This generation has been particularly kind to car lovers. So far we've seen three DiRTs, two Project Gothams, several Need for Speeds, two F1s, three Forzas, and Polyphony Digital's automotive opus, Gran Turismo 5. We're leaving out a lot here, as there were also quite a few racing games that had a decidedly different focus but were nonetheless substantial offerings. With that in mind, then, fans of racing games have not been left wanting.
However, Slightly Mad Studios, the developer behind Shift 2: Unleashed, has decided that the racing grid isn't crowded enough, as they're hard at work on a title called Project CARS. Their aim seems to be to create a better racing simulator in the vein of Forza or Gran Turismo, as opposed to Codemasters' F1 series. From the way things are looking based on my hands-on time with the game, they'll be able to reach their goal.
Even in its present pre-alpha state, the roster of cars set to appear is fairly impressive. Among the officially licensed vehicles stand the agile Ariel Atom and the ferocious Gumpert Apollo. As far as different racing disciplines are concerned, Slightly Mad Studios looks to be trying to tackle just about anything that can be done on tarmac. Everything from karts to touring cars and even Formula B are already in the game and running smoothly. There are even a few classic F1 cars.
I'm not the only one impressed by the present state of the game either. It seems everyone who's had a chance to play it has walked away impressed, including Ben Collins, formerly "The Stig" of Top Gearfame. Commenting on the handling, he said that the "physics are very similar to the Le Mans/F1 simulator we've been using." The reason that's so astounding is that the type of simulator Collins is talking about usually costs millions of dollars. If what he says is true, Slightly Mad has accomplished something remarkable, especially considering the relatively short amount of time the game has been in development.
That's probably due to Slightly Mad's approach to the development of this title. Through their website, World of Mass Development, they're inviting anyone who's willing to join the development team. "The great thing about having the community involved is all the feedback," Slightly Mad producer Suzy Wallace said in an interview with Eurogamer. "It's like having a focus group all of the time." So unlike other titles in the genre, community members can actually take part in molding the product prior to its release. This goes just a bit further than even the excellent community features in the Forza series, and gives the community the power to shape the game they're playing.
As you'd expect, some serious attention has been paid to the tracks as well. For the sake of accuracy, all of the real-world tracks in the game have been laser-scanned. Collins, quoted earlier, said that the track realism is "extremely close" by his estimate. Fans of motorsport will be thrilled by this bit of information, as not only are both Circuit de Spa-Francorchampsand Bathurst included, but they're also impeccably re-created.
The simulation aspect of the game looks to be a cut above everything else on the market in other ways as well. While hooning around on the Test Track—in a racing kart, no less—I blew my engine. Destroyed it, actually. It didn't work anymore. I was thrilled. While mechanical damage has been implemented to a somewhat limited extent in Gran Turismo and more extensively in the Forza series, we have yet to see that level of damage in a console racing game, save for Slightly Mad's previous title, Shift 2: Unleashed, which many fans didn't accept as a simulator. The prospect of having more real-world consequences for, say, revving your engine at 9,000 rpm for twenty minutes is absolutely thrilling.
Of course, at this stage in development, Project CARS isn't without its problems. Chief among my concerns so far are that playing the game with a controller is dodgy to say the least. Fiddling with the steering settings helps a bit, but there's still a bit of work to do to get that part of the experience properly tuned. This is most likely due to the team's focus on creating a proper racing simulator, one that might even catch the attention of PC gamers who are used to a slightly more hardcore experience than their console counterparts.
As such, much of the focus in the control department has gone toward making sure that those with a wheel and pedal setup will be able to get as much out of the game as possible. Hopefully, by the end of production they will have sorted out the kinks without sacrificing anything for those want to play with a wheel.
All things considered, though, Project CARS is shaping up to be a fairly good offering for fans of racing simulators, cars, motorsport, or just racing games in general. Save for a few audio glitches here and there and some control issues—things that will hopefully be ironed out—there's not much wrong with it.
