Key events
5th December 2008
22nd September 2008
30th June 2008
2nd June 2008
23rd May 2008
6th December 2007
FeatureCheap This Week - 20/07/11
GTA 4 Episodes! GRID! Killzone 2!
Buckle up folks, here's another boatload of discounted digital fun for you to get your grubby mitts all over. The best priced games from all over the land are collected right here for your convenience. Get yourself over to SavyGamer.co.uk to keep up to date with all the cheap games, as and when they are cheap.
Race Driver: Grid £3 on Steam today
That's wheely low.
The PC version Race Driver: Grid will be slashed to £2.99/$4.99 today on Steam.
Why Race Driver: Grid PC/PS3 MP ended
Activision bought provider DemonWare.
Race Driver: Grid's online multiplayer PC and PS3 servers were axed because the contract with provider DemonWare ran out.
PC Race Driver: Grid online MP revived
PS3 the only platform without, now.
Race Driver: Grid online multiplayer has been resurrected on PC by Australian service GameRanger.
Codies ends PC, PS3 GRID online play
Xbox 360 version unaffected.
Some Race Driver: GRID players are no longer able to play online, Codemasters has confirmed.
OpFlash, GRID 2 and DiRT 3 mapped out
Release windows revealed.
The next Operation Flashpoint game, Red River, will be released at some point between 1st April and the end of June 2011, Eurogamer can exclusively reveal.
Codemasters' Raeburn leaves studio
The brain behind GRID and DiRT.
The executive producer of Codemaster's key racing titles has left the UK publisher to pursue personal projects.
GTI Club and friends in PSN update
LEGO Batman demo, GRID DLC, etc.
GTI Club + Rally Cote D'Azur takes a bow on PlayStation Network today along with a demo of LEGO Batman and add-ons for the likes of Race Driver: GRID and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Konami's spirited remake of the arcade machine of the same name nicks the gameplay and splatters it lovingly across more up to date graphics in a way that made us quite tingly in our 7/10 review, which should not be seen as too off-putting. We're looking forward to more tracks and other content.
Meanwhile, there's another couple of PSone games (Red Alert Retaliation and Jet Rider - classics, we're sure you'll agree) and of course the requisite downloadables for Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band.
New cars, modes, Achievements.
Codemasters has raced new cars out for Race Driver: GRID on Xbox 360 and PS3.
Civilization, Race Driver: GRID, Top Spin 3, Doodle Hex and Pirates.
Race Driver: GRID
Developer: Firebrand Games
Publisher: Codemasters
Cars, online modes, Achievements.
Codemasters is preparing more Xbox 360 and PS3 content for Race Driver: GRID, which will be available to download sometime this autumn.
Codies responds to GRID complaints
"We'd rather it hadn't come to this..."
Codemasters has responded to irate Race Driver: GRID fans that were stripped of their hard earned ranks in the recent server-wide reset.
Digital FoundryX360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round 12
Quake Wars, GRID, LEGO Indy Jones, Overlord, Euro 2008.
It's that time again. Eurogamer's ongoing coverage of the latest developments in cross-platform gaming continues apace, as five brand new releases are put to the sword. The aim here is simple: to supplement existing review coverage with additional commentary based on any technical and gameplay differences we might happen to find. An exhaustive range of HD screenshots supplement the piece, derived from HD video of each game. Where 1080p is supported (either natively or via scaling), additional galleries are included - so that'll be just one this time, in the form of LEGO Indiana Jones.
As readers of the epoch-making Grand Theft Auto IV Ultra Face-Off will know, we've recently added video to our comparison analyses; the difference being that it's video that actually works, based on an ultra-quality workflow. Each game is captured at lossless 24-bit precision from the HDMI ports of the respective consoles using the now obligatory Digital Foundry TrueHD capture kit, ensuring that literally every piece of video information sent from the source at our mercy, to do with as we will.
From there, we're free to extract shots from the streams and create videos (maintaining the lossless workflow) before exporting them to ultra-high quality h.264, nicely streamable courtesy of Eurogamer TV. The action is slowed down to 50 or 25 percent for two reasons. Firstly, slower movement allows for precision video playback. Secondly, it's the only way to make sure that the entire 60fps stream is viewable. Plus of course, actually seeing the differences is a hell of a lot easier.
Codemasters has GRID patch on way
Suggests temporary fix for now.
Codemasters has said it is busy working on a patch to stop stuttering issues in the Xbox 360 version of Race Driver: GRID.
Developer boss Gavin Raeburn waded into the official forum to confirm as much, and offered a temporary solution for those of you affected.
"We're close to getting to the root of the problem and we will be including a fix and a backup workaround option (just in case) in our forthcoming patch due within the next few weeks or sooner," said Gavin "Uncle Chewy" Raeburn. "We think the issue is due to specific drive hardware, possibly with bad blocks /sectors.
Gentlemen, start your enthusiasm.
Pausing and restarting is such an integral part of games like PGR and GRID, where you want to begin every race perfectly, that it surely can't be long before someone binds it to a button, just as the time trial festishists who make TrackMania have done on the PC. But having perfected the start, what do you then do when you try and vault the chicane at 150mph on the last lap only to end up in a tyre wall? Traditionally, you shout and scream. In GRID's case, though, you just hit a button, rewind your mistake and try again.
