Formula one 2011 has been revealed and fans can rejoice. Successor to the last years Forumla One 2011 looks to maintain the lead its predecessor set. The franchise has become an yearly title now just like the Fifa’s and Cod’s. Formula one 2010 was a terrific game and you can read our review here. Although, not perfect this sequel can iron out those kinks and we hope Codemasters will deliver another solid title.

The game releases on September 23rd, 2011 on both the PlayStation3 and Xbox360 as well as PC, and will be distributed in India by Zapak Games. You may be glad to know that this game will also release on Sony’s beast of a portable called NGP and Nintendo 3DS. For exciting new competitions and official news you can also follow the development team at Facebook or follow the team on twitter at Twitter.

Personally for me, the last game came at a time when the genre needed it the most, so this is an excellent news because games like these are still being funded. Stay tuned for our detailed review of Forumla One 2011 soon.

Boxarts 360, PC and PS3.

The highly anticipated sequel to EA’s Need for Shift gets a release date of March 29th, 2011. The game’s being made by Slightly Mad Studios for PS3, 360 and PC with the return of acclaimed social tool Autolog, first introduced in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The release date comes in a new trailer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCG49N354cs

The racing genre seems to be getting awesome games nowadays, from F1 2010 to the recently released GT5. Now, there’s Shift 2: Unleashed, which is already looking impressive.

The first two previews of the game have gone live, check out a few snippets from them below:

Gamespot :

“The highlight of our preview was getting to sit down in a force feedback D-Box gaming chair, which was rigged up to a high-end PC running a preview build of the game. Our demo offered us a range of tracks in locations such as Shanghai, Australia’s Bathurst track at dusk, and the daunting prospect of Belgium’s Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps at night. It was a challenge to race around the latter in a chair programmed to make you feel every bump and corner, especially because the number of driving aids was limited.”

Joystick :

“Shift 2 is still months away from its planned release next spring, but the standout addition, a new “helmet cam” view, was fully functional — and something I think racing fans will be wowed by — in the preview build. Evolving from the driver’s eye camera system in the first Shift, the new camera view not only realistically recreates the effects of g-forces, bumps, crashes, acceleration and braking from an in-car perspective, but now integrates the portions of the helmet that you’d see (if you were a real, careful race car driver) and, most importantly, the camera now looks into turns, just as drivers do in real life.”

Looking good, we can’t wait to get our hands on Shift 2 next year.

While the Ubisoft’s Press Conference was mostly targeted at the causal gamers, it did have its moments for the hardcore gamers. The company revealed plenty of its upcoming projects.

One of them includes the long awaited reboot of the Driver series which was teased last Monday. The latest installment takes place in San Francisco.  The game takes place months after the end of Driver 3, where main character Tanner survives the tragedy that befell him in the last game. But so did his arch-nemesis Jericho. Driver San Francisco will also be a throwback to previous installments in the franchise, featuring a match-up between the two. Tanner is on the hunt for Jericho and the two will engage in vehicular duels on the streets of San Francisco.

The game will include more than 100 licensed vehicles, all of which are subject to damage. Due to the accident, Tanner will find himself in the possession of supernatural abilities called Shift. Players will be able to pause time to hop to a new vehicle on the fly, as well as take a bird’s eye view of the city to jump to various locations. The game also sees the inclusion of multiplayer for the first time, which is completely Shift-based.

Ubisoft has also shown off some new screenshots which reveal some of the cars present in the game.  Driver San Francisco will be available this holiday season for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac. A Wii specific version is also in development and should hit the market around the same time.

Thanks – VG247

In an official announcement at EA’s E3 press conference, Criterion Games (the people behind the acclaimed Burnout Series) revealed their latest Need for Speed project, Need for Speed:Hot Pursuit.  It was officially announced to be released on November 16th, 2010.

Described as a “revolutionary” addition to the Need for Speed franchise, the gameplay of Hot Pursuit returns to the roots of the original Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, featuring high speed cop chases and exotic cars! Players can play both as a Racer or as an Cop in the Career. New to Hot Pursuit is a social interaction system called Autolog.  It can allow simultaneous interaction with online pals and also instant updates of your records being beaten or multiplayer challenges.