By Patriel Manning CCC Contributing Writer
Game Features:
Franchise Mode allows you to carve out a personalized career starting in the Karting world and then progressing on to whichever motorsport specialization you prefer, including Rally, Touring Cars, Open-Wheel, GT, Le Mans, and many more.
Play co-op with a friend as Driver/Co-Driver.
Full Team Management. Have a large number of friends? Create, manage, and compete together.
Experience the excitement of pit stops like you've never seen before.
Revolutionary Pit-2-Car Radio gives you the strategic advantage.
Dynamic Time Of Day & Localized Weather make every race unique and challenging.
Cloud-based social network allows you to connect with friends, compare times and scores, compete and challenge each other, and share content
User-generated content – Create your own liveries, decals, tuning setups, and even events. Then share them with the world – either for free in-game credits or even real money!
Weapons are important in video games. But some game characters have no need of swords, guns and trebuchets, not when there's a farting unicorn, cow launcher or wheelchair tank available.
Here's our list of the twenty five most ridiculous video game weapons.
Fight hordes of demons by... playing guitar. Well, every rock star thinks he's an all powerful God, so why not? Nevan is a lightning witch boss battle that Dante has to fight who defends herself with lightning and swarms of bats. Towards the end of the battle, if Dante gets too close, she can also grab him for a deadly kiss that sucks out his soul.
At the end of the battle, Nevan gives you this devil arm, which looks suspiciously like a guitar. To access her powers of lightning and summon swarms of bats, simply play a few riffs and along they'll come.
One of the dilemmas in battles is what kind of weapon to have. Do you go for the up close and person melee option and equip a sword, or the safer long range option of a gun? Well, with the gunblade you don't need to choose.
Leading man Squall Lionheart's weapon of choice is the gunblade, although the weapon has gone on to appear in several other Final Fantasy games including Final Fantasy XII (it's one of Gilgamesh's legendary weapons) and Final Fantasy XIII (Lightning's weapon has both a gun and a blade mode). They also turn up in games Parasite Eve II, World of Warcraft and League of Legends.
Squall's gunblade doesn't appear to work as an actual gun, however, since he uses it mainly as a sword. Because *that* would be silly.
Blitzball is a fictitious sport that is a little like a combination of soccer and American football. It's played in a sphere underwater with the aim of the game being to kick the ball into the opposing team's goal. The irrepressible Wakka is a professional Blitzball player and captain of the Besaid Aurochs team, so it makes sense (to someone) that his weapon of choice be a Blitzball.
Wakka's Blitzball, is however, despite its appearance, actually a rather useful weapon to have around, since it's the only basic weapon that can reliably hit aerial enemies.
The Mk 2 Lancer Assault Rifle, to give it its full name, or the Chainsaw Gun as it's colloquially called, is the staple weapon of all Gears soldiers. It's fully automatic and comes with a Chainsaw Bayonet attachment for chopping off limbs in close combat.
It's versatile, reliable and even good over long distances as it has low recoil. The chainsaw part was added when soldiers on the battlefield were reporting that the humble bayonet simply wasn't proving effective against the Locust hordes. Thus a chainsaw addition was created, which proved helpful in cutting through their tough hides.
But let's back up a second there – it's a gun. With a chainsaw, clearly the most ridiculous idea in the whole world.
The delicious combo weapons that you could create went a long way to making Dead Rising 2 a whole lot of fun, and one of my personal favourites is the drill bucket. It's made with combining two regular household items – a bucket and a power drill.
When Chuck's done doing man things in his shed, he'll come out with a bucket with three drills through the bottom of it, described as "DIY dental work at its finest". Simply place the drill bucket on any zombie's head, and laugh as it drills through its skull, causing its head to explode. You almost have to feel sorry for them.
No one wants to be stuck in a wheelchair – having to be pushed around in one generally means that you've exhausted all the other options. Unless, of course, you have a wheelchair that is also a tank and you're stuck in a mall filled with shuffling zombies to kill. Then, the idea starts to look kind of attractive.
