NASCAR: Inside Line wraps up DLC season with final release

Hey NASCAR Fans,

As the checkered flag waved for the last time this season over the weekend at Homestead, NASCAR fans and racers everywhere can still relive the tremendous 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season with Activision's and Eutechnyx's NASCAR The Game: Inside Line, available now* for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Alongside the excitement of every race weekend, Inside Line Highlight DLC packs were released, giving players and diehard fans the chance to relive and rewrite the most memorable NASCAR moments from previous races using telemetry data.

Throughout the 2013 season, NASCAR The Game: Inside Line released a total of 28 DLC packs**, starting off at Daytona and crossing the finish line at Homestead, including a free NASCAR Sprint All-Star DLC pack. The latest batch of Inside Line Highlights, a sampling of which is described below, can be purchased in discounted bundles for only 30 in-game tickets each:

Bundle Pack 1
Bank of America 500, Charlotte, October 12
Highlight: Holding the Lead
Who: Kasey Kahne
Type: Rewrite
Description: Rewrite history and help Kasey Kahne hold off Brad Keselowski and take the win at Charlotte

Camping World RV Sales 500, Talladega, October 20
Highlight: Through the Pack
Who: Kurt Busch
Type: Relive
Description: Drive as Kurt Busch and match his fight into the top ten by the start of lap 50

Bundle Pack 2
Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 Powered By Kroger, Martinsville, October 27
Highlight: Manoeuvring Past Matt
Who: Jeff Gordon
Type: Relive
Description: Drive as Jeff Gordon and take the lead from Matt Kenseth by the end of lap 480

AAA Texas 500, Texas, November 3
Highlight: 88 to the lead!
Who: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Type: Rewrite
Description: Dale Jr. was in 5th place for the green flag on lap 80, rewrite the restart and help the 88 into first position in three laps

Bundle Pack 3
Advocare 500, Phoenix, November 10
Highlight: Leading From Pole
Who: Jimme Johnson
Type: Rewrite
Description: Jimme Johnson had a tough first lap, losing a lot of places after a close call with Joey Logano. Rewrite the start and hold the lead after 3 laps.

Ford Ecoboost 400, Homestead, November 17
Highlight: Two Positions, One Pass
Who: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Type: Relive
Description: On lap 224 Dale Jr. went from third to frist in a great pass on the outside. Can you relive his pass and run around the outside?

NASCAR The Game: Inside Line is now available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Keep up to speed on the latest NASCAR The Game: Inside Line news at www.NASCARTheGame.com or join us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NASCARthegame) and Twitter (@NASCARTheGame).

*Inside Line Highlights DLC only available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
**Races at Bristol, Kansas and Dover will not be available

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Disney Infinity opens up its Toy Box, gives us a look inside

by David Hinkle on Jun 26th 2013 8:00PM

Toy Box mode is Disney Infinity's sandbox creation side, allowing you to construct your own worlds in real-time. What you create is based on what in-game content you've unlocked. It's an open-ended mode where Disney franchises can collide within the same arena, though we suppose that can be said about Disney infinity in general too.

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'The Incompetent Perfectionist': Inside SpyParty dev Chris Hecker's process

by Ben Gilbert on Feb 25th 2011 10:25AM

"When you're trying to do that perfect jewel, there's a kind of bar you have to hit. People argue that Jon [Blow, developer of Braid] could've shipped with the programmer art -- I mean, it won the IGF design competition. And I don't think so. I think the game design was the most important part, but the whole package came together so well -- the way David [Hellman's] art looked with the thing, and the .... I think that there's a certain quality bar that is the expression of what you're trying to do, and you kind of have to hit that."

SpyParty developer Chris Hecker doesn't plan on releasing his ambitious one-on-one spy game until he feels that it's hit the "perfect jewel" point -- an indescribable essence, or rather, a point in development when the concept and execution gel. "I'm not that interested in shipping the earlier version of it," he told me at an NYU coffeeshop late last year. Hecker's bringing the game with him to next week's Game Developer's Conference where he'll also be giving a few short lectures. And yes, he'll be making the trek across the country in a few weeks to PAX East so that everyone can check it out.

