Vi segnaliamo, sul sito di The US Pits, una completa guida alla creazione di nuovi tracciati per Nascar Racing 2003 Season: la Track Creation Guideline, una ottima enciclopedia dell'editing.

To assist the community with trying to reach a standard for naming conventions and readme information, we've created a series of documents that track designers can use to let the community know what their track is, how it's built and what patches for N2003 it supports, as well as artist and download information.

Il sito di Computer & Videogames ha pubblicato una interessante intervista a Peter Hickman, senior producer del prossimo Richard Burns Rally della SCi:

Tell us about the concept behind the game - why Richard Burns?

Hickman: We wanted to do something slightly different with the rally genre. Colin's great, WRC's great, but we wanted something that kind of reflected the more technical side of rallying, the kind of simulation aspect. We went back to the drawing board. Reinventing rally is the wrong term, but we've introduced the element of simulation to the whole rallying genre that I don't think anyone else has done. To give you a good example, we've gone back to the grass roots of the handling model of these vehicles; we've written a complete car simulation, similar to something that professionals would use in the car industry when testing all the initial concept ideas.

E' da poco disponibile anche in Italia il nuovo Mercedes Benz World Racing della TDK: il gioco può vantare certamente una grafica spettacolare, ma come può essere giudicato nel complesso? Sul sito di TGM Online potete leggere un primo parere in proposito.

Cosa inusuale per un gioco di corse, al termine di ogni gara verrà valutato sia il vostro piazzamento che altri parametri come correttezza, abilità, prestazioni, esperienza, ecc. Tutti concorrono ad aumentare il vostro “statusâ€, permettendovi di sbloccare piste, campionati e missioni.

Sul sito ufficiale del nuovo Nascar Thunder 2004 della EA Sports è stata pubblicata una interessante intervista a Scott Stutsman, capo progetto responsabile del gioco:

What are some of the changes and improvements in the A.I. racecars this year?

Scott Stutsman: In NASCAR Thunder 2004, we have taken our fantastic racing A.I. cars and given them some personality by integrating Grudges and Alliances. Teammates and Allies will draft with you and not battle you as hard for position, but the really cool element is what we have done to create such great rivalries in the game. If you bump someone out of the way, you can expect the "favor" to be returned with a little retaliation.

Prosegue sul sito di Computer & Videogames la lunga anteprima dedicata al prossimo Richard Burns Rally della SCi: seguite questo link per leggere la seconda parte dell'articolo.

It sounds preposterous, but even the sound effects are determinedly authentic. When you hear the car revving up, those sounds are based on what the engine is actually doing - utterly mind-boggling. If that's not enough, the engine model actually simulates all the working parts of a four stroke internal engine; each stage is accurately modelled. Damage a cylinder and and you'll both hear and feel the effect on the engine's performance immediately. Scarily realistic.

Siete "maniaci" degli assetti di Nascar Racing 2003? Allora vi interesserà sapere che è disponibile un'utility veramente interessante: Il Setup Analsys che ci aiuterà a sviluppare e testare i nostri assetti preferiti:

This utility will help you quickly find the relationship between chassis parameters and their effect on the cars performance. It uses a technique known as Design of Experiments to allow you to test the effect of many parameters at the same time (up to eight). It drastically cuts down on the amount of testing required and yet still enables you to find the important factors affecting your race car and their effect on each other. This is quite a complex technique, yet is very useful and will provide you with a lot of information. I suggest you read and study the help file before you begin to use it...

Per il download seguite questo link!

Se da una parte abbiamo parlato di Indycar Series e della sua "oscurazione", dall'altra parliamo di uno dei titoli più recensiti di sempre: F1 Challenge. Oggi la parola va a Video Game News:

Formula racing on the PC is about as fun as a fart in a space suit. EA Sports doesn't have plans to continue their racing franchise, probably because nobody was buying it, so this makes F1 Challenge the final title in a historic line of accurate, if not enjoyable, games.

Per la review completa dovrete seguire questo collegamento.