Each year, the computer gaming industry gathers in Los Angeles at the Convention Center to show its biggest upcoming products to the specified press and the public. This is by far the most important event of the year where all top players show their previously hidden cards. This year's E3 was no exception from that rule.
Before we start, here is a little introduction of our E3 Reporter.
Dauby is 31 years old and lives in Hungary and has been playing games since the age of 13. He is a contributing editor in a Hungarian PC-mag for the 5th year in succession and is actually working in a Hungarian Games Development Studio as a Producer and Marketing Manager. His hobbies also include music, video games and sports.
The following series of short articles is aimed to cover some of the most anticipated racing titles of 2004, having talking to the people who are bringing those games to you was quite a journey for me.
GAME REPORTS
PC Release Date: First half of 2005
Developer/Publisher: Codemasters/Codemasters
Official Website: https://www.codemasters.co.uk/colinmcrae2005
Colin McRae Rally Game Guide
Gameplay teaser:
The Peugeot 206 was a handy little beast and it behaved very well on the tarmac at the Japan circuit yet there was slipping and sliding on the gravel surface of Australia. I also hit a sign that, as one would expect, fell down and after contact with a roadside tree, leaves poured down. Both stages were beautiful and fun to drive, with a narrow road and with good combinations of corners, particularly in Japan where there were some wooden bridges to cross. The PS2 version of CMR04 seemed to out shine the PC conversion. I could only hope that SixbyNine would take more care when adapting the game on the PC this time around. It's too bad the replay system remained the same...
As the two previous incarnations of the longest running PC rally-series were somewhat disappointing to me - even though 04 managed to get rid of the troubles that were the trademarks of the 3 - I had concerns and a list of points to discuss during our meeting with Project Leader Graham Rigby.
But, just before our discussion started, I tried out the PS2 version of the game, showcased at the Codemasters booth. The Peugeot 206 was my choice of car, which I first drove in Japan and then in Australia. Both stages were new, just some bits were connected to already existing stages of previous McRae titles. The physics were the same, but seemed to me a little bit altered. The feel and control of the car is still McRae-ish, meaning that the car reacts and moves pretty much as you wish (pivoting the car around a central pole). The bonnet-cam is back in business and a new a damage-indicator hull was put in place in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Some other changes were obvious from the beginning:
- signs are now falling dynamically on the ground once you crash into them (we've waited for so long to have this feature) as well as other trackside objects too,
- rocks are no longer considered as walls, but dynamic obstacles that will unbalance your car and can easily send it in a roll
- weather condition and time of day choices provide the game with more variability
- menus have been changed and are now much more readable
The game features a new German tarmac rally along with the now traditional other 8 countries that encompass 76 stages (with the few super-specials) from which Graham told me 52% are completely new. After driving 2 of the new stages all I can say is that they are narrower and require more technical skill than the ones in 04. Hopefully the quality of all new stages will be equally as good. In Stage Mode the weather and time of day settings add an exciting dimension to the game but those conditions are preset for the Career Challenge. As with previous installments, only McRae and his ex-co-driver, Nicky Grist will be real. Derek Riggs is out of the seat for good. The player will have access to a very short bio for Mr. McRae with all key statistics involving his illustrious career. To the delight of the fans, a total of 34 cars can be played but only 5 of them are available at the start of the game. All cars are modeled after existing ones, but not their latest versions.
Graham's description of the Career Mode is that it depicts the "World of rallying" that's why they needed to separate it from the Upgrading, which will now be a game on its own as players can play hours and hours on just upgrading their vehicles (as each vehicle needs to be separately upgraded). Some new challenges will be also present here, but the specific details are not available at this time.
The development team already has a long list of features to be implemented in the version after 05 and they're also hoping for a schedule that could allow them to make changes, for example, to the replay system.
Six by Nine Ltd. will do PC conversion and there will also be a demo available a few weeks before the release.
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Codemasters E3 Booth
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Graham Rigby, Lead Game Designer on the Colin McRae Series of games.
PC Release Date: 4th Quarter 2004
Developer/Publisher: BugBear/Empire Interactive
Official Website: https://bugbear.fi/flatout.htm
FlatOut Game Guide
Gameplay teaser:
Even though I only tried 2 cars, their handling felt the same, perhaps due to the fact that the demo had full-spec cars that players would only acquire towards the end of the game. The figure-8 track was loads of fun at the Nvidia booth, the forest track covered with gravel at Empire's booth provided some shortcuts, too. As physics were also tweaked, my driver was catapulted from the seat at bigger impacts, but it will be tuned down in the final game. Expect lots of crashes, flying debris, rolling cars and on the street track Jussi showed me, the barrel obstacles. It was awesome to see how an opponent could be slowed if pushed into those barrels, carefully placed on the track by level designers. :)
"Rally Trophy" will always remain to me as the most accurate rally simulator of vintage cars. The game suddenly elevated newly founded developer studio BugBear to unimaginable heights. At Empire's booth I sat down with Jussi Laakkonen, the Development Director of the Finnish studio to have a chat about that exciting title.
