Codemasters Shows Its Best Side

Codemasters stopped by the videogames.com offices today with three of its PlayStation titles slated for release this fall: Touring Car Challenge, Music 2000, and No Fear Downhill Mountain Bike Racing. Here's a quick look at what we found.

Touring Car Challenge:The game looks a lot better than its previous attempt and now features damage effects such as shattering windows, dents, and bumpers that sometimes fall off after a big collision. Sixteen cars can run onscreen at once, with little to no slowdown. Also, the game runs fairly smooth in two-player mode. The game features 18 official tracks from the circuit, as well as all the real races, teams, and cars. Touring Car Challenge is scheduled for release on October 26.

Music 2000:Music 2000, as it's tentatively titled, is a music-making tool similar to those seen on the PC, such as cool edit. The game has more than 4,500 different music components that let you construct your own tracks, ranging from trance to hip-hop. The disc also contains 6,000 different vocals so you can create songs by combining them with various beats and sounds. In addition, Music 2000 lets you sample forty seconds of audio from any CD you put in the PlayStation, and you can use this audio with the supplied samples. To go along with the music you can create a video of sorts using a collection of objects and backgrounds, such as 3D characters that have changeable preset animations. You can also select the auto-generate-video feature and pop in any CD or use one of the tracks you make, and the game will put on a show without having to assemble it yourself. There is also a multiplayer mode that lets you jam with up to four people; this mode simply lets each player assign a sound or beat to each button to try and make music on the fly. Music 2000 is scheduled for release on November 16.

No Fear Downhill Mountain Bike Racing:As the name implies, No Fear Downhill Mountain Bike Racing lets you race on 25 trails in nine countries around the world. The game plays pretty much like any other racing game, but since you're on a bike, you have an energy meter that goes down as you pedal and which regenerates when you're coasting. If your energy gets too low, your racer gets too tired to pedal, making it necessary for you to manage energy by coasting when you can and pedaling when you must. You can change all kinds of stuff on your bike - like gear ratio settings and tires - to make it ride better in different types of terrain and conditions. The game will be available for the PlayStation on November 9, with a PC version following early next year.