Flashback is what they're calling it, and it does for GRID what the Sands of Time did for Prince of Persia in 2003: removes unnecessary repetition (and stops us throwing the control pad around the room). Like POP, Codies restricts Flashback's use, allowing you four of them on Normal difficulty. You can also wager your stock of Flashbacks to try and gain more reputation points - which unlock later challenges - by increasing the difficulty; whack it up and you earn more reputation points, but the pressure's on you not to screw up so much.
Not that this would count for anything if Flashback were awkward, complicated or slow to load, but it's none of these things. As soon as you start spinning out, you reach for the button, and after a short pause for a rewindy noise you're deposited on an instant replay screen watching the last few seconds of gameplay. The bumper buttons allow you to switch camera angles to judge when you'd like to retake control, at which point you hit the resume button, the game makes three flashbulb noises in quick succession, each accompanied by a still of the action from an arty angle, and you're back in the driving seat as if nothing went wrong. During 20 hours of play on the 360 retail copy provided for review, we only experienced a handful of split-second pauses at the flashbulb stage. Overall, it just works, and works without incident, and because it's tightly integrated and bound to difficulty level, it feels like a tool rather than a cheat. Flashback, then, is great. But what of GRID itself?
Competitive.
Playing Race Driver: GRID online with eleven of Codemasters' finest developers, QA testers and PR people, we find something unfamiliar running through our head. It's a Dodge Viper. This happens quite a lot, and this particular one has just knocked off our bumper, but more immediately worrying is that it's flipped our car onto its back and crippled the engine. Thanks for that.
Race Driver: GRID multiplayer revealed
Details here, hands-on report to your left.
Codemasters has unveiled Race Driver: GRID's multiplayer features and revealed that the game - due out on PS3, 360 and PC on 30th May - features full damage modelling.
No BMW prize-car for you.
Codemasters has gotten around to offering a Race Driver: GRID demo on PC, after the console versions went live last week.
Race Driver: GRID demo in position
Win a BMW online.
Codemasters is offering a demo of Race Driver: GRID via Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network - the 360 version is up now, with the PS3 version is expected any minute.
Race Driver: GRID demos this week
On PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Codemasters has told us to be prepared for a Race Driver: GRID demo at some point this week.
Qualifying session.
Ever since early man discovered sticks and fire and the wheel and Nurburgring Nordschleife, we've been hitting pause and restarting the track to make up for some terrible error. Whether it's letting a wheel slip beyond the rumble strips into a sandpit of doom, or screwing up the apex on a crucial hairpin, we've all been there, and it's always annoying, and it's always on the final lap, and we always shout, and unfortunately we can't all run away into the hills and blame it on Dietrich. So thank goodness for Race Driver: GRID, which has something called Flashback that you can use to undo catastrophic errors. In the 80-percent-complete preview build we've been pootling around for the last few days, it's exactly the sort of lifesaver you'd expect.
Race Driver: GRID at Play.com Live
First public playable units.
Up until now the highlights were Soul Calibur IV, LEGO Indiana Jones, and a chance to work out how much of the Gemma Atkinson you see on the Internet is Photoshop, but now it turns out Race Driver: GRID is going to be at Play.com Live, so you can add that to the list.
Realism through a Hollywood lens.
Codemasters has said it aims to release Race Driver: GRID on PS3, 360 and PC this summer.
Project go team!
On our visit to Codemasters' HQ to see the reboot of the track racing series formally known as TOCA, one other game keeps coming up in conversation. That game is Project Gotham Racing 4, and it's not just the journos bringing it up. Codies developers are generous enough to praise PGR4's beauty, its structure, its weather effects, its difficulty balancing. Watching an Aston DBR9 tear around sunlit Milan esplanades and neon-lit Shibuya alleyways - and, later, feeling a certain credible but forgiving slide in the handling, when we go hands-on - it seems that the influence of Bizarre's brilliant series runs deep and wide in GRID.
GRID designed to break America
Apparently the yanks didn't like TOCA.
Codemasters' sexy new racing game Race Driver: GRID has been designed to appeal to American gamers who didn't 'get' TOCA, says chief games designer Ralph Fulton.
Race Driver: GRID squashed onto DS
Track editor makes headline return.
Codemasters has rather unsurprisingly decided to follow up its Race Driver DS success by announcing a handheld version of GRID.
Neon gives way to EGO.
Codemasters has told everyone its new in-house engine is called EGO. Still raining, here.
It is an evolution of the Neon engine under the hood of Colin McRae: DiRT, and has been developed by the Central Technology Unit for three long years - doesn't Jack Bauer work for them?
The news is that not everyone licenses Unreal Engine 3 or Source, we suppose, and this project has apparently taken a good chunk of the GBP 40.5 million Codemasters invested in boosting design and technology - 150 per cent more than last year.
Details and shots.
Codemasters has announced that Race Driver One will from now on forever and ever be known as Race Driver: GRID (or just GRID if you're American).
Including multiplayer action.
Including multiplayer action.
FeatureCodemasters' road ahead
The publisher shows all at its Code07 event.
Codemasters showed key titles for the year ahead at its Code07 event in Bedfordshire earlier this week, airing nine titles and making announcements for Operation Flashpoint 2, Rise of the Argonauts and Race Driver One.