The Blitzkrieg is basically a wheelchair with three automatic weapons attached, made by combining an electric chair with an automatic firearm. You get an entire minute, actually slightly more than an entire minute, to enjoy slaughtering zombies while zipping around in your killer chair.
Your chair also, inexplicably, taunts zombies using an electronic program called Fred, although it's hard to hear what he's actually saying over the gunfire.
There are always some great weapons in games in the Ratchet and Clank series, but a personal favorite is the Sheepinator. The Megacorp weapon turned enemies into sheep. How could anyone possibly beat that? Well, in an upgrade to the Black Sheepinator, it turned enemies into sheep *that exploded*. Things clearly don't get any better than this.
Sadly, you have to wait until about halfway through the game before you can pick up the Sheepinator – on Planet Todano – but it's worth the wait.
Every Ratchet and Clank game has a morphing weapon, and others include the Morph-O-Ray, which turns enemies into chickens and the Chimp-O-Matic, which turned robots into toy monkeys with cymbals and organic creatures into chimps.
All 4 One also had a Sheepinator as a pre-order bonus.
Clear out the Funland tactical location in Green Bay and then these cheeky rubber ducks of death will appear on the Chuck's Ducks 2 stall in the fair ground. They're essentially just silly looking hand grenades, which stick to whatever you throw them at and detonate with the right button. When you get up close to them you'll notice that they also make a curious quacking noise.
Ignore the intel that to get this weapon you need to play the Facebook game Chuck's Ducks 2 (which will also ask you to install something called Microsoft Silverlight) to get hold of these rubber ducky grenades – you don't. Like the cake, it's a lie.
Think of two weapons that go well together and I could bet a fair amount of money that you're not going to be thinking of a gun and a pair of nun-chucks. But I can hear the designers thinking, yes, what a splendid idea, combining the melee elements of close combat with an effective long range weapon, of which there is, of course, absolutely no danger of accidentally blowing your own hand (or head) off.
I'm not sure that we should be surprised – everything aboutBayonetta is clearly ridiculous, for example, her sexy catsuit is actually made out of her own hair. That makes having gun-chucks as a weapon almost seem sane.
Not actually a fat man, which would in its own way be hilarious, the Fat Man is a "shoulder-mounted tactical nuclear catapult." In layman's terms, that means it's a hand held weapon that basically shoots nuclear bombs at people. It should certainly incinerate your target, but do be warned, there's a high possibility it will also incinerate everything around it (including your mates and possibly yourself), as well as leaving residual radiation.
The name comes from the second atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan in 1945. Unsurprisingly, in the game's Japanese release, this had to be changed, with the Fat Man becoming the Nuka Launcher in the Land of the Rising Sun. In Japan, the side quest whereby you can choose to detonate the atomic bomb in the town of Megaton was also removed from the game.
Sora's iconic keyblade weapon doesn't really look like it's going to do any damage to anything, and although it clearly looks like a key, it's kind of hard to figure out exactly where the blade part of the name comes in.
His original weapon was going to be a chainsaw, which would have changed the whole tone of the games somewhat. At some point in the design process, Tetsuya Nomura ditched the limb-rending chainsaw prototype in favour of the more family friendly design, and we ended up with the keyblade.
The keyblade is a big part of the game's story – only certain people are able to use the weapon, which as well as being handy for bashing enemies heads in, is also used to seal up keyholes to the world of darkness.
Bulletstorm was heavily stylized and filled with plenty of crazy content. Its weapons were no exception. The Flail Gun shoots chain-linked grenades that can wrap around enemies and blow them up. How cool is that?
The mini sequel to Dead Rising 2, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record bought with it a whole host of new silly weapons to be crafted out of everyday objects. This, the Pegasus, was clearly one of the best.