FlatOut, their new racing game sports all the good things RT had, starting with its vehicle physics, but adds all the best things we've been previously enjoying in Destruction Derby titles. The spine of the game is made of a Career Mode, where you start up with a junk car, then, after earning some cash with racing, you develop it into a good racing car by upgrading the parts and finally buying a new car from a pool of 16 cars in total. Between races you cannot tune your car's setting as the game focuses on close-quarter battles between the 8 competitors, not setting up your machinery. The game's 45 tracks have 5 different environments altogether: forest (gravel), town (with a mixture of surfaces), racing track, snow and sandy terrain. There is also a special area which you'll unlock towards the end of the game where you have the sort of Lethal Pit to throw the driver out of the car: here you'll have the high jump, the long jump or the dart throwing amongst other disciplines - that part made me laugh, so the icemen of the North can be also funny sometimes! Once on a track you can drive your car anywhere (up to the limit of the world, of course) and use its exhaustive dynamic physics engine to push objects with different setups around the world. Tree-trunks, barrels, tires and detached body parts all represent a challenge on the next lap as hitting those obstacles will damage and slow down your car or can even cause major accidents. Another interesting feature of the game is that its tracks have shortcuts that you can employ to your own risk in your quest to beat your opponents. Using shortcuts may result in landing on the opponent's car or on the roof of your car or amongst a pile of barrels.
As the game is very heavily axed to the close-door racing involving contact, the AI drivers are pretty aggressive and merciless, though it was impossible to make them spin in the build showcased at E3. I was able to try out several tracks of the X-Box version and a special "figure-8" track (reminiscent of the double figure-8 track of Destruction Derby, one of my all-time favorites) of the PC version, both provided the amount of fun I expected from these guys. As Jussi told me, multiplayer is up to 8 people but if 2 or more human controlled vehicles are detected, no AI cars will be on the track, but right now they're not 100% sure that they won't do an AI mode for the Multiplayer, too.
Music was one of the points where RT delivered the goods with its characteristic pieces. FlatOut will feature licensed music pretty much leaned towards the nu metal genre hi-octane songs you've come to expect from BugBear. The camera angles have a bumper-cam and several chase cams, but no bonnet or cockpit cam. Finally I asked Jussi if they'll let players use their own paints or at least choose from different color-schemes but at this moment it is not planned - fans of RT made lots of skins for their favorite car.
This game delivers all the carnage I expected from it and thanks to its physics and dynamic environment it would keep you entertained for quite a while. The PC demo will be released several weeks before the game hits retailers and we can also expect BugBear to release some new content afterwards (tracks and new vehicles are planned amongst other things).
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Jussi Laakonen from Bugbear.
PC Release Date: 23/09/2004
Developer/Publisher: Techland/Techland
Official Website: https://www.xpandrally.com
Xpand Rally Game Guide
Gameplay teaser:
A wide variety of cars and 3 different types of stages were in the Xpand Rally E3 demo. Marketing Manager Adam Tutaj also offered a disc for more personal viewing. My favorite circuit is Nevada, covered with gravel, picturesque scenery and awesome drifting.. After that comes the Polish track on tarmac, very fast with a good amount of corners. More turns than the snowy and icy Sweden. Perhaps due to the narrowness of the latter stage and also to its whiteness but mainly due to the late calls - mentioned in my article - I haven't enjoyed the latter. I usually drive from the in-car cam, so it was virtually impossible to have an idea about the Swedish track. I often found myself going off in a big way indeed. The handling was good (more towards the arcade than the Simulation), but I'm sure with the Beta Testing now started it would improve to be a little more realistic.
An ambitious project from start to finish, Techland's Xpand Rally puts you in a similar role as "Gran Turismo 3" or the more recent "NFS: Underground" games. There were many things to ask about so I virtually carpet-bombed Adam Tutaj - PR and Marketing Manager - with my questions.
