If you’re into racing games, odds are you’ve heard about the cover of Gran Turismo 5 hitting the Web. It’s true Polyphony Digital and the goons at Sony keep tormenting fans with release date after release date. Meanwhile, Forza Motorsport owners have been practicing enough to pull off stunts like the one you’ll see after the jump, where a Datsun 510 drifts, spins and drifts again all within inches of a virtual guardrail. We understand PD’s desire to get everything as right as can be, but for the love of all things holy, let us play the damn game. Hop the jump for a look at the mad Forza skills. [Source: YouTube]

Pure Chaos...

I say this for a number of reasons, but most notably I am speaking of two particular reasons.  First off, there’s the sheer hilarity of the crowd.  Every year, people show up in pimp hats, dyed hair, video game costumes, Transformer costumes (made from beer cases), banana hammocks, and a whole myriad of very interesting looks.  And if that’s not strange enough for you, then as you can see in the picture above, women are actually showing up to Quakecon more and more each year.

Strange, I know.

Speaking of that picture, there’s actually a hilarious back-story.  Next to the convention center, there’s a large grass clearing used for croquet, but that night, it was to be used for something completely different.  There was a sponsor of the event gathering a crowd out on this field, and boy did he have something incredible in store for them.  He informed everyone that he intended on having a competition for a chance to win the Blue Corvette, as well as some other prizes, but this competition was unlike anything they had seen before.

The rules were simple: You take off your shoes and place them in a pile in the middle of the field.  Then, everyone stands in a large circle around the pile, given that they can stand no closer to the pile than 20 yards.  When the sponsor (the guy running the competition) threw the last shoe into the pile, everyone was to run to the pile and put on their shoes.  Finally, the first to touch the sponsor with his shoes on would win.

Sure enough, as expected, when the sponsor threw the last shoe into the pile, all hell broke loose.  It was the kind of pandamonioum and chaos that one would expect in a feeding frenzy from a pack of ravenous wild dogs.  People were throwing shoes in the air, at each other, and at passing members of the press, whom were taking photos and had nothing to do with that whole fiasco – assholes.

Anyway, it seemed that nobody expected the best part of this whole quagmire.  By the time people had managed to get their shoes on, it quickly became apparent that the sponsor of the event had actually ran off immeiately after throwing the shoe.  He was nowhere to be found for the remainder of the evening, by my accord.

The second best part of the Quakecon crowd lies within the great diversity of people at Quakecon.  Such a diverse crowd gives a great variance of stories, and when you’re an enterprising young writer for an up-and-coming auto website, people tend to share some very interesting and privvy information.  One such person in particular, who happens to be a very reliable resource, disclosed to me that F1 is scheduled to make an appearance at Indy Motor Speedway in the next couple years.  That’s right folks, the US Grand Prix will finally be back, and all three of America’s F1 fans can rest assured – you will see this soon:

Seriously, who outside of Indiana watches open wheel?

Instead, I will be talking about and comparing today’s biggest console and PC racing games, and hopefully someone at EA will read what I have to say and perhaps make a proper racing game.  I see it as me doing my part to help the world, little by little.  First up PGR4:

To give you an idea of the popularity of racing games, the picture above was actually the first computer I saw at Quakecon.  Racing games tend to test the limits for computers and consoles, and game designers and programmers also test their limits to give you the ultimate realism possible.  This means that each and every console, as well as the pc market, will strive to push their racing games above all the rest.

For those of us who have had experience in racing games, it is quite apparent that the conventional understanding for designers of these racing games was that realism was the ultimate goal.  Although, the fact of the matter is that most people tend to reject the level of realism of a virtual simulator versus the actual world.  Those nay-sayers suggest that racing games could never acheive the same affect as driving in real life.

And that is why I would like to challenge any of you to a race.

That’s right, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is on this subject.  In a past life, I played racing games competitively on the ameture, novice and even the professional level, and with that sort of experience, I’d reckon that I have the tools to properly kick anyone’s ass on a track.  And I mean on both the virtual track, as well as the real one.  Anyone who has played Gran Tourismo or FORZA Motorsports knows the amount of skill and intuition involved in driving games, and to be at the level of performance required to play competitvely, one’s skill goes far more beyond cutting corners, using the opponents as “turning-aids” and using an automatic transmission.

All that being said, I hope to have the world premier video of a new game up for tomorrow’s post.  It should be an interesting reception.  And on a side note, we should seriously force people to play racing games at least a year before they get a driver’s license.  It does actually help with driving skill.

But Quakecon isn’t just about gaming – oh no.  It’s a giant party for geeks, and believe it or not, geeks are gearheads in their own right.  While a gearhead is trying to squeeze more horsepower out of his ride, the geek is trying to squeeze more hertz out of his PC.  The Gearhead customizes his car by putting electronics in his vehicle, and a geek turns his computer into an over-sized RC car (and yes, they had RC computers at Quakecon).

In all actuality, most folks I talked to at Quakecon were not only car fans, but they also drove some sweet rides.  In the parking lot alone I saw an Aston Martin, an AMG Merc, Porsches, WRX-STI’s, and did I mention Porsches?  And to further prove how big an influence the car world has on the gaming industry (and vice versa), GM thought it would be a good time to unveil a new color – Ventrilo Blue, named after the popular gaming software of the same name.

The gamer-gearhead interaction doesn’t end there, either.  I will be writing on this topic for the rest of the week, and as you will read in tomorrow’s post racing games are only getting better, and closer to the real thing.

What happens when you mix John Carmack and Cars? PHUN!

This year, I was blessed to be able to cover the Quakecon event run by id software in Dallas, Texas, and boy did they offer us here at WebRidesTV a pleathora of new shtuff to talk about! As a matter of fact, there was so much new and exciting news in the automotive and gaming worlds that you will get to read my normal blathering banter every single day next week.

Isn’t that exciting?!

We have a number of brilliant, important and entertaining news and entertainment stories to share with you, including some exciting F1 Series news for all you racing fans out there, a new color and a close look at a sweet new kit by GM (although I doubt that will save their stock value), some beautiful new racing games, and much, much more!

Also, I have included a number of photos and videos that will entertain the masses, and surely keep you glued to your monitors for each day of next week’s blogfest. So remember kids, keep hitting that refresh button all week, starting on Monday. You are all in for quite a treat!

By the way, they gave away one of these:

That's right...A new Z51 Vette. The new color will have its WebRidesTV debut on Monday!

RTT works with the likes of Adidas, Airbus, Audi, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Dodge, EADS, Lamborghini, Maserati, Porsche, Sony Ericsson and Volvo and works with car designers to create virtual versions on in-production automobiles.

The line between reality and virtu-ality continues to blur. Newbie F1 drivers are known to play simulation games to familiarize themselves with tracks they’ve never driven on. McLaren Mercedes F1, for example, is famous for the simulation facility which allows their drivers to test themselves in various weather and track conditions without ever being there. Is Digital Polyphony, the creator of the Gran Turismo franchise on Sony’s Playstation systems, far behind in creating their own alliance of similar type?