Set up with an abundance of industry experience at the helm, Beamdog was founded by ex-Bioware founder, Trent Oster and game developer, Cameron Tofer. As Trent Oster explains “I want a great selection of the best games ever made, all in one place and I want to get playing fast; that is what we intend for Beamdog.” Hey, who can disagree with that?

Go to www.beamdog.com to register.

In our interview with a member of the team behind one of the largest simulation communities in the World, we discover that the social and political landscape of Truck sim fans is far from a quaint group of individuals mutually co-habiting the same online space; it’s a world of rampant plagiarism and competition, limited budgets and company closures. But it’s also one of passion and dedication, of like minded gamers that really aren’t all to different from their core gaming cousins.

So if you’ve ever wondered what the biggest debates in simulators are, what the best title to get started with this unique hobby is or why Truck sim players are really just big kids at heart, you’ve come to the right article!

Xero: First question for you, who are you and what do you do?

Waldi: Well, my name is Michał, but everybody call me Waldi. I am 24 years old and I am the editor of HardTruckSite. I am a big fan of trucks and narrow-gauge railways but unfortunately girls don’t understand my passions, so I’m still single :-). A few weeks ago I left my job and now I can spend much more time extending our website about truck sims. Of course it can’t endure forever so  I am still looking for a new job.

X: Next, is something we ask each person we talk to here at Midlife Gamer, it’s a subject very near and dear to all our hearts; what is your favourite beverage and what is your favourite biscuit (or “cookie” to those outside the UK)?

W: Unfortunately many people in Europe use invidious stereotypes thinking what Polish people like to drink. They think that citizens of our country are alcoholics who never sober up… It’s not true. As many adult people in Poland I like to drink something from time to time but I cannot tell you that any type of alcohol is my favourite beverage.  To be honest, my favourite beverage is the mineral water bottled in one of the most beautiful Polish spas – Muszyna.

I don’t like the taste of sweet biscuits but I used to eat them when I was much younger. My favourite ones were waffles with toffee filling.

X: So I suppose one of the most important questions I should ask is, why do you love Truck sims? What is it about the genre that piqued your interest to begin with?

W: I think that every truck sims fan has his own history and his own reasons for being interested in that genre. There are a few main reasons. Probably every small boy dreamt about being a truck driver. These games give people the possibility to be one for a moment. Some people are simply fans of simulators and big machines like trucks, trains, planes. They are people who prefer imitating real life and real machines than running through a virtual map with an AK-47. The third group are people who want to be a real driver, and it’s their plan, not  just a dream. Most of them have a truck driver in their families and want to follow in this tradition.

I’m a mixture of both. It’s obvious that I was dreaming about being a truck driver when I was very young, but my serious interest began many years ago when I found one of the oldest truck sims in a local shop. I thought ‘the price is low, it would be nice to pretend to be a truck driver’.  Now I am a typical truck fan :-)

X: The community surrounding truck sims seems to be really passionate, certainly a lot more so than many other fan bases out there. What is it about the genre, do you think, that facilitates this enthusiasm?

W: Unfortunately only a few of the truck fans will be allowed to drive them for real in the future. These sims give them possibility to try it. You must know that when you sit in front of truck’s steering wheel you can feel like the king of the road, you can experience that beautiful feeling and emotion of uninhibited freedom and independence. Probably every small boy dreamt about being a truck driver. You will understand what I mean only if you try it!

Most of the truck sims are produced by the Czech developer – SCS Software. Their games have one enormous advantage: they are easily edited. Players can easily make their own trucks, trailers and maps. Polish truck fans prepared two big maps of Poland for 18 Wheels of Steel: Pedal to the Metal and 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin. This group of enthusiasts is preparing now one for German Truck Simulator. To be honest this Polish map for GTS looks much better than maps prepared by the developer.

These games are not the ones which finish in 20 or even 50 hours and then put back on the shelf. Every day you can download new trucks prepared by fans, you can download new maps. You can also prepare your own paint jobs.

To sum up, people are passionate because they are truck fans and because SCS games have a kind of life after life.

X: What was it that motivated you to begin a website specialising in this fairly niche area of games?

W: HardTruckSite was founded in November 2003 by one of my best friends. It was a completely different time, intermittent areas with access to broadband and web domains were very expensive, consequently there were no sites offering free web forums. Now everybody can set up his own site for free. In 2003 our decision was quite clever. We all were playing Hard Truck 2 and King of the Road. We wanted to show player’s point of view about those games and create a social place for all Truck sims fans. A few months later we decided to try our hands as game modifiers. We made Polish Pack for 18 Wheels of Steel: Pedal to the Metal. It was a revolutionary and pioneering project which became popular across Europe.

X: Are there any particular challenges that you face in the day to day running of the site? What are the rewards?