The core game consists of the Career: you supposedly have a cheap car but want to compete with the big guns therefore you need to race a lot to earn money, upgrade your car's equipment (from body parts to engine, gearbox etc.) and change it for the better. As you advance in the Career, you have the chance to bet pink slips with some opponents (special occasions) and win their car or loose yours. On paper, the game delivers a lot of features including dynamic weather and environment, lots of tracks, lots of cars, enhanced physics, realistic sounds, the real feeling of speed and a real ace: an editor. If that's what you have dreamt about, you can make your own stage with the help of tutorial videos and an easy-to-access interface. Crashes will not only affect your car, but the driver also has a sophisticated injury system, so his condition also affects the way the car handles.
The Chrome engine delivers state-of-the-art visual effects onto your PC and certainly blows away the competition making the 60+ stages (spanning over 9 different countries) lifelike even though they're all imaginary. The cars featured in the game are easily recognizable remakes of real models, but not licensed. Multiplayer is up to 8 persons having access to different game-modes, one with ghost cars and the other with cars actually pushing and shoving each other on track. To make the game more interesting Techland plans to have "hotlap"-competitions, one certainly at BHMotorsports.
As the game entered Beta Stage not too long ago, I wasn't surprised that the Polish developer even gave out press-demos with exactly the same content as the E3 prototype. In this demo you have access to 3 stages, each completely different: snow-covered in Finland, tarmac in Poland and gravel in Nevada (visually the most stunning). You can choose from 25 different vehicles and set them up for a drive. I enjoyed the driving, the sliding around on gravel and the sharp turns on tarmac and there were subtle differences between the vehicle's handling of the different classes. I immediately tried to jump off the cliffs in Nevada (that's an old Colin McRae 3 subroutine still vividly running in my brain), but before colliding with the ground the game has put my car back on track. After several tries I gave it up as I understand that it's not possible in this game. The same repositioning on the track applies if you try to cut too much ground off the stage. It is also possible to miss Checkpoints (like in the WRC-series on the PS2), in such a case you must turn back and cross the CP. The weather was not changed dynamically while driving, but I was able to change it before driving out to the stage itself. There was an enormous difference driving the same stage in different conditions!
Overall, the game felt polished and fun for the hours I've played with it. The late "announcement" of corners, I have discovered to be a major problem, but Adam reassured me that they are in fact working on recording the voices for the co-driver (the concept of having no co-driver is now history) and beta testing will certainly remedy this. One other thing is the menu system that needs to be greatly polished before release as it is not up to the overall quality of the game. The dynamic environment was a lot of fun (crashing into borders, gates and piling up a lot of stuff is fun, (but the game's main attraction at this stage is its graphics, which is on par with the best-looking FPS games of our days.
Even though I had the possibility to try the game out, we will all have to wait until August to grab the single player demo of the game and then post a verdict about it then. You may also expect a multiplayer demo on the day of the game's release. One thing is sure; Techland is taking things very seriously and wants to keep a good relation with their fans, offering new cars and tracks after the game's release.
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Techland's Xpand Rally booth.
PC Release Date: Summer 2004
Developer/Publisher: Warthog/SCi
Official Website: https://www.richardburnsrally.com
Richard Burns Rally Game Guide
Gameplay teaser:
Tackling the Rally Mont Blanc's first stage seemed to be a wise decision as the Subaru handled like a real monster. One tire off-track and the car slid toward the trees; impact was imminent and inevitable. I backed off a little, played carefully with the throttle and the steering but even that wasn't enough, the car seemed to be floating on the tarmac surface and behaved like a pinball as it careened off obstacles along the way. I had to cool down and focus on the driving and imagine that I'm driving a simulator - you really have to shift your mind onto that thought. After numerous restarts (meanwhile I also tuned down the damage level from Real to Low), I started to feel the car, but RBR really is a title that you should taste and chew at home, as it is completely different from all the other rally-games available. You virtually have to train yourself to drive it, but you'll be rewarded for your efforts.
As this game had so much information available before E3 I was just curious how it would really drive once I was able to try it for myself. I started my journey at the Logitech booth, where the PlayStation2 demo of the game was equipped with a steering wheel and pedals. As you would expect, my first 2 minutes into the game were really hard as the tracks are very narrow. Once I lost grip with any one of the tires, a spin was nearly inevitable. Whenever the car got stuck, I called for help (on the steepest difficulty setting, if there are no people around the area of your accident, you'll fall out of the race) and lost some precious time before the trackside spectators were able to put me back on track. Then I started to learn how to drive the car, using the throttle with caution and respecting the track. I tried all damage settings and there was definitely a huge difference between realistic and basic - having the latter setting, your car even rolls and frontal crashes can be fun, but in no way will you enjoy those with realistic settings enabled.
