Atari flashes exclusive 360 racing game

By Robert Purchese Published 11 July, 2008

RACE Pro by GTR team SimBin.

Atari has decided its next move will be an exclusive Xbox 360 racing game called RACE Pro, due sometime this autumn.

This is being made by Swedish clever-clogs SimBin, which was responsible for those very admirable GTR excursions.

RACE Pro is going for the authentic aspect of driving and has brokered some exclusive deals to reproduce Alfa Romeo, BMW and Chevrolet WTCC cars, and to recreate the Macau, Porto and Pau courses.

There are loads more cars and tracks besides, plus various championships to race in and career ladders to climb.

RACE Pro also has a casual side to ensnare a wider audience, such as a quick to play Mini Cooper Challenge and a Hot Seat mode where you pass your pad to you friends like a hot potato after a certain amount of time behind the wheel.

Otherwise Live and local multiplayer is in for you and up to 11 other players.

Did you know that the term horsepower was made up by a man watching a pony lift coal? Using a pulley not its hoof-hands. We didn't until we read Wikipedia.

RACE Pro may have started life as the Xbox 360 GTR game SimBin was making for THQ but never finished. Unfortunately Atari was unavailable to clear this up.

Should be worth a look, then. And look you can at the very first screenshots in our RACE Pro gallery.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Darren #1 4 years ago

    RACE Pro coded by SimBin... YEAH!

    RACE Pro published by Atari... OH NO!!!

  • monkie_king #2 4 years ago

    Do Atari still have the Pole Position IP?
    I actually doubt it, I think the arcade division of Atari was carved off many years ago.

  • Breach #3 4 years ago

    This is marvellous news.

    Serious competition for Forza at last.

  • CrunchinJelly #4 4 years ago

    Excellent. PS3 owners get that Ferrari game, 360 owners get SimBin's latest.

    Sounds fair to me.
    Edited by 1 at 11/07/08 @ 17:53

  • Anthony_UK #5 4 years ago

    Can we not have Test Drive Unlimited 2 complete with better handling instead please?

  • richie9997 #6 4 years ago

    Nice, love GTR2 and Race 07 on PC.

    Will def need to get this and an Xbox steering wheel!

  • Gruff #7 4 years ago

    Could be cool if they keep their Sim sensibilities, forget it if they tardidize it

  • secombe #8 4 years ago

    If Simbin are allowed to keep it as a Simbin game (i.e. as real as it gets) then this is a winner and enough of a reason for me to buy a 360.

    Best thing about these uber-sims is that they come onto the second-hand market very quickly as people think "yeah it's a sim, but so is Gran Turismo and I can handle that", I remember getting RACE 07 second-hand from Gamestation 3 days after release...they had 2 copies :)

  • Breach #9 4 years ago

    Sims are not too tough for most people, just not interesting.


  • canIdoyabombsforya #10 4 years ago

    ABBA

  • seasidebaz #11 4 years ago

    So... Atari, eh?

    Shame, could have been good... Instead, it will be broken.



    Oh well, least it's not Ubi publishing ;)

  • seasidebaz #12 4 years ago

    @secombe:

    Simbin do NOT MAKE REALISTIC GAMES

    Having played GTR, it's not that great.

    Real Life™ doesn't have a bad framerate. Or dodgy AI. Or crap graphics.

    Real Life™ is therefore far more realistic. (Mind you, so is Super Mario Bros)

  • Scrumhalf #13 4 years ago

    I love the SimBin games - I personally can't wait!!!
    Edited by 1 at 11/07/08 @ 21:46

  • themorganator #14 4 years ago

    "This is marvellous news.

    Serious competition for Forza at last."

    I couldn't agree more! This is the best news I've heard all day and I will definitely be getting this!

  • Miths #15 4 years ago

    As much as I love Ferrari Challenge, I would have loved to see this on the PS3 (though I do actually still have my 360) - back when I still had gaming PCs I played GTR2, LFS and RACE (07) several days a week for months.

    Considering we're talking about hardcore sims here (or at least the PC versions were) it's a bit odd that they are doing this as a 360 exclusive, since - and correct me if that has changed? - only that cheap, flimsy platic wheel is available on that console, thanks to some arbitrary Microsoft decision, while the PS3 has the full lineup of Logitech wheels, including the G25.

  • Gruff #16 4 years ago

    @seasidebaz

    Aren't you a ray of sunshine, but i bow to your extensive experience of driving GT cars.

    Oh wait you compared Mario cart to a Simbin GTR game, i take that back......Twonk

  • themorganator #17 4 years ago

    @seasidebaz

    errr, whatever....idiot.

    GTR is awesome and this is great news for those of us bored with poor handling crap (yes Grid developers, I'm talking to you)

    I just wish we could have the full range of Logitech wheels....

  • Triggerhappytel #18 4 years ago

    I've always thought SimBin should have been picked up by one of the bigger publishers... Just not Atari.

  • winnah #19 4 years ago

    I like how all the 360(lol) lovers think this is good news. GTR was crap and this game will be as well. Even forza will be better than this and that's not saying much.

