Driving

While Activision may have decided to delay the release of Blur from this fall to sometime in 2010, they haven't forgotten about the upcoming action-racing game from developer Bizarre Creations. Far from it, in fact, as Blur has been designated one of the official sponsors of Maxim's 2009 Hometown Hottie contest.

It looks like the 10 ladies who were picked as the 2009 finalists in the magazine's annual beauty contest are going to be part of the game's promo campaign. Maxim recently posted up a video showing the ladies being filmed in front of a green screen. Each of the finalists was wearing a t-shirt with one of Blur's power up symbols. We are not sure if the ladies will be incorporated in the final game product or if this is just for an upcoming game trailer. Still, there's nothing wrong with the finalists showing their . . .undying support for the game. You can check out the video after the jump:

This trailer for the Need for Speed SHIFT Team Racing Pack, an upcoming free content expansion, provides fans with a glimpse of some of the big features to expect. As its name indicates, NFS SHIFT players will have to switch their driving styles from individual strategies to more team-oriented ones as they speed down these tacks. Also included are brand new vehicles to muscle against the competition with. Unfortunately, even though the trailer indicates otherwise, the Team Racing Pack isn't available yet. It releases in Europe on December 1st for the PC and Xbox 360 and on December 3rd for the PlayStation 3 console. North American players across all platforms will have to wait until December 10th, but the Need for Speed SHIFT playable demo can be downloaded right now here.

Download HD Need for Speed SHIFT Team Racing Pack Trailer (305 MB)
Download Need for Speed SHIFT Demo (1.13 GB)
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Fans of Need For Speed Shift have likely been wondering if Electronic Arts would be offering any downloadable extras for the racing sim. Today EA sent the word out that the first such free DLC is on its way. Owners of the PC version will be able to download the DLC on December 1.

The free extras will include the addition of four American classic muscle cars and one import sports car to the game (1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427, 1967 Shelby GT-500, 969 Dodge Charger R/T, 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T, 1998 Toyota Supra Mark). It will also add the Team Racing online gameplay mode where two teams of up to six cars battle it out in stock vehicles.

If you haven't gotten the zombie killing fix you need from Left 4 Dead 2 then perhaps running down the undead with a heavily armed vehicle might do the trick. Developer Exor Studios previously announced their plans to release their top-down action game Zombie Driver last month and today it revealed the game now has a December 4 release date.

The $9.95 game will be made available via download sites like Steam and Gamersgate on that date and if you live in Russia it will also be available in retail stores via publisher Akella. Hopefully it will be just the thing we need to keep our training up when the real zombie apocalypse arrives.

Codemasters surprised many people when they decided to delay the release of the PC version of Dirt 2. As it turns out the rally racing game will now become the first PC title to support DirectX11 graphics out of the box when it ships to stores on December 1 (Battleforge is the first DirectX11 game via a patch last month).

Codemasters has now posted the system requirements for the game on the Dirt 2 message boards. While the rest of us mortals can still run the game in non-DirectX11 mode you will need a beefy PC rig to play the game with the updated graphics. Check out the requirements after the jump.

Usually when you hear about a game that's in closed beta testing you think of something like a first person shooter or a big MMO game, not an indie-based kart racer. Yet the three man development team at Nimblebit are doing exactly that with their upcoming game Zero Gear.

The game, which looks like a cool variation of the Mario Kart formula is currently taking sign-ups for people to beta test the title before its official release. The beta, which requires that one have a Steam account, is currently underway. The full game will have four gameplay modes, several weapons, a dozen race tracks and lots of customization features for your character and kart.

After a couple of lackluster entries in the Need For Speed series (Carbon and Undercover), Electronic Arts' long time racing series got a boost this year from the latest installment Need For Speed Shift. But that's old news now. EA is already moving on to the next major game in the franchise.

During the publisher's financial conference call on Monday, EA Games head man Frank Gibeau confirmed that the next game, developed by Burnout creators Criterion Software, will be released in 2010. While no details have been released, ee are guessing that a Criterion-developed Need For Speed will be a bit more on the arcade side of design than the more sim-like experience of Need For Speed Shift.

While most PC developers dread the thought of their games being pirated on torrent web sites, one game developer actually sent a build of their game to pirates site deliberately. Gamesindusty.biz reports that's exactly what happened to Trials 2: Second Edition, the 2008 released racing game from developer RedLynx.