Criterion Demonstrated the gameplay of Hot Pursuit with a Cop vs Racer match. It turned out to pretty intense with dodging roadblocks and the ramming of the Police Cars. Also a trailer was also shown which featured some of the exotic cars, locales and the high adrenaline police chases.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 recently got a new trailer from their publishers Atari. Developed by Eden Games, Test Drive Unlimited 2 is the 10^th game in the series. Featuring similar gameplay as were in the previous games, players are free to roam in large open ended worlds, earning experience points by challenging other racers or by performing stunts, which they can later use for upgrades or customizations.

The Trailer showed two of the locations that is going to be present in the game:- Ibiza and Hawaii. Heavy Customization is expected to be present in the game, and the player can literally customize everything, from their houses to their body avatars to their Cars. The focal point of the trailer however is the major graphical update the game has went through. Dynamic weather effects, day and night cycles, vehicle damage, and highly detailed Cars, everything is going to be present in full eye candy. To top it all off, SUVs and a Co-Op Mode are posing new additions to the series.

Expect heavy competition in the racing genre as the game hits North America on September 21, 2010 and Europe on September 24, 2010 for 360, PS3 and PC.

There is no denying the fact that any racing game fan, unless born yesterday, would have played atleast one ‘Need for Speed’ game during his / her gaming career. Die hard fans would have spent more time with NFS than with their girlfriends in the past and while those girlfriends have had a gala time with the debacle of recent NFS titles (guess God never helps those who scorn females!), NFS Shift begs to differ, albeit very politely. While Shift is poised to cause a few heartaches, it’s still quite far from causing absolute heartbreaks like Underground or Most Wanted did. Here’s presenting the dissection of the latest NFS iteration.

The First Impressions….

The opening movie (which is usually the best part of any NFS!) looks like NFS Underground styled vehicles racing across a mix of ProStreet and NFS 2 tracks. The blatant difference, however, is the emphasis on cockpit driving views, with most of the action including high-speed driving and crashes, unfolding from the first person perspective on realistic tracks & recognizable locations.

The movie gives way to a slick title menu followed by the first career mode assignment of evaluating your driving style through a test. As you wait for the green light in the BMW provided for the purpose, your first reaction will be “hmm, splendid in-car design indeed!” There’s no denying the fact that car cockpits are detailed to an ultra superior level & will strike a cool first impression. But wait! Even with assists on, the road moved away from beneath my vehicle at the first turn itself and the car hurtled towards the railing. Despite a few restarts, the Beemer’s handling was not as expected (based on my previous so many car racing game experiences) and my feeling of ‘awesome-ness’ was neutralized by the realization that completing NFS Shift might be a slightly uphill ride.

So what’s the setting this time?

None, so to speak of! It’s pretty simple here. Playing solo means either the career mode or quick races. In career mode, the driving test will conclude whether your driving is ‘precise’ (adhering to racing line, good launch, corner mastering, clean overtakes etc. – basically good boy driving!) or ‘aggressive’ (slamming into opponents, corner slides – basically true street driving!) and will earn you some cash to buy your first ride with. Rest is straightforward – just race and gather stars to unlock tougher events till you reach NFS World Tour – the ultimate challenge in the game. Stars are awarded based on primary criterion of podium finish (1st, 2nd, 3rd) as well as secondary criterion like mastering all corners, or raking up a certain number of points through driving style etc. The stars unlock further races, which are divided into four tiers. It is possible to re-visit any racing event to collect all the stars that event has to offer. The game also rewards you with profile points that add to your driver profile and offer various accolades like cash or car customizations upon driver profile upgrades.

The racing tiers – Tier 1, 2, 3 & 4 (in descending order of car performance) specify the class of vehicle qualified to enter the race. Within a tier, there are various races like time attack, lap, drift, series, manufacturer competitions & ‘vs’ events. Besides tier racing, there are a host of invitational events that allow you to occasionally hop into more powerful machines for high-performance racing like clocking the best lap time or winning ‘knockout’ eliminator races. By putting super-cars directly into your hands without the need to own them, these invitational events ensure you do not feel power hungry and enjoy most of the cars in the game as fast as possible. Win all races in a competition, and you may receive ‘Rival Challenges’ from veteran drivers for a one-on-one race series.

