GTPlanet Community Spotlight: Move Aside, Let the Games Go Through

The Hungarian Grand Prix. Wow. It’s not out of the ordinary or without fair reasoning to hear or even read about Formula One fans pining for race weekends to take place under the advent of rain showers, it just makes for a more spectacular showing of the sport itself. The Hungarian Grand Prix was bone-dry and yet it stands as the best race of the entire season thus far and I would stake anything that it’s unlikely to be topped. If you haven’t seen it and you’re an F1 fan I would highly suggest that you do so.

Forza Motorsport 6 is shaping up to be more than even I expected it to be. With the recent news of WTCC cars debuting in the franchise this may very well be Forza’s most diverse collection of cars yet, and the option of being able to enjoy the game a full 10 days before its official release date makes it all the more compelling. Combine that with the previous reveal that the Zakspeed Capri Turbo, Lime Rock, and McLaren’s M8B and M2B are also going to be included in the game at launch – my head is about to explode. I can’t handle that much automobile nirvana without paying for a ticket of some kind. Luckily the game will require the exchange of currency so I won’t feel like I’m completely robbing Turn 10 blind without batting an eyelid.

Are we entering dangerous territory? We run the very real risk of sensory overload with so many racing games on the rise and those that are going to receive ongoing support as the days move forward. This is a very different tone than that from last week’s Spotlight, but you do have to ask yourself with so many racing games coming and going will you have enough time to play them all, or will you simply be interested in what’s on your immediate radar? That opens up an entirely different can of proverbial worms as you just might let a gem in an otherwise shallow pond slip through the cracks.

While you ponder that, and do please share your thoughts in the comments, I have but one question: Who’s ready for the Spotlight?

GTPlanet Picture of the Week

This week’s featured image comes to us courtesy of G.T.Ace and features the Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 race car going against the grain of a drenched Eau Rouge at Spa-Francorchamps in an amazing edit.

If you like what you’re seeing and have a suggestion for next week’s featured image, start a conversation with me, entitle it “GTPlanet Picture of the Week” and fill it to your heart’s content with suggestions and they’ll be featured in upcoming Community Spotlight articles. NOTE: You cannot elect your own work.

GTPlanet Gallery of the Week

Once a month, instead of highlighting a single gallery and placing the spotlight on one individual, the spotlight will be placed on multiple people at once, thus allowing for even richer discussion and participation — and normally this would ring true, but in this particular case you can’t highlight one without also highlighting the other and that’s exactly what we’re going to do now.

This week’s featured gallery is yet another community effort maintained by budding virtual photographers and veterans alike with an added competitive twist.

“I always preferred when auto makers gave their cars names instead of letter/numbers combos, it gives the cars more character in my opinion. So this week I would like you to find the best name given to a car and make a good case for it with a beautiful photo.”

You can use any car at any location, the only guideline is that the car have an actual name, like Reventon, Focus, or Viper. You can have a look at this week’s competition and submit your own entry by stopping by the thread here and getting with the program!

If you like what you’re seeing and have a suggestion for next week’s featured gallery, start a conversation with me, entitle it “GTPlanet Gallery of the Week” and fill it to your heart’s content with suggestions and they’ll be featured in upcoming Community Spotlight articles. NOTE: You cannot elect your own gallery.

GTPlanet Thread of the Week – Prove Your Worth, Scum!

– McLaren P1 GTR, Canada, July 30th, 2015, courtesy of X3remes.

Okay, so I embellished just a little bit but the idea remains exactly the same and that is to prove your worth of speed in the weekly challenges set about in Brend’s Weekly Driveclub TT Series.

“GTPlanet’s community of Driveclub racers are some of the best on the game, checking the leaderboards scattered around the game proves that. However, until now there hasn’t been a single focused attempt to compare the speed of the GTP drivers of Driveclub…until now.”

The series will work out to 10 events spanning across 10 weeks, and each car class will have two events attributed to them with a specific car used during each event. There’s no deadline to join the series but if you’re looking for the ultimate bragging rights associated with winning then you’ll almost definitely want to be there when the series kicks off in a little more than a week’s time.

