Gaming News Round-Up: March 29th, 2005

Today's round-up includes news of an Atari-sponsored student game design challenge, as well as a new urban racing title from Ubisoft and some unique practice for a Formula 1 racing champion. - The Parsons School of Design, attached to the New School University in New York, will hold a 24-hour game design challenge called "Retro Redux," where-in students will create a game within the time limit using the Atari 2600 platform. The event, co-sponsored by Atari, will be held from April 2-3, after which awards will be handed out in various categories at a ceremony on April 4. Teams of students will win awards such as most innovative, best sound, and best visuals, and one team's game will be selected to appear on an upcoming Atari Flashback standalone unit. More information is available at the Retro Redux website. - Jacques Villeneuve, 1997 world champion of the Formula 1 racing circuit, reports that he intends to use an F-1 videogame to help train for his upcoming race in the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is held from April 1st to April 3rd. Villeneuve, who has never raced on the track before or even seen others tackle the course on TV, commented: "I am also going to play with an F-1 video game that includes this track to get used to the layout." Sadly, the driver made no indication of precisely which F-1 title he prefers for pre-race simulation. - French-headquartered publisher Ubisoft has announced 187: Ride or Die, a new "urban-themed combat racing game" which will ship for the current home consoles and PC by the end of this summer. The game, formerly called Notorious: Die to Drive, and shown at E3 2004 under that name, features the voices and likenesses of actors including Larenz Tate (Menace II Society, Ray), Noel Gugliemi (Training Day, The Fast and the Furious), and Guerilla Black, and apparently "tells the story of a reluctant urban hero named Buck (L. Tate), a young man living a thug's life seething with money, fast cars and beautiful women -- with danger lurking around every corner." - Also updated on Gamasutra today (free reg. req.): a detailed technical feature from Dag Frommhold and Fabian Röken discussing the advantages of automated game testing, as well as newly advertised jobs from Activision/Luxoflux, Rainbow Studios, Blue Fang Games, Autodesk, and more.