This article hes really taken me back. To good times, too, so Thanks for that!

Revs was where I cut my driving game teeth. Too hard? I beg to differ; at 12 years old I craved something that actually felt like I imagined driving would, and looking back on it, it's clear that it was amazingly advanced compared to the competition. None of my friends could hack it, but I played for hour after hour, revelling in the braking points, the lines, the balance of the car under braking or on the throttle... I think was a surprising number of years later until I got a similar hit from a game; possibly Indy 500 on the amiga. After that there can't have been too many until I was captured by the purity of the original GT...

But inbetween there was Stunt Car Racer. Oh yes. If I remember right, the fastest way was to control your speed off the jumps land near (but not at) the bottom of the landing ramps, just far enough up them to give the car time to settle before levelling out or you lost too much speed. The sense of soaring huge distances was awesomely conveyed.

Until now I never made the connection that Revs and Stunt Car were from the same guy, the same genius. So a big thanks to you, Mr. Crammond. Jolly good show, what? The only downside it that Revs is probably responsible for my lifelong, unfulfiled yearning to be a racing drvier. I couldda been a contender! :)

A very nice article, reminded me of playing through a great game. I've still got it somewhere; I think I'm going to have to dig it out and fire it up later on.

Oh, and smashing barrels. Smashing f**king barrels. Oh dear god how I hate it. How massively inappropriate it is to certain games. Example; Fable II - I have a HALO ffs, yet, in order to make sure I don't miss anything obvious in times of no-money, I have to smash barrels. I'm a moral creature! I'm overflowing with good deeds! I hand out money to beggers if I've got any spare and make the children laugh and the ladies sigh with my gentlemanly acts! I don't even like to RUN through the towns and villages because running everywhere makes me look like a berk, so I walk and retain my huge, aged dignity. I arrive with a slight smile. And then I HAVE TO SMASH BARRELS and once I accidentally hit someone WHO DIED.

Why why why? At least let me open the barrels with my fricking hands! etc etc etc

Sorry. Only just on topic but heck, it all just built up in me, I had to let it vent.

The game looks absolutely lovely, the same slighly surreal sense of isolation and desolation that runs through Ico and SotC is apparently all present and correct. I loved those games, exactly why is hard to pin down but I was utterly and also quite peacefully absorbed by them, which made a welcome change from the usual pulse pounding immersion I usually get from games. This could be the one that causes me to shell out for the PS3. After the price drop.

If you build a relationship with the Gryphon-thing then I think that my seven year old would absolutely love the game and be transported by it, but it might be a little too bleak or troubling in places; he's still pretty innocent. I wouldn't want to let him play anything that might trouble him (there's plenty of time for being hardened and cynical when you get older in my view). Is there any word on an age rating? I can't remember if there was one on the first two games...

I feel pretty cynical about this, as a fan of motor racing both real and virtual. Corner entry speeds, lines, vehicle control, accuracy, in a word 'technicalities'; these are the meet and veg of racing, the core issues. Mastery of these issues is where racing is at, so to speak. Waving your hand airily and suggesting (with a sneer it seems to me) that apexes and control are for nerds and are not fun is all very well, but my guess is that fairly soon down the line you'll be looking at another forgotten car combat game.

If you're not into racing, why make a racing game? Because the commercial people are asking for one, I suspect, but I think that if you're going down the car combat route you should at least have the bravery to follow the arena based 'Twisted Metal' or the underrated 'Vigilante 8' templates and abandon the racing altogether, these games were actually pretty entertaining once mastered, and stand up far better to the FPS comparisons that this developer is making.

Mixing racing and the shooting has never worked very well to my mind, the inevitable compromise of each primary skill set alienates the core fans of each and you're left with the casuals who ultimately drift on to the next thing once it's available.

For my sins, I'm still waiting for GT5. I'm still (occasionally) playing GT4 and hoping that GT5 is even 60% of what it could be. I don't have a PS3 yet, I've resisted the purchase and I have to say that it's mainly been pretty easy to do so far. However, even a semi-decent GT5 will certainly swing it for me. I'm aware that many say that the genre has moved on, and that GT is a dinosaur, I'm fearful that these people will be proved right. For the car nerd, though, there remains something about the way the machines interact with the tarmac that has not yet been bettered. Surely SCE can't bugger that up? I've STILL got my fingers crossed...