If you have Driveclub and were waiting for the opportunity to sink your chops into a hot lap competition than you’ll have to look no further than the Brend’s TT Series thread right here!

Update on Assetto Corsa 1.2

– Aren’t two Mercedes’ more than enough?, July 24th, 2015, courtesy of Chris123.

With July coming to a close there’s one question on the minds of those us enjoying Assetto Corsa: Where is Update 1.2 and the Bonus Pack DLC? As August draws near, Kunos decided to get out ahead of everything with the following information left on their Facebook page.

“Yes, we know. Lately we left you a bit alone. We understand that lack of news can give a wrong impression, but we have never gone away. We had an awesome experience at E3, that has followed the announcement of Assetto Corsa on console for next year, and we came back with a lot of exciting new opportunities for Assetto Corsa. We are working on more than 30 new cars and new tracks that are being produced for all formats, as well as a completely new interface and new and improved features. It is obvious that the Assetto Corsa project grows more and more and so we decided to enlarge our team, and in the last six weeks we hired new talented people to help us on our task even more. These activities have required all our attention, in order to organize the workflow of the next months. Contemporary, we paid a visit to Brands Hatch circuit for our Laserscan survey of the track, and we also visited the McLaren Technology Centre, as well as the Ferrari Factory. We have exciting news to share about the reasons of these journeys and we will keep you updated in the following months.

In the meantime, after some testing made during the 24H race weekend, we have started to use a new technology and approach to record sounds, directly at Vallelunga race circuit, where our HQ is located. More details will be revealed soon, but we think you will appreciate the new level of sound environment we are achieving.

As you can see, despite of the lack of news, we are working hard behind the scenes. The free bonus pack will not introduce only new exciting content but, more importantly, new features and sensible improvements, in all sectors: artificial intelligence, physics, multiplayer features, graphics and general performance.

The changelog will give you only a rough idea of what you will find under the hood. The updates related to the physics engine and force feedback will allow you to appreciate even more the new cars included in the bonus pack and rediscover the old ones. Our aim is to guarantee you the best driving experience whichever car model you choose to drive, and we continuously work hard to tweak, update and refresh all the previous content available in Assetto Corsa. Other features are a small preview of the updates that will arrive in future, like for example, the glowing brakes, frequently asked by our fans. That is another reason why we taken more time to complete and test the new build.

Regarding the selection of the new cars, the Alfa Romeo Mito Quadrifoglio Verde will join the fight versus the 500 Abarth EsseEsse and can also teach a thing or two against some older RWD machinery; the Audi Quattro is a legendary car so loved by car enthusiasts. When it was presented everybody else was struggling to put on the road around 200bhp. The Audi had over 300bhp and 4 wheel drive in the mid 80s! Not enough? We give also a tuned step1 version with locked differentials and “moar powaaah”! The Lamborghini Miura SV is one of the most beautiful car ever created and welcomes the Automobili Lamborghini Brand in Assetto Corsa. It defined the term supercar back in the 60s and now we give you the opportunity to drive this million value piece of car history . The Toyota GT86 has been developed in cooperation with RSR Nurburg, that knows each single secret of this modern hachi-roku (eighty six), a car that makes every car enthusiast yell with excitement and every tyre tremble with fear. Our developers tried hard to learn every aspect of the car dynamics. Some tyres have been sacrificed for the cause… Last but not least, the Nissan GT-R Nismo doesn’t need to be introduced: reproducing its dynamic behavior has been a true and exciting challenge, due to active central differential and the well known performances on the Nordschleife. Thanks to the precious support of RSR Nurburg, the help of engineers that work on the car from around the world and our own research, we have been able to replicate the “Godzilla” at its best.

When? VERY soon!”

The wheels are certainly continuing to spin furiously at Kunos as development on Assetto Corsa continues, and like me you’re no odubt wondering what those visits to Ferrari and McLaren entailed – my best guess would be the FXX K and P1 GTR. A man can dream can he not? Regardless of that bit of unfounded speculation there’s no denying that Update 1.2 is on the way and is looking to bring with it some enchanting changes. Stay tuned to more as it becomes available.

