in Project Cars look more like real cars than the cars that I can see outside the window right now. As well as looking more realistic, the digital cars look far more expensive (I live just inside Salford) and are going quite a bit faster. On top of all that, the music playing in the background of the trailer gives the automobile extravaganza a far more grand and elegant air than my current choice of The Walkmen’s Bows + Arrows (not as good as memory suggested). Basically, if you appreciate shiny cars going very fast then this is probably the video for you. Game’s out November.

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The latest trailer for Project CARS requires all the world’s air quotes while talking about: it’s the “first” trailer “introducing” Project CARS, because it’s “official”. Unlike all the other videos showing the game, which were community-made – just like this one, it seems – but without the seal of approval.

The video, and a recent batch of screensehots, are also “beautiful”, “oh geez look at those water droplets” and “bums now I need to upgrade my PC”. Does anyone really know how air quotes “work”?

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