That said, he understands that the game needs to launch at some point. And he's not getting any younger, to boot. "If you spend three years with every game, you don't have that many games in you, right? As a developer. How long is your working life? You end up with six or 10 games you could ever make in your life. These iPhone guys, they do six times that many games, right? But I think that, for me, it's more important to have that 'perfect' thing." Not that Hecker thinks SpyParty will be "perfect," exactly. He relates an anecdote:

"I was at a therapist one time and I said that I feel like an incompetent perfectionist. And he said, 'There's no other kind.' [laughs] But, you know, as close as I can get to that, right? And so, it's just really important to me that it really crystallizes all these things that I want to do right now in game design, so yeah, it's gonna take awhile."

Though SpyParty is currently running on PC only, Hecker has plans to move the game to consoles when the time is right, which is to say, "at some point." At this point in development, however, he's more concerned with making the game as good as it can be. The transition to consoles is out of his hands. "It's the weather, right? You can't control the weather. There's nothing you can do. The best thing I can do is make the most awesome game I possibly can, and I just have to believe that it'll work out if I do that. And so that's what I'm trying to do," he explained.

He's got a long road ahead, as the entire single-player aspect of the game has yet to be worked out. He had just hashed out a bunch of ideas with a laundry list of all-star Bay Area indie game developers when we spoke -- Jonathan Blow (Braid), "people from Maxis," Doug Church (ex-Looking Glass), Marc ten Bosch (Miegakure), David Sirlin, Rod Humble (former exec. VP at EA and indie dev), and Edmund McMillen (Super Meat Boy/Team Meat), among others -- brainstorming 10 pages of barely readable notes.

The base they came up with: "At the very base, the kind of minimum bar I have to hit, is tutorial [for the single player]. The game is so weird and different that I have to have an awesome tutorial, right? So, I think I can make a compelling tutorial, that's fun to play as itself, but it also works as a tutorial." The perfectionist Hecker is, however, means that the concept of a base tutorial means something more complex -- dare I say, more interesting -- than you might expect.

"I don't wanna be Britney Spears or U2, but I would love to be that mid-range band." - Chris Hecker

"We were brainstorming about what the sniper missions would be, and my friend Alex Kerfoot was like, 'Oh, the first sniper mission should totally be "Find the guy with the blue lapel pin."' And that's interesting as a mission because it's immediately like, 'Oh, this game is very different,' because I have to slow down and and just look around."

He likened it to the StarCraft 2 model of single-player and multiplayer being separate beasts: "It's clearly related, but it's not the same thing. And I hope that I can do that." Hecker's also optioning a practice and campaign mode, as well as more nuanced mission training modes. "You could imagine later sniper tutorial missions to be like, 'Someone in the next minute is going to tell a joke that flops. Identify that person.'"

And as far as what platforms he's hoping SpyParty to end up on, Hecker's got big plans. "Best case, what I would love, who knows what's gonna happen, is shipment on all three of those platforms," referring to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. "If Wii HD comes out in time and can support 30 animated characters and the art style I want, I'm totally down," he added, continuing, "I have nothing against the Wii as a platform, and I think it's great that there's so many of them out there. I just don't think the current Wii would run my game -- there are too many animated characters."

The version he's bringing to GDC and PAX East will be the PC iteration, he told me, as the other versions were still just a plan for the future when we spoke. That said, he's got his sights set on digital platforms like XBLA, PSN, and Steam rather than a brick-and-mortar launch.

For now, Hecker's got enough savings to last for "at least two or three years" of development, though he admitted he's open to the idea of "small loans from friends and family" when he eventually wants an artist or needs outside help. The idea of a venture capitalist or angel investor isn't on the plate, however, though the Indie Fund or a full-on publisher contract are other options down the road.

"I would love to have a small team," Hecker said of his aspiration -- modeled after an inspiration.

"I really look up to and envy They Might Be Giants; or Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. They're not U2, by any stretch. U2 can make $100 million by going on tour, right? They Might Be Giants and Bela Fleck: they tour, and they make a salary -- all these mid-range bands," he reflected. "But they do exactly what they wanna do. They have enough of a fanbase, enough clout, and enough income that they can do whatever they want, and expect to make enough to support their families. I don't wanna be Britney Spears or U2, but I would love to be that mid-range band."

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