At the Europan Games Award show the best European games were honoured last Saturday in Cologne. More than 80,000 european gamers gave 650,000 votes and decided who will win the European Games Award 2011.
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit won in the category Best Racing Game and even was able to beat Shift 2 Unleashed. Additionally Dirt 3, F1 2010, Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Sega Rally Online Arcade was nominated in this category.
The largest winner is Crysis 2, which was able to collect mulitple awards: „Best European Action Game“, „Best European Sound“, „Best European Advertisement“ and „Best European Art Direction“. Even the „Best European Studio“ goes to its developer studio Crytek.
The onlinemagazine IGN published a new article about Need for Speed: The Run, talking about the race, the variety of the sceneries and a little bit about the different game modes.
Additionally, you can watch a video showing a a short, intense section of The Run through a Death Valley desert canyon, a twisting, undulating road with rocky outcrops jutting up into the sky in the distance. The aim is to pass the opponents before the finishing line, which is harder than it sounds – this is still very much an arcade racer, with tight, satisfying handling and high speeds, but pick a bad place to attempt an overtake and you'll go slamming into a rock wall.
Excerpt: The cross-country concept also allows for a variety of gameplay, whether it's racing technically around winding mountain tracks, hurtling into oncoming traffic on an interstate or evading cops in a city. There are one-on-one rival battles against arch-enemies, sprint races, elimination sections and cop pursuits, all of which feed into the overarching narrative. Having real locations has been a new experience for Black Box – the Frostbite 2 engine has made it much easier for them to create these open, detailed environments.
"When we've made Need for Speed games in the past, our first point of reference has always been amazing, beautiful drives in the real world – but we've never recreated them," says Delong. "Instead we've done a fictional city of a fictional county... We've always been limited technically in what we can do. But when we moved to Frostbite, we discovered that we were able to iterate on content so quickly that we could create the epic scale of a coast to coast race. We could have picked five major cites and recreated those in limited detail, but for us the true Run, the true race, is the variety that you get inbetween those cities."
Of course, Autolog is integrated at every step throughout the single-player campaign, showing you how much more talented your friends are at each individual section and then comparing your entire, coast-to-coast race time at the end. "You know second to second if you have a chance of beating your friend across the country. It makes the race more personal," says Delong. He hints at multiplayer modes, too, but he won't be drawn on specifics – we'll have to wait for Gamescom for that.
As previously reported the voice-chat technology Dolby Axon will come to Need for Speed World:
We’re always looking for ways in which players are able to reach out and communicate with one another while enjoying the game. With the addition of Dolby Axon, we’re confident that you will love voice chatting in high quality, without noise echoing or clipping.
Dolby Axon is fully integrated into the Need For Speed World game client; you don’t have to set up a voice server or even install a separate client to use it. Simply set up a group and you’ll automatically be entered into a voice chat room with your group members. You will be able to chat with them regardless of whether you’re in Free Roam, a race, or your Safehouse.
Both Push-to-Talk and voice activation modes will be available for use. Other nifty options include echo reduction to improve voice clarity via speakers, and game audio fading to reduce ambient music and sound effects whenever someone is talking. In addition, we’ve also improved the group feature in various ways. For instance, a group HUD will now show up on the top left of your screen. This allows for quick group management and toggling of voice chat.
We’ve also made it much easier to play private matches. Once you’re in a group, you can invite all your group members to your private event with a single click. Use this and voice chat to your advantage and master the Team Escape co-op mode with your friends!
The new technology will be implemented in NFS World with the latest patch deployed today.
In a new video Time Attack Champion Chris Rado talks about attacking corners in Shift 2 Unleashed and about walking the fine line between racing glory and disaster.
"The commitment needs to be absolute. The car has to be sound. And the driver...needs to be sharp as a razor..."
Shift 2 Unleashed Soundtrack as an emotional Journey
Thursday, 24.03.2011
In addition to our last newspost about the Soundtrack of Shift 2 Unleashed, we want to go more into detail of the composition of the soundtrack and its composers.
The few songs (see below), that have been announced, were re-mixed into different variations to create a completely new style of soundtrack that uses sonic themes to engage the player and represent the driver's battle. Each composer was tasked with using the emotional themes of the game to create a cinema-level score.
"This is a totally unique approach to videogame scores," said Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing for EA. "We’ve brought together some of the most cutting-edge composers from various film, TV, trailer and gaming backgrounds in entertainment to re-imagine the music of ten absolutely distinctive bands and sonically encapsulate the driver’s emotional journey."
EA got Ramin Djawadi on board, who might be best known for his Grammy-nominated score for Iron Man, but he did also the music for Clash of the Titans, Prison Break and the videogame Medal Of Honor 2010.
Along with Djawadi the British Academy Award winner Troels Folmann, a film, trailer and game composer, can chip in with his knowledge and experience of scoring hundreds of film trailers and TV promos.
Additionally the Heavy Melody Music, whose team has created original music for Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Stephen Baysted, who has scored numerous racing games including NFS Shift and Mick Gordon, the AudioGang award-winning composer behind NFS World and NFS Shift are working on the Shift 2 Unleashed soundtrack as well.
