The Project Cars games were gorgeous, detail-obsessed, and at first partly crowd-sourced. Then in 2019 Codemasters bought developers Slightly Mad Studios and in 2021 Electronic Arts bought Codemasters. Now EA have announced internally that they won't be making any more Project Cars games, and that they will move staff working on the series into "suitable" roles "wherever [they] can."
]]>It's sadly not uncommon for racing games to disappear from sale due to expiring licenses. Next for the scrapheap are Project CARS 1 and 2, the simulation racing games from Slightly Mad Studios, which will disappear from sale on October 3rd and September 21st respectively.
]]>Codemasters, the makers of many zoom 'em ups, apparently want more power under their hood. They purchased the entirety of Slightly Mad Studios, developers of the Project Cars and Need For Speed: Shift games, this week to the tune of £23 million. The entirety of Slightly Mad's 150-person team will reportedly join the company.
]]>My 2018 prediction: the demo is coming back, baby, back. With so many games to choose from, and so many big names that haven't chart-topped with the expected ease, The Man will pursue new ways of making people crave his output. By new ways, I mean old ways. Free, limited demonstration editions of videogames: they are the future.
Earlier this week, Bethesda offered a belated Wolfenstein 2 trial, and now Project CARS 2 has also embraced the promotional techniques of yesteryear. There's now a three car/one track demo available for the hyper-realistic, ultro-graphics racer.
]]>Slightly Mad Studios flashed the starting lights for their racing game Project CARS 2 [official site] yesterday, sending it roaring into the night and onto Steam. Stirling Matheson celebrated it (with some reservations) in our Project CARS 2 review, and I know I'll certainly trust the racing opinions of someone with a name like Stirling Matheson.
]]>If you frequently find yourself hankering for high-speed races, or for being strapped into a metal death trap hurtling towards oblivion, then the Humble Store’s racing sale might have something to sate you. It’s going on all week.
]]>Vaguely aware that we're living in a race sim golden age? Not sure which of the 'Big Six' you should invest your precious time and money in? Me too! Hopefully, by the time the inaugural Flare Path GP is over (Oct 14) little of that bewilderment will remain. Guided by the preferences and observations of that section of the RPS community that knows and loves realistic Cars Wot Go Fast games, it shouldn't be hard to find a high-quality race sim that suits you and me to a GT.
]]>Now that Project Cars (I refuse to roll with that daft 'Community Assisted Racing Simulator' backronym) has been out for a whole six weeks, it's time for a sequel. Yes, really.
Developers Slightly Mad Studios yesterday announced Project Cars 2 [official site], a follow-up to their 2015 race 'em up. It'll bring new 'loose surface' track types, co-op career, and more. Slightly Mad are once again crowdfunding it and does this feel a bit weird to anyone else?
]]>"Here in my car I feel safest of all," sang Gary Numan. "I can lock all my doors," he added. "It's the only way to live - in cars." But what would our electric friend say about Project CARS [official site]. I phoned his agent, and, well, looks like I'm writing this news post.
After delay after delay after delay (I'm missing a few there), Slightly Mad Studios' partially-crowdfunded car 'em up finally came out yesterday. It has a lot of cars and you can drive them around lots of places, but really you're 'supposed' to drive them fast.
]]>There's something about watching trailers for racing games like Project Cars [official site] that makes me feel like I'm going to have to confess it to my nearest priest. Even the taglines are full-throttle sex. In fact, let's play a little game of Who Said It:
Who said the line "What matters is finishing first." Is it:
a.) Project Cars b.) Caligula
Find out in the sweatily placed trailer below.
]]>November, March, April, May. Slightly Mad's extremely pretty racing game Project CARS [official site] has just named its latest date, and while the temptation to add a pinch of the old sodium chloride to this is there, perhaps the fact that May 8th (reports Eurogamer) is a mere three weeks away suggests this is actually, really, honestly happening this time.
]]>Project CARS [official site] - that racing game which should be coming out mid-May following a bunch of delays and shiny pictures of shiny cars being shiny - has a new trailer. It's far less about "racing" and far more about textures and surfaces and loving and caressing vehicles through camera angles.
Here are twenty (20) thoughts about the whole thing:
]]>Numbers are very important to car fanatics, I understand. Torque, litres, cylinders, MPH, MPG - top numbers, great stuff. A new Project CARS [official site] trailer also focuses on numbers, even when showing all the pretty places it'll be racing around.
About the California Highway track, for example, it says simply: LENGTH 26.4 km; TURNS 107. What of the fragrant Douglas-fir! The distant roar of the Pacific! The allure of redwoods! The bigfoot chainsaw sculptures at every roadside stop! I bet you can't even get out and swim in a river. Tch, no romance, those car people. It is quite pretty, though.
]]>Back when I used to write about console games I remember covering racing game Driveclub's repeated delays - how the game slipped from a launch title for PS4 to an early 2014 title to a slightly later 2014 title and eventually came out in October of that year.
Great times.
It's nice, then, that Project CARS [official site] is trying to fill that delayed console game void in my heart with another delay of its own.
]]>My steering wheel is sat on the floor collecting dust, while the pedals below my desk are used more for footsie than for acceleration. Project CARS will be the reason I next set it up, I reckon. I'm not a huge fan of racing games - I prefer my vehicles to be driven within a speed limit in service of the delivery of goods - but it looks so pretty. I want to see the puddles go sploosh and the cars go shimmer, and the latest trailer isn't enough.