W: Every day we take part in a market share gamble with opponents who prefer quantity, not quality. Now most sites are only forum based, on one of most common engines when they create a download section. They put add-ons shared on well known, free file hosting services and many up linkers are not checking them, they are simply copying them from other sites.

We are going against the flow. We focus on editorial activity. We search for interesting news, we prepare articles about games, and we write manuals on how to modify truck simulators. Unfortunately there are next-to-nothing-people in Poland, who are copying our work. We must fight therefore fight this plague of plagiarism as every week we find our news copied word for word without any reference given. Sometimes we find our articles and manuals accredited to someone else! Once we found a site with an owner who was copying all of his news from our site. Unfortunately he hadn’t seen that there is a “read more” button in most of them. He had therefore only copied half articles…

Now we must challenge the difficulty of rebuilding our portal. It doesn’t mean only changing engines and themes. We are also re-organising our team and preparing next surprises for our guests.

Rewards? The only one is satisfaction. We are doing all of this because of our passion.

X: Are you in contact with the main sim developers? Are they particularly communicative to fan sites?

W: The best known market player is SCS Software. They are a tiny company so they don’t have a big marketing department but I tip my hat to Pavel Sebor, their Managing Director. He is in charge of finances, marketing, negotiations with publishers and contacts with fans. He is very dedicated to his work and when it’s necessary he is geared to answer emails long into the night. Our marketing specialist works with him frequently.

We were also cooperating with TopWare Poland, SCS’s games publisher in Poland. Truck simulators were their main base of existence. Actually, one of our people was working for them as a kind of “fan base relations manager” but unfortunately the company collapsed a few weeks ago. At the moment we are also working with Cenega, the polish publisher of Rig’n’Roll.

X: Simulator games, in wider press at least, tend to have certain stigmas automatically pressed on them and their surrounding communities. Why do you feel this is, are any of these stereotypes particularly true, and is it something that you are concerned with at all?

W: I don’t think that there are stigmas. On the other hand simulators are extremely boring for most players. Typical gamers will spend a maximum of two or three evenings playing core games. Then he will put it back on the shelf, and never come back. Only simulator fans and children can feel pleasure shuttling through Europe with different cargo loads. Unfortunately many players are growing out of the genre very fast.  It’s why truck sims are an extremely niche area.

X: How far do fans go to replicate the authentic Truck driving experience? Would you say the hobby is expensive?

W: In my opinion it isn’t an expensive hobby. It’s connected with buying a steering wheel, which is useful in all racing games. The rest could be done for free. People drive observing Polish law, they listen to country music or use internet versions of CB-radio.

X: After speaking with Pavel Sebor from SCS Software, he noted that his company and Truck sim fans in general, have a very large presence in Eastern Europe. Being a Polish orientated site, why do you feel the genre had taken off in a big way in your part of the world as opposed to others?

W: One of the biggest reasons may be piracy. Despite low prices of truck sims, many people are downloading them from the web. Fortunately, a few weeks later, some of them are going to shops and buying original copies. Most of the buyers are from those three groups that I described before. What is more our part of Europe has big traditions in modifying these games. People play them because they know that after a few days there will be the first add-ons released and a few months later the first maps. SCS had an easier beginning in Poland because their first game had the “Hard Truck” brand in the title.

X: As a defining voice in the community, which titles would you say are the best in the field? Are there any that you would strongly recommend to beginners or those interested in getting involved?

W: I can recommend all of the games developed by SCS Software. Each of them has special features unseen in the next titles. Everybody can find something suitable for themselves among their titles. It’s extremely difficult to say which one is the best in the field. We suggest Rig’n’Roll developed by 1C Software as the best choice for beginners.

X: Finally, what would you say were the biggest disagreements or points of contention for truck sim fans? Are there any Sonic Vs Mario style debates for example?

W: With the release of each next game people argue as to which one is the best. But the biggest debate is about the future of truck sims. People discuss if they should become more and more realistic (in the way that an instructional fighter simulator for army use is a simulator) or become more like arcade games (such as 18 Wheels of Steel: Convoy).

In the first case fans will be delighted, but they will be the only buyers. In the second, the demand will be much bigger, but the fan base will be disappointed.

Martyn Brown, Business Development Director at Team 17, highlights “Worms Reloaded has been a labour of love for the team. It has been almost 10 years since the last 2D game was released on PC. [The game] will introduce much of what gamers love about the good old days.”

Worms Reloaded should be the most comprehensive of 2D Worms, with 60 single-player missions featured, 45-plus weapons and a landscape creator that will let you make your very own maps. Take a look at the image below for a sample of the creator.

You can pre-order Worms Reloaded from today with 10% discount, early access to the game and exclusive in-game items from http://store.steampowered.com/app/22600 More information can be found at Team17′s official site: www.team17.com

Now when I look for trailers they generally fit into 3 catagories, the 100% gameplay trailers, the cinematic story based trailer and then there are the trailers which are almost shortfilms and I think this first trailer falls into the latter catagory, although it offers little information into what the game will become, the trailer for Megaman Universe is just a balls out great little trailer!

