Unsurprisingly, the source of the hold-up is the rigorous Xbox Live certification process, which took longer than Criterion had expected. Their new release date for "Cagney" is the following Monday, July 14 -- though this delay won't affect PS3 owners. Nor will it affect DS owners, restaurant entrepreneurs, professional poker players, the current Dalai Lama, or the actual James Cagney, who is, in fact, deceased.
We hope you opted to use pencil when scribbling the release date for Rockstar's latest non-felony related driving game into your Niko Bellic pinup calendar. Midnight Club: Los Angeles – the fourth installment in Rockstar San Diego's pimp-your-ride racing game – has jettisoned the old September 9 release date in favor of a new October 7th date (October 10 for you Europeans). Ostensibly, the extra time is being used to put that final coat of Turtle Wax on the open-world, track-less, load-time-less title but we like to imagine they're having difficulty getting the LA traffic experience just right.
With nine days to go until Criterion's crazy-fast racer gets an infusion of new content via the "Codename: Cagney" update, designer Simon Phipps has confirmed on the PlayStation Blog that the game will also receive support for PlayStation Trophies "soon." He says that Trophy support won't be part of "Cagney," which will introduce 70 timed Freeburn challenges for the game's online component.
In a surprise turn, Phipps also revealed that Criterion was "thinking ahead" and the Trophies will, in fact, be retroactive, meaning that players will receive them for feats already performed in the game. This is, according to Phipps, possible because of the way Burnout Paradise save data is linked to players' PSN accounts, which also means it won't be happening in other PS3 games en masse.
Last week we reported that Forza 3's sheer glut of content may mean the game will span two discs -- a feat not performed in console racing titles since Gran Turismo 2 back in 1999.
Fears of frequent disc swapping have been tentatively belayed, however. The Angry Pixel reports that only one disc will hold the "core game" content, presumably with the second disc holding additional, non-integral features. This possible scenario comes from a source at Dhruva Interactive, an India-based game developer contracted to deliver 3D assets for Forza 3.
The source also states that more news on the anticipated racing title is coming "fairly soon," so we'll hopefully get to the bottom of this "2 discs 1 game" rumor in the near future.
With its release set for next month exclusively on PS3 – as far as HD consoles go – we recently put Ferrari Challenge through its paces, while getting some background on what sets the game apart from other current-gen racers (apart from the fact that all of the cars are, obviously, Ferraris). Read on after the break to hear our impressions of the sights, sounds, and feel that highlight this high-spec driving sim.
Nintendo Wii Fanboy's code monkey extraordinaire, Mike Sylvester, stuns us again. His latest Revolutionary column is a step-by-step process of turning the Wii balance board and Wii wheel into a racing simulator, with the aid of GlovePIE and a PC version of Need for Speed ProStreet. Feel free to try this at home.
We'll be honest and say that the past few entries in the Need for Speedfranchise haven't exactly driven us mad with desire. But, ever the salesman, EA CEO John Riccitiello knows just the way to get a game back into our hearts: Mention it in the same breath as The Transporter.
Riccitiello said that the next iteration, Need for Speed: Undercover will have a strong mission structure and a similarity to the Jason Statham action classic. "For those of you who ever saw movies like The Transporter - it's sort of a cult classic among people with a B-movie mentality, which fits me perfectly," he said. "I liked it. I apologize. For those of you with no taste, and you liked it too, we can go have a Schlitz after this."
Don't worry John, we're right there with you. We're just heartbroken that we're apparently going to have wait until 2009 to partake of the fruits of your genius.
Obvious automobile news now, with the shocking revelation that the people inside Ubisoft's Reflections studio, nabbed by the French publisher in 2006, are hard at work clicking buttons, typing code and making "VROOM!" sound effects in order to service a new Driver game. You may remember it as the getaway car sim that you liked before Thelma and Louise took the wheel for most of the sequels.
Aside from its in-development status, not much is revealed about the new Driver in a BBC News clip, though it does show a man modeling a red (then blue, no, yeeeelllloooow!) sports car. That's a good start, we suppose.
