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The Ultimate Driver Journey WMD member Halcyon is renowned for his video trailers, so much so that SMS have hired him as a member of staff to create further video productions. Combined with Dr Stephen Baysted's rendition of Lux Aeterna, this latest video gains 'official' status. The trailer also confirms a release date scheduled for November 2014. When it comes to next-gen visuals, world class physics, racing authenticity, career freedom, and variety of content, Project CARS remains the most anticipated and premier choice for race fans. Jump into the seat of a kart and forge a career with the aim of one day winning a prestigious 24hr race in a LM Prototype car, battle bumper-to-bumper for a third consecutive championship in the world of Touring, or simply take an exotic supercar out for a beautiful drive along the coast. Whatever your journey, Project CARS is your destination... MEDIA:

How Big is 'Pretty Big'? Do you remember the first time you played Test Drive Unlimited all the way back in 2006/2007? How many times did you get lost early on? I wasn't too bad until I got myself into a long police chase which ended up becoming an off-road excursion... by the time I escaped I had absolutely no clue where I was. So no doubt you'd agree TDU1 had quite a large open world for its time. As you would recall, the Millionaire's Challenge required players to complete a lap around the island of O'ahu in under 60 minutes, with competent players able to complete the event in 45 minutes by averaging speeds above 250 kph (150 mph). What is interesting, however, is if you apply some turboduck maths, you can discover that the virtual version of O'ahu is much the same size as in reality. Or if that's too hard, you can always drive around the virtual island at the speed limit and compare the time it takes to what Google Maps suggests. But for the purposes of this article, let's assume that you can drive at an average speed 3 times faster in a supercar inside the game world compared to what the law allows in the real world. Figure 1 - aside from some discrepancies in the shape of the island, the size and scale are close to being 1:1. So nearly 8 years on from TDU1's launch on Xbox 360, let's have a look at what we know about the open world inside The Crew. Late last year, Creative Director Julian Gerighty made a few remarks regarding its size: A coast to coast race in the game, in a high-speed performance car, sticking to the roads is about an hour and a half, but if you want to go off-road, it’s about two hours and a half. We have one race, which is just for those maniacs, it’s not on the main path or anything. It goes around the circumference of the country and it’s a four hour race. WARNING: MATHS CONTENT If you ask Google Maps for directions from Los Angeles to the east coast, it will generally suggest a trip time of 39 hours. If we could drive that distance 3 times as fast, it would take 13 hours. So if the world in The Crew were a 1:1 scale with reality, then its 'coast to coast' race would logically also take ~ 13 hours. Since we know the game world is not to scale, and that the coast-to-coast race takes 1.5 hours, divide 13/1.5 to find the scale. Now we [think we] know that the real USA is 8.666666667x larger than the USA found in The Crew. VISUALISING THE SCALE Figure 2 - a satellite image of America (Google Maps) Figure 3 - an official illustration of the game world from The Crew. Figure 4 - overlaying the game world on top of the satellite image at roughly the same size. Visual discrepancies are much larger compared to O'ahu. Figure 5 - overlaying another copy of the game world image so that it appears scaled down as per the maths above. By now you can see how drastically the developers have had to scale down the USA for The Crew. Figure 6 - It's not all bad news though. Look how relatively large the scaled down map is compared to O'ahu. Figure 7 - in fact, it seems that we can fit O'ahu into the game world 43 times. Of course, all of this assumes our maths isn't floored. :) ONE SMALL PROBLEM Our calculations started off by using the number 39 as the number of hours needed to drive from Los Angeles to the east coast in real life. But have a closer look at Figure 4. The east coast in the game world appears to end near Tennessee on the satellite image. So perhaps the calculation should really be (27 hours/3)/1.5 = a scale factor of 6. So, what do you make of all this? Shall we just stick to saying the game world in The Crew is 'pretty big'? Or do you have your own ideas for calculating the scale. Let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to also visit the forums for more information on The Crew!