Universes seem to be the latest craze, with Megaman having its own universe and DC doing the same, its time for Lego to jump on the same bandwagon, Lego Universe will be an MMO which sets the player the task of protecting Imagination from dark forces, Lego Universe launches in October for the PC and Mac.

Now Kinect may not have wowed audiences like the 3DS or looked as cool as Playstation Move but darn it, I can’t help but smile when I watch the cheesiest of cheesy families flailing their extremities about like wild chimpanzees as they play one of the launch titles for this new motion control technology Kinect Sports, and I can’t deny that secretly I too want to flail about in the same way, just bring down the price first!

With E3 just behind us and the annual list of awards handed out we now begin to see games using these awards and nominations in their advertising, demonstrating this is Shank, which was nominated for, Best Downloadable Game , Excellence in Visual Art, Best New Game, Best Action Game, making definately a title worthy of your notice, so without any further ado coming to XBLA and PSN in August its Shank.

Now for that knock out blow, clearly Capcom weren’t happy with simply pitting its team of Street Fighters against the super heroes of Marvel as they seemed determined to pit their wits against every fighting franchise around, which is why we can all get excited and giddy at the prospect of Street Fighter X Tekken.

And with that I bid you adieu, enjoy you games and enjoy your Gasm! I’ll be back next week so look out for your next fix of Trailer-Gasm! coming soon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGj9ZMtVIoA

Megaman Universe, Developer/Publisher: Capcom

Lego Universe, Developer: NetDevil, Publisher: Warner Bros. Entertainment

Kinect Sports, Developer: Rare, Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Shank, Developer: Klei Entertainment, Publisher: Electronic Arts

Street Fighter X Tekken, Developer/Publisher: Capcom/Namco Bandai

It marks a charge for LOVEFiLM towards a similar style of business as Netflix in the US, where streamed online content plays a big part of the value for customers. LOVEFiLM currently offer thousands of films and TV shows to watch online via the LOVEFiLM player. And although not strictly gaming news, the agreement will allow for LOVEFiLM to distribute content on a wider range of devices and platforms, possibly leading to further agreements with the lead console holders, such as Sony and Microsoft, in a similar deal as Microsoft have with Netflix for the integration on the Xbox 360. Lesley Mackenzie of LOVEFiLM stated “our agreement signifies our passion for offering high-quality digital content to our members by giving them the widest possible platform choice, value and convenience.” And if that isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is.

LOVEFiLM can be found online at www.lovefilm.com

Mark Browning of ITN Productions highlights “as the UK’s leading entertainment show on video gaming online, we’re delighted to be working with the UK’s biggest games awards. We look to create Joysticks-related content for Game On [viewers] in the run up”.

I’d previously not heard of the Game On channel and I’m sure many of you will be the same, and such quality output as the coverage of the awards can only help in attracting a more mainstream audience.

Game On can be found on its own YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/gameon For more information on the Golden Joystick Awards and to register your votes visit www.goldenjoystick.com

Sequel to last year’s horror film tie-in Saw: The Videogame that was received as ‘distinctly average’ by mainstream critics, Saw II: Flesh and Blood will be but one of the head-liners for Konami, although it’ll have to show something different from the initial game to justify a spot at the event. The game takes place between the second and third films, with the press release promising “all-new stomach-twisting traps” (not sure if that means literally or metaphorically) and “more visceral combat”. Konami are also planning to showcase their interactive hip-hop game Def Jam Rapstar which we reported on a few weeks back, featuring artists from LL Cool J, Chipmunk and Ludacris.

Not excited yet? How about a return to the Castlevania series with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow? A title that has been overseen by none other than Hideo Kojima throughout its production- creator of the MGS series. As a reboot of the prolific series, it’s certainly not going to be without attention from press at the expo and we’ll be excited to see what has become of the Belmont clan and the action adventure series that has struggled to find a place with modern console gamers. The developers claim to be sticking true to the origins of the series, although they have also made newcomers welcome by distancing the game from previous instalments in Castlevania history.

“It’s great to have Konami on-board with such a fantastic line up, particularly one that demonstrates the eclectic mix of games that will be on show and, most importantly, playable”, so says Rupert Loman- Managing Director at Eurogamer. What we’ve seen announced so far, the Eurogamer Expo 2010 should be the number one destination for any gamer out there. More on the line-up when announced.

Have a look at our interview with Tom Champion who is involved with organising the event to get an insider’s view on what the show holds in store for gamer. Or visit http://expo.eurogamer.net/ for more information and available tickets.