Despite Metal Gear Solid 4'steasing about the limitations of the DVD format, developers are already feeling the gigabyte crunch. Take Microsoft's own Forza 3 project (What? You didn't think they were working on another one?) which, according to the recently mined Xbox survey, won't be able to squeeze into a single DVD: "due to the number of cars and tracks included in the Forza 3 game, it will be sold as a 2-disc set."
Of course, the drawbacks of having multiple discs can be mitigated by handling the extra data intelligently, reducing the need to swap discs repeatedly, so we'll focus on the second part of that equation: one-hundred tracks? Seriously?
When Criterion Games announced that it was building a version of Burnout Paradise "specifically" for the PC, our minds raced with ideas of what the devs might have in store of armchair racers unable to break away from their keyboard and mouse. While we're still in the dark concerning the port's "expanded multiplayer, enhanced online features, and community driven content," Criterion has softened those shadows by announcing that the PC version will support some fancy techno-babble known as 'ambient occlusion.'
Wondering what this will mean for you as you're barreling down the streets of Paradise City? We'll let Criterion explain: "It's an effect that uses soft shadows to add extra depth. Enclosed spaces naturally receive less light than open spaces and look darker – that helps us to see how close objects are to each other." We'll be honest, just judging by the above comparison shot it's difficult for our eyeballs to tell much of a difference, though admittedly Burnout Paradise was already easy on the eyes. Besides, shadows are the last thing on our mind as we smash headlong into the concrete median.
Burnout Paradise's forthcoming "Cagney" patch will peel out on Thursday, July 10 according to developer Criterion Games, finally letting Paradise City motorists take the game's Stunt Run, Road Rage, and Marked Man events online in FreeBurn.
The previously announced update will also introduce 70 new FreeBurn challenges, a handful of new liveries, a trunk full of bug fixes, and a pair of new vehicles just waiting to be wrapped around a light pole. Once applied, PS3 drivers can also look forward to finally being able to orchestrate their crashes to custom soundtracks. As the first of three new expansion islands, "Cagney" looks to include plenty to keep our four wheels spinning, at least until August when we begin to send motorcycles careening onto oncoming traffic.
Is there an excuse for not playing Trackmania Nations Forever? If there is, we can't think of it. Let's get this out of the way first: It's free, so don't even act like it's a money thing. You say racing games have gotten too sim-like for you? Well, this one is different, allowing races to be played with only the arrow keys if you want. And if you have complaints about the way the cars look, we're going to hit you with a link to download Mad Max's Interceptor or Mario's kart.
Free or not, we don't think this is a game that anyone should miss. There are tons and tons of races to play against the clock, allowing you to collect medals and compare your major awards with people in your region, nation and all over the globe. And if you tire of racing by your lonesome, you can take a spot in massive multiplayer competitions with everyone vying not to beat others to the finish line but to get the fastest lap time.
It's easy to play, it's free, it's fun, we think a download should be a foregone conclusion. But, as always, this is the Joystiq Free Game Club, so the final word is yours. What do you think?
For another look at the Freeware scene, check out BigDownload's Freeware Friday series.
London-based dev System 3 has finally let the cat out of the bag, or car out of the garage as it were, regarding its plans for the Ferrari license it first acquired in 2007, announcing a partnership with Activision to distribute Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli in North America this summer. Curiously, while the deal includes versions for both PlayStation home consoles, as well as the DS and Wii, the Xbox 360 appears to have been passed over like it was standing still.
The racer aims to put players behind the wheel sim-style on more than 15 different global racing circuits, with a stream of "continually released" downloadable content, including seasonal updates to team and car rosters, promised as well. Activision also notes that the game will include a variety of modes, as well as support for up to 16 players online, though whether or not this extends to all versions remains doubtful. Ferrari Challenge's PS3 version, which looks to be the obvious lead SKU, will be shown off publicly first during this weekend's Montreal Grand Prix, giving gamers with a passion for exotic autos reason enough to plan a last-minute road trip.
After all that hubbub over GameTrailers' GRID comparison, are you ready for yet another side-by-side? Our friends at Big Download have a new Big Versus for the racer, with the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions all pitted against one another.
If you're the kind of person who drools when screenshots are cut in half and then re-spliced with similar shots from different platforms, there's no time to waste!
