Today sees the retail release of Forza Motrsport 3 for the Xbox 360. Its first and foremost a car racing simulator but theres so much to it. Its simultaneously a complex and simple game from Turn 10 Studios which really shows the evolution of the genre and tries to push it further. A lot of eyes are on this one. Some are worried they simplified it too much, making things too easy. Others worry that its too hardcore and inaccessible to all but the extreme car enthusiast. continue…

Getafe Footbal Club have new kits. No surprises there. They are corporately sponsored and branded. No surprises there. They are designed so that when shirt-over-face celebrations occur, the Burger King mascot’s face becomes prominently displayedas festivities ensure. Surprise!

Shaun White Snowboarding has just dropped in a shelf-filling seven flavors (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, PS2 and PC.) With home video game consoles the Wii is in many ways the runt of the pack, lacking the raw horsepower of the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 (both powered by the award-winning Assassin’s Creed engine). Usually with large multiplatform games like this, the Wii version ends up being a crippled and relatively neglected cousin of the other larger versions.

With this title the Canadian developers at Ubisoft Montreal rethought that typical move and instead made a custom game variant for the Wii, compensating for the shortcomings of the console by capitalizing on the unique possibilities the hardware has to offer. Shaun White Snowboarding – Road Trip is not just an attempt to cram a large power-hungry game in to a small and relatively weak console but instead a differentiated stylized experience which shows both consumers and other developers that with a little creativity you can make multiplatform games which take advantage of what each platform uniquely has to offer. continue…

At X08 this year Pure from Disney Interactive Studios made a pretty big impact. It managed to fly under the radar with minimal hype and press. When we saw it at the show it really seemed to cut through the visual clutter to stand out amongst all the other titles being exhibited so we were keen to see the finished product.

Introduction
The game by Black Rock Studio nestles itself in to a nice niche in your game library for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, or Windows. It’s a racing game but negotiating turns efficiently isn’t enough to ace the events. There is a heavy emphasis on tricks and personality in the game too. It’s definitely not a simulation though, remaining very accessible with an arcade feel so anybody can pick it up and play without frustration. That being said, it isn’t shallow either. The game rewards skill, showmanship and risk, allowing it to successfully walk the line between accessibility and rich experience. continue…

If you go to Beijing for the Olympics you can see some really expensive architecture. You can also find some cheap knockoffs – something China is infamous for.

As with retail, the architectural knockoffs can be just as amusing. Perhaps they don’t recreate the original faithfully but they give you something for the effort, even if a kind of commentary on the value of the original.

Of course these images show mimicry of the ‘birds nest’ and ‘water cube’ facilities built for the Beijing Olympic Games.