I then made my way to the SCI booth to meet up with Gareth Ramsey who previewed the X-Box version of the game and talked a lot about the competition and how Richard Burns Rally will bring new blood into the market. We have heard that RBR is about realism. As Gareth showed me a car-setup before starting a stage, it was pretty obvious to me that Warthog has done an enormous job on setting up the different vehicles. I can only compare the setup to the Papyrus' setup screens. You can tune everything down to the last minute degree.
I was particularly curious about the dynamic weather, but this version of the game had only preset weather stages, no rallies or championship were yet implemented. We did play the first stage of the Pirelli In. Rally, first at dry, then wet. At the second run water filled sections of the track and it was literally a pool of mud with very little grip. Then we jumped onto tarmac with the Rallye Mont Blanc where Gareth put the pedal to the metal to show us how unforgiving the game is: actually he rolled several times and completely demolished his car after hitting a small trackside tree at about 106 MPH.
What I saw at the E3 made me believe that the final game will be a superb ride and we shall prepare ourselves for an experience previously unknown to us. With all its stages recreated meticulously after real-life stages and its 8 fully licensed cars, RBR will be surely wearing the rally-simulator crown when it hits stores in summer 2004. I'm all excited to put my hands on the demo; it should be out prior to the PC release of the game (which is only a few weeks away).
PC Release Date: 3rd Quarter 2004
Developer/Publisher: SimBin Development Team/Unknown
Official Website: https://www.simbin.com
GTR Game Guide
Gameplay teaser:
As I carefully shifted gears of the Dodge Viper and left the pit lane of the magnificent Donington Park circuit, I was anxious to step on the throttle and throw the car down Hollywood through Craner Curves and into the Old Hairpin. It felt like I knew this game for a long, long time. Then I made a mistake coming out of McLeans and nearly spun the car. This was the moment when a Saleen stormed by me, and I was left on the side of the track, virtually at a stand still, gazing toward this beautiful piece of machinery that had passed. A Ferrari 550 came by, then other cars shunted past me as I was still shocked by that car. Unfortunately for me, the Saleen was not "drive-able" at the show. Due to some setup problems I shifted back to the press demo's Lister Storm and did a dozen or so laps at both the Donington and Spa circuits. The physics were awesome. The graphics were a joy to watch and the sensation of speed was so nailbiting that I asked only one question from the SimBin staff: "When will the REAL demo come out?"
This is yet another title that doesn't need much of an introduction. At this year's E3, GTR was the first title I went after and I played it like a child. Some of the tracks were playable - yes, Spa for example and some of the cars too, the Viper as well. SimBin had two machines to demo its upcoming sim: one equipped with a wheel and the other with a pad. During the 3 days of the show I played at least an hour on both of them and particularly enjoying the newly finished Donington Park circuit!
Jure set up my schedule in such fashion that my meeting with Jamal Laraqui - Chairman of the Board - was my last one. Jure only gave me 2 questions (starters) to ask then we suddenly found ourselves chatting about SimBin, the racing communities, publishers and future possibilities as if GTR was a released product. E3 2004 was a huge leap for a small company who teamed up with some motor racing enthusiasts to make a driving simulator. Their first public product (the GTR Mod) was an instant success and earned the company respect as well as a huge fan-base. This company of 30 dedicated and respected people (the company is lead from Sweden and development team is located in England) is living a fairy tale right now as publishers knock on their door and endeavor to distribute their product or the next inline. I'm sure that if they invest all the assets they've been developing in the last 3 years and continue their partnership with Image Space Incorporated, the sim-racing community will carry them out on a shield - just imagine an American LeMans Series or a European Touring Car Series based on their experience and current technology!
Jamal also spoke about continuing on with the GTR series, as the actual game will be based on the 2003 lineup, they may want to do another game based on the 2004 schedule with new cars, tracks and data. Working with the ISI engine permits GTR to remain extremely accessible to the community, whereas modding would remain relatively easy.
As GTR sports an official FIA license, a trailer will appear on racing weekends in which several prototypes of the game will be there for the fans to play. The whole was built using Logitech and Viewsonic resources and the purpose is to enable VIP members, race drivers and some attendees to try the game out. SimBin will also organize on-site competitions.
The game's release date is not yet set. It will mainly depend on the publisher, but one thing is sure, SimBin is set to announce its next project before the release. SimBin will make yet another product announcement shortly after GTR is available for retail distribution. Let's keep our fingers crossed for them, as Jamal said: "SimBin is a platform which reunites dedicated gamers who have put together their own assets to make further games. This company is not about the money and making profit, it is all about commitment and devotion to the job they're doing."
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Dauby going for the win!
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SimBin Team and GTR stand.