The developer's CEO Tero Virtala said the version of the game they made available to pirate sites lacked the online leaderboards of the full version. His hope was that the pirates would like the game enough to pay for the full version. So far 150,000 copies of the full version have been sold and Virtala states, "When we compare that hacked version with those who have access to leaderboards and are accessing our servers they match. So at least people have not cracked out leaderboards yet."

In Split/Second, a racing game being developed by Blackrock Studio and published by Disney, players will be able to trigger massive events to crush the competition. Racers will have to extra alert to avoid these events, but they'll also have to be careful not to get caught in their own traps. Split/Second is scheduled to release in 2010.

Download HD Split Second Trailer #2 (92 MB)
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The PC port of DiRT 2 will be one of the first games to support DirectX 11, making it "the best looking racing game that has ever existed." Judging by the tech demo shown above, it's hard to argue with that. The DiRT 2 tech video demonstrates extensive use of Tessellation, which is "implemented on the GPU to calculate a smoother curved surface resulting in more graphically detailed images, including more lifelike characters." It also compares the DX11 look to DirectX 9.0c.

However, players will need to upgrade to Windows 7 (DX11 for Vista will be released at a future unspecified date) and ATI is currently the only manufacturer to have DX11 cards available. Players will have some time to save up and take advantage of these features, since DiRT 2 for the PC won't be releasing until December.

The official DiRT 2 for PC trailer can be seen after the jump.

Download HD DiRT 2 DirectX 11 Tech Video (98 MB)
Download HD DiRT 2 PC Trailer (65 MB)
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Electronic Arts' Need For Speed racing game franchise has been one of the publishers' tentpoles. Today EA announced that the franchise has now sold over 100 million units since it began with the first Need for Speed game in 1994. 15 games in the series have been released including this year's PC entry Need For Speed Shift which have created a total of $2.7 billion in revenues for EA over the years.

The press release annoucing this achievement goes over a number of the milestones the series has achieved including players racing over 279 billion miles in the games themselves.and creating 17 trillion user-generated car customization. EA's next announced game is Need For Speed World Online, a free-to-play online game that is scheduled to launch in 2010. While not officially announced it's known that Criterion Games, developer of the Burnout series, is now working on a new Need For Speed game.

GameTap's latest update to their PC game subscription service is a timely one. It's Trackmania United Forever, the racing-puzzle game from French developer Nadeo.Now people who subscribe to GameTap's premium service can download and play the game as much as they want. The game also supports being run on 64-bit operating systems. GameTap recently revealed plans to add more support for 64-bit games in the coming weeks. Nadeo recently announced plans to release Trackmania 2 and a few days ago Ubisoft announced they would be acquiring Nadeo.

Also this week, the action title Total Overdose continues to be available in GameTap's free subscription service tier until October 22.

This trailer for Blur demonstrates the different powerups that available to players to use against one another and gain the upper-hand. What sets this apart from previous videos is the quick look at four-player split screen multiplayer at the end. It is unknown at this time whether that feature will be included in the PC version. Blur is expected to release in 2010.

Download HD Blur Trailer (32 MB)
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This patch for GRID updates the game to v1.3. It includes a number of bug fixes and game enhancements. A list of changes is shown after the jump. The GRID demo can be downloaded here.

Download Race Driver: GRID v1.3 Patch (196 MB)
Download the GRID Demo (892 MB)
Check out all GRID downloads

"The RACE On demo has two game modes: in 'Racing Event' mode players must complete a whole weekend of racing, including training, qualifiers and the race itself, whereas the objective in 'Time Attack' is to achieve the fastest lap around a circuit."

In RACE On, "players can race on the circuits in 39 meticulously reproduced vehicles that are available in over 450 designs. 27 variants of 21 racing tracks guarantee hours of gaming fun. Apart from Imola and Okayama, glamorous raceways such as Laguna Seca, Road America, Sturup and Karlskoga also feature on the impressive list of tracks.

A realistic physics engine and a dynamic weather system that can change during a race, provides a totally authentic race atmosphere. Compulsory pit stops in the STCC races add an extra tactical component to the already exhilarating gameplay experience."

The full game is scheduled to release on October 22nd. System requirements are shown after the jump.

Download RACE On Demo (665 MB)