Austin Cooper S Racing

Austin Cooper S Racing is set to deliver its car racing game at the AGM in Exeter in Atlanta, Georgia. The game is being developed by TYD Designs, a division of the Austin studio.

The game's producer, Tom Sethy, recently put a demo version of the game up on the GameSpot DLX. Sethy gave us a quick run through what to expect from the game, and it was obvious that the development team was most excited by the idea. We'll have a full preview of the game once we've had the chance to try it out.

Don't expect any career mode, though. Instead, you'll be taking part in an all-out arcade racing competition, and your ability to win cars will be fully up to you. To win a series of cash prizes, you'll have to make enough cars to pay the bills to use them.

Gran Turismo 3, on the other hand, will be the most realistic driving game to date. That's because the team wants to keep you on the edge of your seat, as you have to manage your weight and build up your boost meter and get your car out of trouble quickly. As a result, you'll have to stay constantly on the track while trying to keep your car at full capacity. To do this, you'll have to play the game more slowly, as you'll often need to slow down when you're in midair. When your boost meter is full, it will simply fill up with other cars that are ready to race. If you can't manage it properly, the car will simply switch over to you and do a loop to pick up speed. For example, if you're pulling off a Gran Turismo 9-style overtake on a track near the finish line, you can use it to slow down your car in order to get closer to the pack. If you can manage it, you can then really hone your driving skills.

We also got a look at some of the other features in the game that you'll be able to take advantage of when you're behind the wheel. As in the first game, you'll be able to put your car in the pit lane at any time, and you'll be able to take advantage of a turbo boost whenever you happen to make a mistake. While this feature will definitely make racing in Need for Speed: Carbon a little less frustrating, we're eager to see how the game will take advantage of it. The previous game had the "quick drive" feature that gave you the ability to go through a full set of races as you approached the finish line. However, in Carbon, you'll be able to go through a full set of races that you weren't able to access until you were near the finish line.

The artificial intelligence in the game is looking to be just as sharp as ever in its near-final version. You'll be able to set the AI up to brake during races and, as in most racing games, steer without losing control of your car. In some cases, the AI will drive off-course so that you can go after a perfect lap even with poor driving habits. You'll be able to change the AI by finding shortcuts that will give you more time to develop a strategy or want to lock down the middle of the pack. If you find the cops moving too quickly or turning too fast, you'll be able to stop them altogether and force you to attempt an emergency escape, which will give you the chance to attempt to either let a car get away or attempt to cut you down. The artificial intelligence is fairly advanced and will be able to put up a good fight against you, and will even come out on top in the actual races themselves.

There are two other playable characters in the game, one that we were able to try out during our demo. We played as a power-up-type character, but we didn't get to try him out. We were told that the old AI will come in very handy during the course of the game, as it will be able to quickly take down other racers. The choice is yours.

We got to check out three different racing environments, which were fully deformable. The first was the Japanese circuit Suzaku. There were car interiors, such as the ones that were outfitted with bomb headlights. We got to try out two different tracks: one set in a nighttime version of an oil rig that looked like a massive tanker, and another set in a snow-filled version of a big city. The tracks were nice to look at, and they showed off some great environmental detail. A camera angle that's close to the action onscreen was especially nice.

A Nintendo representative told us that each of the tracks will contain a number of twists and turns in some of the trickier tracks. In one track, for example, we were at a race track with two or three racers that we were racing against on a track that we were racing in.