]]>Project CARS? More like Project DELAYED! When we last gawped at Slighty Mad's oh-so-pretty drive 'em up, it was slated for release in November. Now that November is almost here, they've announced hey, wait, no, it's been delayed into next year. Until March 20th, to be precise -- a delay of four months. The official story is that this "positions the title away from the competitive holiday scene dominated by household names" and, sure, gives more time to work on it too.
]]>There's all kinds of things I like to pretend I'm above, like throwing recyclable materials in the normal rubbish when there's no space left in the recycling bin. I feel no need to pretend that I'm above loving some shiny videogame graphics, though. The Project CARS Gamescom trailer is, like every image of the in-development racing game, absurdly gorgeous. And embedded below, obv.
]]>Project CARS may not have the open America and sightseeing adventures of The Crew, but it's a supremely attractive game. With a variety of motorsports and historic goals, the game sees your driver attempting to take a place in the hall of fame. To do that, you'll have to drive really really really really fast. Make sure not to crash as well, I guess, but definitely concentrate on going fast. I've analysed the E3 trailer, which arrives with a reiteration of the November release window, and you'll find a complete breakdown below.
]]>I'm not sure if Project CARS is the car-est car game of all time like Need For Speed: Shift developer Slightly Mad is claiming, but it is ludicrously attractive. These days I tend to keep my eyeballs inside my skull unless a technicolor dream art style saunters by, but I guess my heart-on for shiny things wot look like real world cameragrams hasn't entirely atrophied. Case in point: the latest CARS (not to be confused with Pixar's inside voice/terrible take on the word) trailer matches the game against real life in a 1:1 vroom-vroom competition. Mr President, I know you're reading this, so let's just get it out of the way now: I think we're gonna need a bigger graphics.
]]>Project Cars is a ludicrously pretty game. I'm not the kind of fellow who feels the need to have a cold shower every time a fancy car drives past but I do appreciate attractive machinery. The cars in Project Cars look more like real cars than the cars that I can see outside the window right now. As well as looking more realistic, the digital cars look far more expensive (I live just inside Salford) and are going quite a bit faster. On top of all that, the music playing in the background of the trailer gives the automobile extravaganza a far more grand and elegant air than my current choice of The Walkmen's Bows + Arrows (not as good as memory suggested). Basically, if you appreciate shiny cars going very fast then this is probably the video for you. Game's out November.
]]>The latest trailer for Project CARS requires all the world's air quotes while talking about: it's the "first" trailer "introducing" Project CARS, because it's "official". Unlike all the other videos showing the game, which were community-made - just like this one, it seems - but without the seal of approval.
The video, and a recent batch of screensehots, are also "beautiful", "oh geez look at those water droplets" and "bums now I need to upgrade my PC". Does anyone really know how air quotes "work"?
]]>This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills.
Grid 2 may have vandalised one for the sake of selling The Most Expensive Game Ever That Isn't This (£125,000 plus whatever it takes to scrape that grotesque livery off), but gaming's real answer to the BAC Mono is the hip, gorgeous, and ever so slightly mad Project CARS. With barely-legal performance for a game still in alpha, its exposed wishbones and dampers only add to the sense of crowdsourced cool. Mmmm, those naked springs.
]]>The crowd-supported car game, Project CARS, has appeared on the Steams, but for members only. Sadly the purchasing of "tool packs", which granted access to the ongoing builds, has now closed, so this news is really only of import to existing players. There is, however, a fancy new trailer about (below) which shows the rest of what we'll be missing out on until the game is released in 2014.
Phwoar, eh petrolheads?
]]>Project CARS creative bossman Andy Tudor has dropped us a line to say that the company has raised €1,000,000 for their crowd-sourced racing game. As we explained previously, the game is relying on community commitment to making the racing game work for its funding, and for some of its creative content. Tudor says: "We wouldn't have been able to do it without the passion, enthusiasm, and dedication of the gaming community so this is also a big thank you to all those that have contributed so far, and an encouragement to others with big ideas for games and want to see them get created."
]]>Fast, you see, because racing cars are fast... I am good at this, eh? Anyway, Slightly Mad send word that their ongoing community-focused racing game, Project CARS, has a new release version available to everyone who has signed up, and has supplied a fancy gallery of car-images from the game, which you can see here and below. (Clicky for full size.) The new building includes a "brand-new 2011 Formula A car" with "more than 700hp of engine power." As well as new content "including the Ariel Atom V8, the 250cc Superkart and the Northampton circuit." Also, somewhat bizarrely, they have announced that the game has new force feedback features which are tuned against the racing skills of the man who used to be The Stig from Top Gear, Ben Collins. So that's a thing that happened. Fancy racing pics below!
]]>Hugely ambitious crowd-sourced racer Project CARS aims not only to look utterly gorgeous but to allow a full career, beginning with karting and ending up in the motorsport of your choice. If it all comes off it could be the definition of definitive. There's more on the development process here and the official site contains plenty of details. For now, here are some screenshots that have been cleverly disguised as photographs of vehicles. Racing game images often convince me that petrol-burning simulators will soon reach the point at which they look more like footage of cars driving fast than actual footage of cars driving fast.
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