In short, there are no punk racers to beat, no ‘reclaiming the crown’ story and no Mia to the rescue this time! It’s simple NFS 2 style racing on the next-gen consoles. However, unlike titles like Dirt, where lack of plot is supplemented by huge race & vehicle variety, Shift’s races are executed through the same type of vehicles across various tracks for different trophies, thereby making the game appear relatively shallow in comparison to other rival titles.

Next Page – Gameplay

As the credits roll on my X360 for NFS Shift, I cannot help but wonder at how different & short this latest iteration was from the older ones. Hell, even past 3 – 4 iterations have been pretty different and not yielding the best of results. Having stuck faithfully to the series for past 11 years now (picked up my first NFS game: NFS 2 in 1998!), it’s nostalgic to experience the series’ evolution in a ‘hit or miss’ form year on year. I respect the series so much that I still get pretty excited when I hear the announcement of a new NFS title. It’s just that the end product has ceased to be worth its wait in recent times.

NFS 2 was the first game of the series that I picked up, and it’s still installed on my office laptop for those quick ‘break from work’ ease-downs. Back then, I was awed about everything in the game. The slick opening movie pitting Italdesign and Jaguar head-to-head, the car gallery and videos, super – amazing soundtrack, rich track design, fun traffic slaughter and of-course fast driving! Names like ‘McLaren’, ‘Ferrari’ and ‘Jaguar’ were homed into my brain through it. Crashes were so over the top that I’d spend dozens and dozens of hours just crashing traffic, especially in speedy tracks like Outback and watching my stunts in slow-motion replays. If I managed to crash the ‘invincible’ semi or the school bus, my shouts of joy could be heard across 10 houses! The races were thrilling and I spent hours playing and re-playing the tracks to ensure first place. I had to, especially for knockouts, to avoid being thrown out in the last lap against the formidable McLaren’s or Ferrari’s after spending excruciating number of laps in the lead position. Split screen was a cracking addition and I played a lot with my sister (facilitating her wins so that she would not get frustrated from losses and leave!)

The game was a milestone for me and I started following up closely on further developments. When NFS 3: Hot Pursuit released, I actually bought an original copy out of respect (of course my dad had to be coaxed a lot for it). That was the time when Lamborghini ruled the roster and dove straight into my heart as a super-car of choice. While the game was definitely leaps ahead of NFS 2 in terms of graphics and game-play, car bashing was a sore point. Hit a convertible, and you’ll just drag it back; hit a truck and it’ll drag you back! What am I supposed to watch in replays if there are no crashes? Precision driving? Hell, no! Anyways, the pulsating music, jaw-dropping racing locales, rich super-car detailing and weather affected driving ensured that I spent quite a lot of time driving (rather than just playing football with traffic). Add to it the ‘Hot Pursuit’ mode and one could play cop or robber to experience some thrilling chase sequences. God, how much I hated the spike-strip back then! NFS 3 had brought precision driving to front seat and I actually ended up identifying corners and track sections where I could overtake difficult opponents to win. It was a hugely rewarding experience to win a race after umpteen re-trials and let me confess, luck favoured me quite a lot those times!

My prayers were further fine-tuned when an evolved NFS 3 debuted in form of NFS: High Stakes. Besides an improved vehicle list, it featured full damage modelling which elevated the whole police chase and racing experiences from skyscraper to Mt. Everest levels. My favourite part was to crash a bunch of police cars or force rival racers into the train running across Kindiak Park and watch the mayhem unfold in slow mo replay. That doesn’t mean I didn’t dig the racing! I did! And with damage modelling underway and repairs allowed only by spending money between races, I had to evolve my definition of ‘precision driving’ to ensure I did not end up with a garage full of junks in the tournaments.

Next Page – The best NFS games ever made

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