The demo of SimBin and 10Tacle's hotly anticipated GTR 2 racing simulation is now available. It offers desktop drivers the chance to cruise around the Barcelona GP circuit in a Ferrari 575 GTC or Murcielago R-GT against up to 15 AI opponents. System requirements are as follows:



Minimum
1.8Ghz Pentium 4 or equivalent
512MB RAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible video card with 64MB memory
DirectX 9.0c
Windows XP

Recommended
3Ghz Pentium 4 or equivalent
1GB RAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible video card with 256MB memory
Force feedback steering wheel



The 312MB demo is available from these sites, which have Australian mirrors: 3D Gamers, eXtremePlayers, Internode Games Network, and Worthplaying.

The full version of GTR 2, with its 144 cars and 34 different track layouts, is scheduled for 30 September.

By now I'm sure many of you have had the chance to partake of Iron Lore's RPG flavoured action game, Titan Quest. For those who haven't, just imagine Blizzard's Diablo games with the hellish motif swapped for classical mythology and the old, chunky sprite-based graphics replaced with all the spiffy normal mapping and per-pixel lighting that today's fussy gamers expect.

One of the main men behind Iron Lore, wearing the hats of co-founder, president and lead-designer, is Brian Sullivan. Fans of Ensemble Studio's Age of Empires series may recognise his name as designer and producer on those games.

In an interview conducted by Gamasutra, Sullivan waxes lyrical on the production of Titan Quest and the decision to move away from the RTS genre and the effects of new-gen consoles and MMOs on the industry as a whole.


Read the whole shebang on Gamasutra here.

Writers spill the beans at Comic-Con 2006

At a Thursday morning panel at Comic-Con 2006 entitled "Writing for the Computer Gaming Industry", panellists Anne Toole of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (Stargate Worlds), Chris Avellone of Obsidian (Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment), Jeremy Barlow (Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith), and Neal Hallford (Betrayal at Krondor, Dungeon Siege) all spoke frankly about the limitations and difficulties faced by game writers.



The full write-up from the "Writing for the Computer Gaming Industry" panel at Comic-Con can be found on the Gamasutra website.

Codemasters and Atari have announced Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2007, or as it's known to the rest of the world, Brian Lara International Cricket. The follow-up to 2005's successful cricket game will be released on PC, Xbox360 and PlayStation 2 in time for the ICC Cricket World Cup next year. The game is under internal development at Codemasters, following the acquisition of original developer Swordfish Studios by Vivendi Univeral Games last year.

The 2007 edition boasts the licenses for the sport's biggest one-day tournaments, namely the Champions' Trophy and the big 'un, the 2007 Cricket World Cup, which begins in the West Indies next March. Also on the list of licenses are players like Ponting, Lara and Muttiah Muralitharan, as well as the official World Cup stadia.

Some weaknesses of the original game will be addressed in the new version: multiplayer options are planned, and changes to the fielding system mean batsmen can now be run out at either end of the pitch and stumped by wicketkeepers. Codemasters' press release promises photo-realistic visuals based on real player likenesses, which might be exaggerated, but the screenshots are nevertheless impressive.

Codemasters certainly knows how to time its releases. The original game was hugely popular on the back of Ashes hype in 2005, especially in England where it hit number 1 in the charts. With the next version due in time for the World Cup, and following the payback Ashes series this Aussie summer, Ricky Ponting/Brian Lara 2007 is well placed for more success when it's released next March.

Sony Online Entertainment and Lucas Arts have announced a new special edition of Star Wars Galaxies to be released this November. Titled Star Wars Galaxies: The Complete Online Adventures, the DVD edition will include the original game plus all currently available expansion packs, and some bonus features.


This is not the first time that such a bundle has been released, as Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience also included all expansion packs with an exclusive vehicle, although the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion had not been released at that time. Perhaps this DVD edition will help reinvigorate a MMORPG which has been constantly losing players for years now, or perhaps the only people who really want bonus features are the ones who already own the game and its expansions. Either way, this release will have to be something special if it hopes to heal a deeply divided and dissatisfied community.