Made from combining a stick pony with rocket fireworks, Frank activates it by stuffing it in a zombie's stomach and then standing safely back. The rockets send the zombie into the air before exploding, setting fire to any other zombies they come into contact with en route.
Killing zombies is always fun. Killing them with a stick pony and making them explode is even more fun.
The sword of Cloud Strife, the blond haired, blue eyed hero ofFinal Fantasy VII, is clearly ridiculous. The boy barely looks as if he has the strength to lift a mug of steaming cocoa, let alone a blade that's almost as big as him. In reality, a sword that size would be impossible for anyone to effectively wield, but of course, this is not reality, this is video games.
Cloud's given the Buster Sword by his friend Zack Fair, who, in the conclusion to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, dies protecting Cloud. In his dying breath, he hands his sword and legacy on to Cloud. Zack's the second person to make use of the overcompensating weapon, with Zack's mentor, Angeal Hewley, being the first.
It's become one of the most iconic symbols of the Final Fantasy series, and made an appearance in several games after VII, including Kingdom Hearts and Before Crisis.
Lulu's arsenal consists of a range of... dolls. Because what you really need when battling terrifying monsters and when your job is a Guardian protecting the Summoner on her pilgrimage are kids' toys. The otherwise bad-ass looking Lulu looks supremely ridiculous in battle sequences as she holds her dolls gently in the crook of her arm, facing off against monsters like vicious goblins, iron giants and imps.
She can use various dolls that she collects throughout the game, all of which are modelled on famous Final Fantasy creatures, like the Moogle, Mute Cait Sith, Moomba Warrior and Raging Cactuar. They attack by waddling off and bumping into enemies – unsurprisingly they don't deliver much damage, so it's probably better to have her use her devastating black magic spells instead.
As anyone who's tried to get to the discounted shelf in the supermarket knows, old women can be a force to be reckoned with.
This old dear is essentially dynamite wrapped up in her favorite pink mac and clutching her walking stick. When a worm sends her off to attack, she walks off very, very slowly towards her target, muttering quietly to herself. In most of the games, her muttering is inaudible, but in WormsDC she can be heard to say "I can't remember his name."
When she reaches her intended destination, she, well, explodes. Help the Aged would no doubt have something to say about that.
It was rumored that in the original programming she was intended to sometimes become confused and stumble back to blow up the worm that set her loose, but this never ended up in the final version of the game.
The Cerebral Bore basically drills into enemies' heads and makes their brains explode. It's alien technology, as apparently aliens had a need for a device which blew brains up. Or perhaps it just made them giggle.
It fires a projectile made of hooks, a drill bit and explosives, which locks on to your victim's brainwave patterns. Once that's done, there's nothing they can do but wait for the inevitable. The cerebral bore then attaches to their head, burrows into their skull (displacing all that pesky brain matter through a suction tube) and, as if that wasn't enough, as a grand finale, explodes.
The only downside was that you necessarily need to use it on sentient enemies, since it would be hard to drill out the brain of an enemy that, in fact, has no brain. Could rule out a few people, too.
You'll also find it in Turok 3 and Turok: Rage Wars.
The cluckshot launches rather surprised chickens at enemies and is particularly hilarious due to the fact that it's in Gears of War 3 – a game that, let's be honest, does sometimes take itself just a little too seriously.
The fowl weapon recently featured in the 'Thanksgibbing' event in the King of the Hill playlist, where all shotguns were replaced by the cluckshot.
To get it in the main game, you'll need to play through act four, chapter one on insane difficulty and make sure not to touch any of the ash bodies. If you do that, you'll earn the 'respect for the dead' achievement and Griffin will declare that maybe COGs aren't all bad and let you into his hideout. There's a chicken in it, which will explode in a flurry of feathers when you interact with it.
Then you'll need to attempt to get your hands on three sets of joke ammo that will fall away from you just as they're within reach, which you'll find in act four, chapters two and three. After that, a chicken will fly in as air support and reward all members of your party with the cluckshot. Happy clucking!
