La Electronic Arts ha rilasciato alcuni nuovi screenshots del prossimo Need for Speed Underground: come vedete dalle immagini, la grafica sarà certamente uno dei suoi punti di forza.

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Il portale di SimRacing World ha pubblicato un interessante articolo di approfondimento nel quale Paolo Cattani, responsabile del progetto, ci parla in modo più approfondito del nuovo Grand Prix Simulator della software house italiana Lago:

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So, here you are Virtual Grand Prix 2: a game designed "by drivers for (virtual?) drivers", not a "commercial" arcade or something. Of course this means that if you're expecting gorgeous graphics or other "commercial" stuff like this, this is not the product for you. If, otherwise, you want a REAL simulator, based on solid physics and industrial automotive algorithms, with a Track Editor included to design your own tracks and, most important of all, you want a game that WORKS ON INTERNET (as of this writing VGP2 let play 4-5 people on the net with a 56k connection, with ADSL it should be possible to play in 20 but I cannot guarantee it as we didn't test it with so many people yet), this is your game.

La netKar mania sta ormai dilagando e già oggi è disponibile una utility assolutamente imperdibile: con il Server Configurator potrete settare il vostro server di netKar in modo semplice ed intuitivo via interfaccia grafica.

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Features:
- Facilità d'uso
- Open & Save di settings personalizzati
- Mostra automaticamente il vostro IP internet
- Visualizza solamente le piste autorizzate in automatico
- Esegue direttamente l'nKServer.exe

Per il download dirigetevi verso la nKZone.

Come ormai saprete, la versione per Playstation 2 dell'ottimo F1 Challenge '99-'02 (PC) è stata stranamente denominata F1 Career Challenge: potete leggerne una recensione sul sito di Boomtown, con voto finale di 7.

F1 Career Challenge is an F1 fan’s dream, as long as they are motivated enough to work through the pretty steep difficulty curve, but for anyone who doesn’t have the patience to spend four seasons bettering your virtual career, there are probably better pick up and play racing games out there.

Sul sito di Racesim Central è stata pubblicata una completa recensione del recente Mini Mod, sviluppato dal Team Racetek per F1 2002 EA Sports: il giudizio finale è un positivo 4 su 5 anche a livello simulativo.

Picture a huge smiley the entire size of your monitor. That is the reason you should add this mod to your collection. You'll have fun. You'll enjoy it. I unreservedly urge you to have a go. It's such a small download (comparatively) that you have no reason not to.
F1RST2 support is coming soon. For those with the fat connections, the very idea of hosting a race and belting around with some carefully chosen friends, is a very attractive proposition indeed. And if you don't know anyone who has F12002, GTR, 360 and MINIMOD, then dive into our forums and buddy-up with someone. Because if you don't, you're loosing out.

I colleghi di Racesim Central, per celebrare il rilascio della nuova versione 0.9.9 di netKar, hanno pubblicato una lunga ed interessante intervista al suo creatore: ecco a voi il Sig. Stefano "Kunos" Casillo, il papà di netKar!

First, tell me about how old you are, where do you live and how do you earn a living?
That's difficult…. let's start from the easy one, I'm 30. At the moment I live in Newbury, England where I have been living for 2 years now. Originally I'm from Naples, Italy. In three days (Sunday 29 June) I'm leaving for Tokyo, Japan. I'll be living in a hotel while I'm looking for a flat…but I think it's going to be a traditional Japanese apartment with tatami (smiles). I earn my living as a software developer - at least for the past 5-6 years... the position in Japan is a managerial position…so a bit different.

E' finalmente disponibile l'attesa versione 0.9.9 Beta di netKar, il simulatore gratuito ed ultra realistico creato da Stefano "Kunos" Casillo: tra le novità, la presenza della modalità multiplayer per correre emozionanti sfide online, oltre ad un completo restyling grafico. Ecco nel dettaglio le caratteristiche di questa release:

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DOWNLOAD LINKS:

Nota: unica differenza fra le due release, è che quella Full contiene un maggior numero di textures per le vetture.

Ringraziamo Racesim Central, A.R.S.E e la nKzone per i mirror.

Sul sito di GPL Forever è disponibile la nuova versione 3.2 dell'utility Camera Control Master, compatibile sia con Grand Prix Legends che con Nascar Racing 2003 Season; queste le caratteristiche del programma:

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The Camera Control Master extends the replay capabilities of GPL by adding direct control to the replay cameras. The former version, the Car Camera Manager, already offered capabilities to switch car camera sets during replay. Now the Camera Control Master makes it possible to control the roll bar and pit camera by mouse and by script. 

So the CCM was created in first place to easily manage and switch Grand Prix Legends car camera files. The car camera files, which has an extension ". cam " are located in the cars/cars67/ directory. For each type of car a separate file exists with a different name in a different directory. Because of that, switching between camera files is not an easy job. 

Related to car camera sets, CCM offers the following:
1. Keep all camera views in one file.
2. Add screenshots to each camera view.
3. Copy and paste camera views between multiple sets.
4. Distribute camera set to each car directory and file by one click.
5. Switch camera sets directly during replay without distribution of files (introduced in V2.0).

Besides to the camera control functionality, starting from V3.0 the Camera Control Master is upgraded to have more .cmf files opened simultaneous.

Related to direct camera control, CCM offers the following:
1. Mouse and keyboard control on roll bar and pit camera
2. Script language to create preprogrammed camera effects to execute during replay for the roll bar and pit camera.
3. Single step mode to synchronize smoothly with movie grabbers like GPL2AVI.
4. Saving roll bar and pit camera positions in a text window by hotkey. When applied on the pit cam it is useful in combination with track camera editors.

Come sarà il nuovo ed atteso IndyCar Series della Codemasters ? Nell'attesa dell'uscita su PC possiamo leggere la recensione della versione XBox pubblicata da Next Level Gaming: voto finale 86%.

The only other complaint I have is a total lack of online gameplay for a game like this. Codemasters has yet to dabble in online gameplay for their racing games yet. So for now, the bulk of my time is still spent on Midtown Madness 3. But that aside, you're looking at one hell of a good Indy simulator. Fine for single and multi-player if you can't get online. Once again, a solid effort and more proof that Codemasters truly knows racing games.