What a sixpack! Slightly Mad Studios' Project CARS just keeps growing as Audi has just been announced to become the latest brand to join the community-assisted simulator! As many as six Audis are joining the game, including the latest rendition of their supercar: the 2013 R8 V10 Plus as well as its big brother, the 2013 R8 LMS Ultra GT3, which will challenge the recently announced Bentley amongst other GT3 racers. The 1989 90 IMSA GTO is a beast that could prove to be tough but rewarding to control and it will surely find its own fans. Le Mans heritage is not forgotten as included are both the 2002 R8 LMP900 and the 2011 R18 TDI LMP1, both of which have shown their domination at the track. Last but not least is my personal favourite, the small 2012 A1 Quattro - a 256hp version of Audi's tiny A1 which I'm really eager to test! All of these cars will surely be great fun to drive and they'll be hitting the tracks in Fall 2014 when Project CARS is released for the PS4, Xbox One, SteamOS, Wii U and of course PC. Source: WMDPortal

To the track sir? WMDPortal has just posted the news that Bentley is being welcomed to Project CARS, the license will result in the inclusion of two of Bentley's more recent racing cars. The most well known of them being the strikingly beautiful 'Speed 8' Le Mans racer, with the other being a GT3 version of their luxury Grand Tourer, the Continental GT. A GT3 version of this car seems a bit strange to myself, but then again if it's stripped out and hard-prepped for the track it could actually be a lot of fun! Project CARS if you still don't know is coming out later in 2014 for PC, PS4, Xbox One and Wii U. Thanks - WMDPortal

Lookout Below! Don't ask me what is arriving 'from the sky' or when we can expect it, but it probably wouldn't hurt to make the occasional glance upwards in-between focusing on the next corner exit. Before you jump onto the track, however, check out hybrid.art's new video trailer, embedded below for your convenience.

Pure Raging A couple of new Raging Bulls are the next to join the NFS Rivals cops and racer ranks in this latest DLC for the EA arcade racer, called the 'Concept Lamborghini' the packs contain the (successful?) attempt of recent years to re-imagine the legendary Miura, resulting in the gorgeous Miura Concept. Snorting alongside is the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Super Trofeo, a road-going version of the racing variant that participates in what is known as the 'World's Fastest One Make Series' the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo. Packs are available either separately as Cop or Racer with the former containing Pursuit liveries for the vehicles or a Complete Pack where you will get both packs for a discounted price. They should be available now on all relevant platforms so if you're still feeling the Need for Speed and want some new Lamborghini metal to go up against the recent Ferraris and Jaguars that were also released, then here and now is the time to do it! NFS Rivals: Lamborghini DLC Trailer Thanks - needforspeed.com

Advertising Secrets Exposed! If you were expecting DRIVECLUB to finally arrive on PlayStation 4 on February 28 as previously suggested, now might be a good time to re-evaluate. That is unless of course Sony's marketing strategy is... not to market the title with only 2 weeks from launch. Official PlayStation Magazine Italy reckon that DRIVECLUB will not be available until as late as June 2014. That's quite a bump back from the original November 2013 launch date. That [nonexistent] marketing strategy is however unlikely following the distribution of an instructional branding guidelines video for contest-entrants that interestingly shows us what ploys are in effect to make their game trailers look visually realistic, such as the lack of colour saturation, or purposeful introduction of imperfections and amateurism. This makes one wonder if the marketing gameplay footage we've seen thus-far is truly representative of the final product or if some of these tricks are simply done in Final Cut Pro, for example. Have a look for yourself and let us know what you think below. At least we know (from the assets video below) that the game will sound good! DRIVECLUB Videos

Carlsberg don't make Trailers... It seems that the crowd-funded project by Slightly Mad Studios Project Cars has been going on forever, in fact you could almost believe that Moses himself was playing the latest build when the burning bush pestered him to pay attention but alas we are here in 2014 and this looks to be the actual year when we will see the game actually released! Yeah I know how crazy is that? Those of you who have followed and are an active part of the games' development will know how it has progressed and continues to just surprise and make jaws drop with each passing phase and goal met by the development team. And with the recent move from the Xbox 360 and PS3 to their next-gen successors it's clearly evident that this game is going to be the looker of the bunch and will hopefully have the meat and not just be a pretty face. You can judge what you think yourself though with this *Jermemy Clarkson voice* astonishing trailer from WMDForum member JonZ, who if you don't know of, is very skilled at making trailers that result in you throwing money at your screen. Project CARS will be available for the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam OS and Wii U (yes really) in the later part of 2014. For more info check out the the WMD website. Check out our Project Cars forum!