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Whatcha Playing: GTI Club+

Did everyone miss this little racing gem when it came out a earlier this year? I know I did, and that’s a shame—but not as shameful as the fact that I missed the original game when it game out 12 years ago. I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen the cabinet, and I spent a lot of time in arcades in 1996. Maybe GTI Club was a Euro-specific thing?

Whatever. It’s mine now.

Posted Apr 15 2009, 12:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with no comments

Filed under: whatcha playing, psn, joe keiser, racing, gti club, gti club+, daytona usa

Building a Better Racer

Since racing games are basically built on the concept of perceived fairness,It's interesting to see how developers devote so much time to maintaining the illusion. Gamasutra posted a wonderful article written by Black Rock's Eduardo Jimenez which discusses his game design philosophies as they relate to the making of Pure. How to keep the player excited, prevent him from racing alone, give him a sense of fulfillment, and keep him from recognizing that the game is actively attempting to do these things?

Posted Feb 09 2009, 08:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: cole stryker, racing, pure, ai

Burnout: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I gotta hand it to the charitable folks over at Criterion; since last January's release of Burnout: Paradise, they've released quite a few substantial DLC updates at absolutely no cost to the consumer. Where companies like Namco-Bandai are content to find ridiculous ways to get their hands on your hard-earned money, Criterion doesn't seem to mind playing Santa three times a year to support one of the greatest racing games we've seen this generation. And even though they plan on charging for their upcoming pack of downloadable cars that absolutely don't infringe on any copyrights whatsoever, the creators of Burnout have at least one more free update coming out on February 6.

While the last free Burnout updates were largely content-related, this new one appears to be a complete under-the-hood overhaul; and the addition of one hugely-missed option is definitely going to bring me back to a game I should have honestly played a lot longer. The big announcement?

You ask – we deliver. Restart is in! You can now quit or fail an event and choose to restart it. You’ll be transferred to the start location ready for action. We’ve always enjoyed the feeling of freedom that Paradise City’s open world delivers, but we appreciate that as you run low on events towards the end of the game, you can spend a little too long in transit.

While I certainly thought the open-world nature of Paradise was a nice change of pace, the annoyance of having to drive back to the starting point of failed events made the game much more tedious than it needed to be.

Posted Jan 26 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: burnout, bob mackey, dlc, burnout paradise, racing, criterion

Puerile Pure: Disney Racer’s Profanity Revealed

This one is almost too good to be true, but here it is: the typically smart Quarter to Three forums have revealed that the PC version of Disney’s entertaining racer Pure comes with…curse words. Long lists of curse words. Long lists of curse words in seven languages.

The other forum posters have alleged that this is probably Disney’s standard profanity filter, inexplicably stripped and left naked in Pure’s file structure for all to see. They also hypothesize that this is an enormous ESRB no-no, which is true and could make this a ticking time bomb of controversy: you’ll recall that after that Hot Coffee fiasco any and all offensive on-disc content had to be revealed and rated.

And this certainly is offensive. I like to think that I know all kinds of amusing words, but Disney? Disney knows more. And if this really is the house of mouse’s profanity filter, I have to thank it for teaching me a variety of new and terrible vulgarity.

After the jump, some multi-cultural cursing. WARNING: contains cursing so multi-cultural I do not know how offensive most of it actually is.

Posted Dec 09 2008, 01:41 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: disney, esrb, joe keiser, racing, pure, disasters waiting to happen, profanity

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.