Oichi is a young girl – Nobunaga's younger sister – meant to add that 'kawaii' (cute) element to the game. Apparently, the idea of having children going around killing things was decided to be not so cute, so they gave her a silly weapon – a cup and ball.
Called a Kendama, Oichi's weapon has a number of attacks where she launches, spins and kicks the ball at enemies.
In Samurai Warriors 3, since Oichi was now all grown up and had even got married, the decision was made to give her a more mature weapon. They gave her a hula hoop.
If you were going to venture into a deep, dark, dank dungeon, what else would you take along with you as a weapon but a teddy bear? After all, nothing's likely to strike terror into the heart of an enemy than that cute, cuddly little teddy bear face.
Enemies will surely cower in fear as you move to strike them down with this... fluffy... weapon. As you'd imagine for a soft toy, the teddy bear doesn't actually deal much damage but it does heal the Prince with every blow he rains down on his enemies. It's also indestructible (if only real teddy bears were, too, there'd be far less tears at bedtime).
You can find the teddy bear in the mechanical tower while you're in the present time.
The weapons in a game based on the South Park universe was never going to be sensible, and happily, the game did not disappoint.
In the game, a comet is heading towards the happy town of South Park, causing all sorts of strange things to happen. Killer cows, robots and living toys have invaded the region, and it's up to you to kill them in the silliest way you can.
Weapons on hand include the aforementioned cow launcher, yellow snowballs and a toilet plunger launcher. When the cow launcher is successfully targeted at an enemy, they will end up with their head stuck in the cow's bum. If that doesn't kill them, they'll probably die soon after since they won't be able to see.
Described as "the absurdity of a sex toy with the lethality of a baseball bat", the Penetrator is essentially a massive purple dildo. That you hit people with.
They might start laughing as you approach them, but it's actually a pretty powerful weapon, so they'll stop laughing pretty fast once you whack them with it. Don't let the way it wobbles around fool you – this baby packs a punch.
In celebration of the game's launch, gigantic purple dildos were delivered along with preview copies of the game to video game web sites. Sadly, unlike in the game, they proved rather delicate, and not at all suitable for fighting with.
Professor Genki's Mollusk Launcher is possibly the silliest weapon in Saints Row The Third, which is no mean feat in a game where other weapons in your arsenal include a giant purple dildo and a fart in a jar.
The Mollusk Launcher will fire live octopuses (and yes, it is octopuses, not octopi, we checked) at enemies, which will attach to enemy's heads and control their minds, making them become confused and fight for your team – after they break into a funky dance.
The Launcher comes in a fetching pink and is described as containing, "Singing, exploding, cuddly, mind-controlling octopi." (Octopi is still wrong.) The octopuses will refuse to control some targets, for example Brutes, as these are considered 'unethical'.
Sadly, it was a pre-order bonus item, included as part of the Professor Genki's Hyper Ordinary Pre-Order Pack, and is currently unavailable to get hold of any other way.
Mr. Toots is a magical rainbow farting unicorn. Of course he is, because that makes perfect sense. He's an Easter egg weapon inRed Faction: Armageddon -- simply wield the flatulent beast and laugh as he destroys enemies by pointing his butt at them and letting rip with sparkly stink bombs that devastate foes and furniture alike. This super smelly bonus weapon was unlocked as a thank you to fans of the series after the Red Faction: Armageddondemo was downloaded one million times.
To get hold of Mr. Toots you can either buy him with salvage once you've beaten the game or, alternatively, hunt him down at the end of the level Marauder Defenses, hidden in a secret area. You know you want to.
You can also purchase a Mr. Toots avatar pet that will "fly in on a rainbow of happiness" and prance around your avatar on Xbox Live for 240 Microsoft Points.
What are some of your favorite oddball video game weapons? Let us know in the comments below.
