La Codemasters ha annunciato oggi lo sviluppo del nuovo V8 Supercars 2, che sarà disponibile per XBox e PC a partire da Aprile 2004; ecco il comunicato stampa:

Codemasters, creators of genre-leading motorsport video games, will once again drive racing gaming forward with the follow up to the No 1 Best Seller of 2003 - V8 Supercar Race Driver. V8 Supercars 2, designed as the definitive racing game experience, will launch April 2004 for Xbox and PC, complete with Xbox Live and PC online functionality.

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Carrying the tagline “The Ultimate Racing Simulatorâ€, V8 Supercars 2 will provide petrol head gamers with the most diverse range of challenging motorsports ever seen in one game. V8 Supercars 2 will feature completely updated 2003 V8 content, including new car models, new driver line-ups and car liveries. Updated features include the 2003 point system, qualifying, shootouts, fuel and pit stops, current race formats and updated 2003 rules. Gamers will also have the option to race the entire V8 championship season with full race lengths and qualifying sessions. Also included will be over 30 global championships, with players competing in events including GT Sports Car Racing, Street Racing, Rally, DTM, Global GT Lights, Rally Cross, Formula Ford, Open Wheel Grand Prix and Classic Car Racing. The title is Codemasters’ most ambitious motorsport project to date with heavy investment in officially licensed content including cars, tracks and championships. Apart from the latest V8 Supercars, V8 Supercars 2 will deliver an incredible selection of aspirational cars. 35 of the world's most powerful racing and street cars will be fully simulated – including Aston Martin (V12 Vanquish, DB7 and DB5), Jaguar (XJ220, XKR and E-Type), Ford (Mustang Cobra R, Ford GT, GT90, F150 Lightning Pick-up, Falcon BA), Holden Commodore VY, Mitsubishi 3000 GT, Mitsubishi EVO 7, Subaru Impreza WRX, ABT-Audi TT-R, Opel Astra V8 Coupe and AMG-Mercedes CLK. V8 Supercar fans will go wild with the game, which boasts a massive list of official V8 Supercar circuits including, Clipsal 500 Adelaide; Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, Victoria; Eastern Creek Raceway, NSW; Barbagallo Raceway, WA; Oran Park, NSW; Mt Panorama, Bathurst, NSW; Lexmark Indy 300 Surfers Paradise; Hidden Valley Raceway, NT; Sandown Raceway, Victoria; and Pukekohe Park Raceway, New Zealand. In addition to the 10 V8 circuits V8 Supercars 2 features 56 racing circuits from around the world including Laguna Seca, Surfers Paradise, Euro Speedway, Donington Park, Kyalami and Road America and new exotic locations from Miami to Tokyo. It's on these world famous circuits that V8 Supercars 2 will demonstrate its completely new physics model, deformation damage system, graphics engine and AI. Codemasters’ key racing studio is creating the title with Gavin Raeburn, producer of the TOCA games, leading development and production: “V8 Supercars 2 will be our most ferocious motorsport game yet, with the gameplay distilling the pure adrenaline of the different styles of racing.

“A vast collection of real motorsports, real rules and real racing cars will combine with our most advanced and intuitive handling model to date. Every physical nuance of each vehicle type is accurately modelled, from tyre deformation when cornering to the centrifugal engine forces and complex aerodynamics. “Visually, it's going to be stunning. Our new rendering engine features complex dynamic lighting, perspective mapped shadows, multipass textures, procedural standing grass and a host of post production techniques including true motion blur, depth of field and iris effects – all at a rock steady 60fps.†V8 Supercars 2 continues the pioneering use of cinematic plot in racing games with the whole narrative being played out completely from the first person perspective. You see what the lead character sees and you create your own history. V8 Supercars 2's high-detail cinematics will follow the player and a band of race drivers competing globally with high-tension eliminator consequences. The 'reality TV' style eliminator story captures the competitive intrigue of 12 drivers battling their way to win the ultimate racing experience: a drive as a Masters Grand Prix professional. Visually the cinematics will be triple the detail of V8 Supercar Race Driver with characters created from over 12,000 polygons. From the game's core development team, which began work on the title in summer 2002, the full V8 Supercars 2 team now has over 40 of Codemasters' finest motorsport game engineers on the project. V8 Supercars 2 will launch in April 2004 for Xbox and PC complete with online play functionality for both formats.

Dal Gamer's Day americano, un evento promozionale organizzato da Sony per la stampa di settore USA, sono stati diffusi alcuni particolari inediti su Gran Turismo 4. Si parte dal nuovo circuito modellato su una reale località italiana e battezzato "Città di Aria".

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La pista offrirà tutte le caratteristiche di un classico percorso montano del Bel Paese ovvero strade strette costeggiate da abitazioni, molta vegetazione e un panorama da togliere il fiato sulla valle sottostante. Una modifica di rilievo interessa il pubblico, che presenterà (anche) modelli poligonali animati in modo da reagire al passaggio delle vetture. Potremo vedere persone spostarsi prima dell'arrivo di un'auto, o coprirsi dalla polvere sollevata. Inoltre, le vetture cabrio mostreranno, finalmente, i piloti e sarà presente tutto il personale dei box, animato per l'occasione. Gran Turismo 4 è in arrivo a inizio dicembre su Playstation 2 in versione europea.

[Fonte Nextgame]

Rallisport Challenge 2, in arrivo il prossimo anno per la console di casa Microsoft, è stato ripresentato con una serie di fotografie e un nuovo elenco delle tante novità in cantiere: la prima interessa il gioco online, che verrà supportato da XSN Sports (tramite XBox Live) per organizzare tornei personali e tenere d'occhio ogni tipo di statistica della nostra carriera di piloti.

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I miglioramenti sul primo capitolo prevedono un sistema di danneggiamento più accurato che influirà anche sulle prestazioni della vettura, condizioni meteo variabili e 40 auto, compresi gli esemplari del Gruppo B, veri e propri "mostri" a quattro ruote esclusi dalle competizioni per la loro troppo elevata pericolosità. Per quanto riguarda la realizzazione tecnica, i circuiti promettono di essere ancora più vivi grazie ad elementi animati come rocce, pali, cartelli o la moltitudine di effetti ambientali usati per pioggia e neve. Trovate una serie di screenshots inediti a questo link.

[Fonte Nextgame]