Below you can find again the list of the songs, that were the basis for the soundtrack in Shift 2:
30 Seconds to Mars - Night of the Hunter
Anberlin - We Owe This To Ourselves
Biffy Clyro - Mountains
The Bravery - Ours
Escape The Fate - Issues
Hollywood Undead - Levitate
Jimmy Eat World - Action Needs An Audience
Rise Against - Help Is On The Way
Stone Temple Pilots - Take A Load Off
Switchfoot - The Sound (John M. Perkins Blues)
EA announced the Soundtrack of Shift 2 Unleashed. In the game you will hear songs from famous bands like Jimmy Eat World, The Bravery, 30 Seconds to Mars and Rise Against:
30 Seconds to Mars - Night of the Hunter
Anberlin - We Owe This To Ourselves
Biffy Clyro - Mountains
The Bravery - Ours
Escape The Fate - Issues
Hollywood Undead - Levitate
Jimmy Eat World - Action Needs An Audience
Rise Against - Help Is On The Way
Stone Temple Pilots - Take A Load Off
Switchfoot - The Sound (John M. Perkins Blues)
Additionally EA announced that the composers Ramin Djawadi (e.g. "Iron Man"), Troels Folmann, Stephen Baysted and Mick Gordon, as well as the group Heavy Melody Music (e.g. "NFS Hot Pursuit") are working on the soundtrack of the game.
Shift 2 Unleashed: System Requirements (PC) / Supported Wheels
Tuesday, 22.03.2011
The system requirements of the PC version of Shift 2 Unleashed were already available here for quite some time, but now it's official:
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP (SP3), Vista (SP2), Windows 7 CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2,0 GHz/AMD Athlon X2 64 2,4 GHz Memory: 2 GB or more Graphics: DirectX 9.0c compliant 512 MB-graphic card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compliant sound card HDD: 7.0 GB Supported Peripherals: Keyboard, Mouse, supported controllers Optional: USB Steering Wheel / Dual Analogue Gamepad
Supported Video Cards at Time of Release: NVidia GeForce 8 series or higher, ATI HD 3 series or higher.
Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required.
EA Download Manager Users require 8.16 GB additional space for temporary installation files.
Additionally the officially supported steering wheels were announced, while most of them were already revealed here:
Officially Supported Steering Wheels:
PC
Logitech G27 Racing Wheel - full support for all buttons and rev lights
Logitech G25 Racing Wheel
Logitech Driving Force GT
Logitech Formula Force EX
Logitech Driving Force
Logitech Driving Force EX
Logitech Driving Force RX
Logitech Driving Force Pro
Logitech MOMO Force
Logitech MOMO Racing
Thrustmaster RGT FFB Pro Clutch
Thrustmaster Ferrari GT Experience
Thrustmaster Ferrari 430
Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo S
Playstation 3
Nascar Racing Wheel
Logitech Driving Force
Logitech Driving Force EX
Logitech Driving Force Pro
Logitech G25 Racing Wheel
Logitech G27 Racing Wheel - full support for all buttons and rev lights
Logitech Driving Force GT - full support for all buttons and dial
Thrustmaster F430 FFB
Thrustmaster RGT FFB Clutch
Xbox 360
Microsoft Force Feedback Wheel
Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo
Shift 2 Unleashed: Recording of the Live Developer Chat
Monday, 21.03.2011
Last weekend SHIFT 2 Unleashed Lead Designer, Andy Tudor and NFSDrew answered several questions from the community in the Shift 2 Unleashed Live Developer Chat. (we reported)
You can find a recording of the Live Developer Chat under the following link. (Unfortunately ist has a very poor sound quality.)
With 700 HP and a high speed of over 230 mph it's no wonder that the Pagani Huayra is named after the Andean God of Wind. As Electronic Arts announced today this gentle beast will be available exclusively in Shift 2 Unleashed!
"For the past seven years, the designing of the Huayra has been a labor of love and I’m ecstatic to be working with the entire Need for Speed team to help share our creation with the world", said Horacio Pagani, founder of Pagani Automobili S.p.A. "I’m amazed by how accurately they have been able to capture the look and, most importantly, the feel of the Huayra. Shift 2 Unleashed will give enthusiasts all over the world the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Huayra."
The Pagani Huayra sounds like an awesome addition to the upcoming Shift 2 Unleashed, which is being released in Europe on March 31st, 2011 on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
NFSUnlimited made an interview with the English new rave band Hadouken!, who became famous to the Need for Speed community with their title Bombshock in the Need for Speed Hot Pursuit soundtrack.
In this interview the band talks about Need for Speed, their experience with getting on a game soundtrack and of course their music.
If you don't know Hadouken!, you can watch the official music video of Bombshock here.
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At the Europan Games Award show the best European games were honoured last Saturday in Cologne. More than 80,000 european gamers gave 650,000 votes and decided who will win the European Games Award 2011.
The onlinemagazine IGN published a new article about Need for Speed: The Run, talking about the race, the variety of the sceneries and a little bit about the different game modes.
As previously 
In a new video Time Attack Champion Chris Rado talks about attacking corners in Shift 2 Unleashed and about walking the fine line between racing glory and disaster.