Over the next several years, one of the most interesting trends in video gaming will be the introduction of smartphones that compete with handheld consoles. First in line: the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY 4G, a "PlayStation Certified" 4G Android smartphone that's now available on the AT&T network. In addition to boasting a 4" touchscreen, front- and rear-facing cameras, and six-axis motion control, the Xperia PLAY slides open to reveal a PlayStation-style controller—including a D-pad, PlayStation's iconic face buttons, left and right shoulder buttons, and even two touchpad joysticks. Suffice it to say you won't be dealing with unresponsive touchscreen buttons on the Xperia PLAY.
Unlike most smartphones, the PLAY isn't just a telephone that checks your e-mail and happens to contain a few little puzzle games. Between the control setup, its sizable library—more than 150 titles as of today—and the fact that its chipset is optimized for gaming graphics and performance, the Xperia PLAY is the gamer's smartphone.
The Xperia PLAY comes with plenty of free gaming perks. For starters, seven games are pre-loaded—and you won't find Angry Birds among them. Instead, they offer everything from big-budget sports, to racing, to PlayStation classics. These titles include Madden NFL 11, The Sims 3, Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave, Crash Bandicoot, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Star Battalion, and Tower Bloxx. In addition, through January 2012, Xperia PLAY owners can download five free games from EA: FIFA 12, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dead Space, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Need for Speed: Shift.
Once owners tire of their eleven free games—which should take a while—they can head to the phone's store for more titles that have been optimized for the Xperia PLAY. Announced earlier this year were PlayStation classics Jet Moto, Hot Shots Golf 2, and Wipeout—but that's only part of the Xperia PLAY-optimized games catalog. A wide range of genres is represented here, with hits from the major players such as EA and Gameloft, and even some from independents. In fact, Mojang chose the Xperia PLAY to launch the Pocket Edition of their hugely popular title Minecraft, months before its availability in a touchscreen version for other Android devices and iPhones.
If you think a smartphone can't offer games that are huge in scope, you'll be surprised by 9MM, a Grand Theft Auto-style third-person shooter; Order & Chaos, an MMORPG; and Shadow Guardian, an action-adventure in which you seek out a lost relic. The Xperia PLAY has an exclusive called Dead on Arrival, a top-down 3D action game that pits you against hordes of zombies. There's also Sleepy Jack, a creative 3D flying game in which you traverse 30 levels that represent a young boy's dreams.
Those who've always dreamed of being hit men can try Contract Killer, and anyone who's addicted to tower-defense gameplay shouldn't hesitate to pick up the World War II-themed Guns'n'Glory WW2. And if it's sports you want, the Xperia PLAY has a handheld take on Tiger Woods 2012 and FIFA 12. For those who can't stop playing arcade shooters, there's also Galaxy on Fire 2 THD, which is, of course, set in outer space.
Just because the Xperia PLAY focuses on gaming doesn't mean it neglects other concerns, either. With a two-year agreement, the 4G Xperia PLAY costs a mere $49.99 on AT&T (Verizon customers can get the 3G version, with six preloaded games, for the same amount with an online discount). Charging is easy with the included docking station, which converts the Xperia PLAY's screen to a big clock display (perfect for desk or nightstand) and has an audio cable for connecting external speakers for music. Then there's Bluetooth, Facebook integration, GPS, and 802.11n Wi-Fi, and more. Most importantly, call quality is high, so your choice of a gaming phone won't mean your friends and family have to yell into their phones and repeat everything.
And while reviewers across the board have praised the Xperia PLAY for its battery life—one writer pegged it at 9 hours and 18 minutes—this clip [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6O-kURqqEI&feature=youtu.be] from customer services will help you go even longer between charges. For example, you can turn the Internet off while you're not using it, have your programs refresh less frequently, and have your e-mail sync less often. The phone even provides a breakdown of which programs are using the most battery so you can adjust the worst offenders.
With its "PlayStation Certified" pedigree, the Xperia PLAY probably won't be Sony Ericsson's last attempt to blend hardcore gaming with smartphone features. At first look, it's highly impressive, and it offers gamers some great titles to play on the go.
