Shortly after the release of Grand Prix Legends the sim racing community looked forward to another title that promised to offer a similar insight into historic racing. Trans-Am Racing ’68-’72 ultimately never released, a victim of a publishers shady dealings, but as a part of my research I uncovered a VHS of a never-released trailer for the game. Watch the trailer and read about what sim racing missed out on.
Legendary British game developer whose career spanned a 20 year period and included groundbreaking simulations of Formula Three and Formula One, including arguably the first ever racing sim: Revs (1984).
Most famous for his Grand Prix series that were published under the MicroProse label until 2000, his career unceremoniously ended when his studio was shut down by Infogrames and the Xbox version of Grand Prix 4 cancelled just prior to release.
Join Jon Denton, Tim Wheatley, Simon Croft and guest(s) as they discuss sim racing and racing games past, present and future.
Text below directly from their Facebook post. It says everything so no point in re-writing it out:
After months of work behind the scenes, version 1 of our scheduled racing system is here and will be rolled out to players over the coming weeks. While our initial intention was to release a dedicated server and provide an in-game browser for community host races, we made the decision to invest in building a scheduled racing system to provide a competitive, fair, and low-latency racing environment. With advanced skill-based matchmaking, league and hosted session support in development, KartKraft is quickly becoming the premiere online karting experience.
During the soft launch phase, we’ll be stress-testing the servers, listening to feedback, and gradually increasing the number of participating players before opening the beta to everyone. Initial events will be restricted to Timed Practice with collision disabled. To be considered for the soft-launch, please register using your real name via the in-game form and confirm your email address.
PFI Classic
This update also sees the introduction of the classic PF International layout from the 90s. With an incredibly fast sweeping hairpin that is turn 1, this is the circuit that drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Anthony Davidson and Paul Di Resta honed their craft on the way to Formula 1.
Added manufacturer driving suits
Trackside Cameras
We’ve completely overhauled the trackside camera system in preparation for multiplayer. Much like a human camera operator, our cameras now attempt to predict the trajectory of their tracked vehicle and anticipate their target’s position within the frame. The end result is a much more natural, broadcast quality viewing experience with high quality, cinematic, physically-based depth of field.
Leaderboards
In preparation for multiplayer, we’ve reduced the vehicle snapshot size by 72% to minimise packet size. This has had a flow-on effect with leaderboard upload times significantly reduced. As a result, all leaderboard times have been reset to accommodate the new snapshot format.
Manufacturer Suits
All manufacturer suits from Arrow, CRG, Deadly, Formula-K, Monaco, OK1, Praga and Sodikart have now been added to the store. They can be equipped by going to Pits->Driver->Suits
Fixes
NTK has been updated to the latest verson provided by community member and NTK board member ‘Hooves’
Added time limit to practice session
Changed photoshoot cameras to use cinematic, circular depth of field. This is now controlled by the camera aperture.
Fixed vehicle snapshot interpolation causing incorrect axle rotation wobble in replays.
Fixed motion blur on tyres. They no longer cause artefacts from tangential velocity.
Fixed camera transition in menu screens causing the vehicle to slide in from out of screen.
Fixed collision for all vehicles. Kerbs can now be ridden with confidence.
KK is a karting simulator with a variety of kart classes and karting tracks from around the world.