Reiza Studios Hits Crowd-Funding Goal

Reiza Studios have smashed their crowd-funding goal on Indiegogo, with a targeted goal of $78,000 the campaign now stands at over $100k raised for Game Stock Car Extreme (GSCE). So what does this mean you’re asking? It means Reiza Studios has a lot of work ahead of them, and that works includes all of the following:

• SuperV8
• Lancer Cup
• Lancer Evo Rallycross
• Montreal Modern
• Velo Cittá (Brazillian track)
• Foz dirt track
• Formula V10
• Supertrucks and Supertruck layouts
• Copa Montana (V8 Ute’s)
• Renault Fluence and Honda Civic (Marcas series already in game)
• New Formula 3 Brasil models
• Extra layouts of existing tracks
• Modern Interlagos updated to 2015 spec
• Bonus car and track to be voted on by backers
• Support for long distance races
• Automatic steering ratio adjustment + increased maximum inputs from 3 to 6
• New UI & HUD system
• Drivetrain physics development to demand more realistic gear-shifting
• VR support (including Rift DK2)
• Tire damage and dirt pickup
• Dynamic track conditions (rubber build up on the racing line & marbles offline based on vehicle interaction)
• Custom offline championship tool
• Art pass + additional shader development to boost graphics

If the video above has piqued your interest (doesn’t that V8SC sound excellent?) and you want to get in on the fun and try GSCE for yourself than you can have a look at Reiza’s Indiegogo page, scroll through the perks, and be on your merry way into enjoying a game from a lesser known developer that punches well above its weight.

XCAR: Time to Re-think That Porsche?

GTPlanet Tune of the Week

– Suzuki Cappucino (EA21R), January 12th, 2015, courtesy of con360.

This week’s featured tune is aimed solely at tacking this week’s 400PP Seasonal Event at Streets of Willow Springs, and what better way to do that than being behind the wheel of the docile Suzuki Cappuccino.

Be sure to stop by Nick Skyline’s tune page and give this one a go, but be warned: once you go Kei you won’t know what to say. Can you rise to that challenge?

Damage in GT7

This has long been a debate before the feature was finally included in Gran Turismo 5 back in 2010 and it has continued to be a debate long after from both sides of the field; some say it adds to the immersion factor as damage is very much a factor and concern in the real world, while others stake the claim that it adds nothing to the game whatsoever as you shouldn’t be engrossed in crashing in the first place.

Where do you stand on the matter, and more importantly, as our own Earth alludes to, what improvements are necessary to the feature once Gran Turismo 7 hits that would make for an all-around better experience?

You can stop by the thread in our Gran Turismo 7 forum and share your thoughts on the matter.

The Last Lap

If you haven’t caught on by now this week’s title is in fact a loose reference to Soul Coughing’s Super Bon Bon from Gran Turismo 2. And if you’re wondering whether or not I’d forgotten about the Vehicle of the Week, I have not forgotten, it was purposely left out this week as I kind of covered both the writing and video weekly alternatives in one go in the tribute to Jules Bianchi last week. Think of it as a balancing act and it should make more sense to you or maybe it won’t and I’m just weird that way, regardless it will return next week alongside a new Member of the Week.

You may have noticed the Windows 10 craze that started on the 29th, the day Windows 10 launched, and is steadily continuing toward the weekend. I’ve been using the Technical Preview for a few months now and I like it. I may have mentioned this in the Spotlight before and if I have it bares being mentioned again: Windows 10 feels so much like a natural progression in the order of things that I haven’t missed Windows 7 once during the entire time I’ve been previewing what has now become an RTM (Release To Manufacturing) build as of the 10240 update. There are nagging issues with drivers and the like but when hasn’t something fresh off the presses, especially something as profound as an Operating System, not been prone to a few niggles here and there?

If you’ll excuse I’m going to go take a look at all of the racing game news that awaits my weary eyes and then quickly proceed to go into sensory overload and collapse from dehydration – wait, hold on, that got dark surprisingly fast. That doesn’t make it any less true though, so hah.

Until next week folks, keep racing!

See more articles on GTPlanet Community Spotlight.