  • seasidebaz #20 4 years ago

    I didn't say anything about Mario Kart... I said Mario BROS

    Played GTR years ago on a decent wheel, it just wasn't that good. And now it's going to be on 360, it'll be even less good. It's either going to be crippled by a crap racing wheel or a control pad. Or crippled by Atari (more likely...)

    Oh well, at least it might look pretty. And have a stable framerate.

  • Nige #21 4 years ago

    >GTR was crap

    Perhaps you could name a better racing sim?

  • brainbird #22 4 years ago

    Good news, I always wanted to play a SimBin racing game on a console (contraray to some haters here).
    Even better news would be if they announce support of more driving wheels than just Microsoft's. Logitech Driving Force Pro, please.
    (Same goes to the Forza-team, but I gave up on that one)

  • seasidebaz #23 4 years ago

    @Nige:

    I would, but I've forgotten what it's called ;)

    Live for Speed or something like that

  • BooMMooB #24 4 years ago

    Sounds great. Hopefully Atari will have more info for us at E3 next week...

  • Nige #25 4 years ago

    Live for Speed is an acceptable answer. Well done.

    It's massively limited though - GTR2 has some fantastic mods. I have no doubt that these won't make it to the 360 tho'.

  • Execta #26 4 years ago

    CrunchinJelly:

    Excellent. PS3 owners get that Ferrari game, 360 owners get SimBin's latest.

    Sounds fair to me.

    ---

    Doesn't sound fair to me. Ferrari Challenge sucks, a lot, this Xbox 360 exclusive racing game will be much more better. ;/
    Edited by 2 at 13/07/08 @ 11:25

  • GamesConnoisseur #27 4 years ago

    People dissing GTR as a whole need to wake up and see the excellent review for GTR 2 in Eurogamer and good rating at Metacritic.com

    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=68745 ]http://ww w.eurogamer.net/article.php?art...[/link]

    [link url=http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/gtr2?q=GTR
    ]    http://ww w.metacritic.com/games/platform...[/link]


    However Simbin's GTR as in below review link is not that great, so only hoping that X360 version will be more like the recent PC version rather than the 2005 one! I believe they will do a far better job but yet to be proven if it will better Forza 2.

    http://ww w.eurogamer.net/article.php?art...

  • secombe #28 4 years ago

    I wouldn't worry about the Simbin haters, just probably means they gave up after driving like Massa at Silverstone for 10 minutes.

  • smurphs #29 4 years ago

    Brilliant. Used to play GT Legends with a pad and that was fine, so really looking forward to something designed specifically for a gamepad (no space for a wheel). If they could include GT Legends as a bonus that would be nice ;) Much as I love Forza, every time I go back to GT Legends it's a dose of reality.

  • UberMod #30 4 years ago

    I think it would have been safe to refer to James Watt by name rather than some "man".

  • Stifler #31 4 years ago

    Holding out for Blimeys Ferrari Game instead - all of SimBins good games (GT LEgends, GTR and GTR 2) have been done in conjunction with Blimey - SimBins only bad games (Race and WTCC RACE) were done without them and it showed!

    :)

  • jebus #32 4 years ago

    The average console player seems quite retarded generally - see any my console is better than yours argument on these and other comments pages for proof so I hope that:

    a) Atari don't screw this up (and with Harrison at the wheel anything is possible as the guy is a total lunatic)
    and
    b) It gets the sales it deserves. SimBin make great racing games but I suspect the 360 Grid/PGR loving audience will hate it because it's either too hard or doesn't have anough crap to unlock or both.

  • Res #33 4 years ago

    "Holding out for Blimeys Ferrari Game instead - all of SimBins good games (GT LEgends, GTR and GTR 2) have been done in conjunction with Blimey"

    No, all of SimBin's good developers left to form Blimey (after GTR2), nothing was done in conjunction with them.

  • Stifler #34 4 years ago

    @ Res

    I stand corrected :) - either way RACE WTCC was gobshite :p

  • Miths #35 4 years ago

    @Stifler

    I wasn't particularly impressed by the first RACE either, but I quite enjoyed RACE 07 - both for the touring cars (where they had made some improvements to both physics and the weak engine sounds in the first one) as well as the "support" classes, particularly the Caterhams and the Radicals. They were a blast to drive and felt great.

  • FooAtari #36 4 years ago

    I don't have much hope of this being a faithful port to the PC version.

    While I think it will be somewhat realistic I feel the will dumb down a little and make it a little more forgiving.

    Clearly some people miss the concept of what a sim is supposed to be. Fair enough if you don't enjoy that time of game, but it doesn't make it crap.

    I seem GTR getting some abuse. GTR had a few issues wich GTR 2 fixed for the most part and is one of the better sims out there.

    Shame the 360 doesn't have a decent wheel to go with a good sim.

  • BooMMooB #37 4 years ago

    well, the Xbox360 does have a decent wheel...

    It's not great... But not completly bad either - Therefore decent is the apporpriate word.

    I'm quite looking forward to this.

  • nedgip #38 4 years ago

    If it handles anything like the driving sections in alone in the dark it'll be awsome!