It’s another bid for FIFA to appeal to another demographic for sure, but the street scene is highly unlikely to entice players toward the brand. It feels forced and out of place in what is otherwise a highly competent and mature game, although I may very well be misguided in my thoughts toward the addition- be sure to leave your thoughts below-  and you might well love the chance to deck out in street wear, complete wall jumps and send shocks to opponents. You can however complement EA are forwarding what sounds like a well rounded experience in its own right into one portion of the game, they are boasting a “soundtrack that brings the culture of the area” to life, so expect bangin’ tunes from the ghettos in London, to the samba beats in Brazil, as well as additional modes that will add to the new inclusion.

Have a look at the screenshot above and you should be able to (hopefully) make out Andres Iniesta in street regalia trying out his luck indoors. It’ll be fascinating to see what the Wii sales are like come launch and whether the new addition can boost sales for the best-selling console. We may well see this included in future additions of the series for all consoles if EA get their way…

Visit www.easports.co.uk/fifa for more information. FIFA 11 will be available on all major platforms on 1st October 2010 in Europe and Asia and 4th October for the US.

For those who vote, they’ll be over 550 cars to choose from, including those from the biggest leading manufacturers, such as Lamborghini and Aston Martin, whilst the tracks that can be voted on are equally prolific, from Silverstone to the famed Le Mans circuit in France. CEO of Eutechnyx- Brian Jobling, highlights “engaging with the community in this way and using their feedback to shape the game for launch will ensure they are the heart of Auto Club Revolution. We’re all really looking forward to finding out what cars and tracks come top. Let voting commence.” It certainly might force out the less powerful and dull motors in other titles, with only the most popular being chosen. Not only reducing cost implications, it also allows a more high quality marker to be set. I wouldn’t expect the other cars to miss out on the game altogether however, with the free to play MMO model thriving out of additional, and paid, content updates. If the game can live up to its hype of racing excellence, then this could turn out to be one of the few racing MMO’s available.

Votes can be logged here. A dedicated ACR Forum has also been set up which allows gamers to discuss their votes and keep up to date with all ACR news.

Enter then Vector Unit, the developers of Hydro Thunder Hurricane – a full fledged sequel to the speed boat racing original released on home consoles towards the very tail end of the 20th century – who seemingly felt that there was life left in this old (sea)horse yet. Coming to market as an Xbox exclusive, as the next release in this year’s Summer Of Arcade, following up the art-house indie gem Limbo with a more… traditional… approach to games design and this being their first release, the odds were always going to be stacked against the team at Vector Unit to create a memorable downloadable title.

Yet somehow, HTH has managed to come out of seemingly nowhere to be one of the most fun and compelling racers in recent memory, providing a fitting homage to the original Hydro Thunder, yet updating the admittedly simple formula far enough to seem relevant in a market place that is, rather fittingly, flooded with arguably more sophisticated arcade racers right now.

Incorporating standard races, gate challenges dubbed ‘Ring Master’ mode and a ‘Gauntlet’ mode (wherein the player is required to make it to the end of the track without hitting too many explosive barrels), plus local and online multiplayer, in terms of framing Hydro Thunder Hurricane is nothing to write home about, though these varied methods of play do enable some elegant recycling of the title’s eight tracks. However this simple structure (and the game’s exceptionally fast load times) gets you into the right games for the right mood quickly. Fancy utilising the full capabilities of your vehicle and learning the riskier routes? Get straight into the Ring Master mode. Want a frenetic race to the finish? A standard race is the order of the day. Want to be a little more thoughtful in your racing? Gauntlet mode. Need to take on all comers and prove yourself? Online. From a limited set of mechanics then, this arcade racer covers a lot of bases.

Whereas the original Hydro Thunder outing could, if we were being cynical, have been accused at the time of being a Wipeout clone, Hurricane has a lot more verticality and more routes through its colourful world than Sony‘s flagship future rave racer. The waves for instance are much more integral to the game this time round, much in the same way Wave Race 64 has players taking into account how they enter a corner in relation to the surf around them. That said, HTH isn’t nearly as tricky as Wave Race and average players will only start to become truly challenged late into the game, by which point they’ll probably have unlocked most of the really important content. And – OH MY GOSH – the-unlocks! Perfectly paced, the game rewards you after almost every race with a new boat, paint job, avatar item, challenge, achievement or track to race on, providing that much needed impetus to continue when you’re twenty races into a session.

Racing is fluid (see what I did there?) and has a lot more nuances to it than its fairly simple accelerate, brake, jump, boost and steer would bely, with knowing when and how to boost being key to improving track times. The feeling of speed, height and weight has been captured well here, making for an adrenaline fuelled ride each time you start up the on-board motor.

It’s a shame then that the audio never quite matches up to the action on screen, the original soundtrack being a little middle of the road and the overly excited announcer starting to grate on occasion. It’s fine in the arcade to hear a context sensitive audio clip on a specific part of a track, because your interaction with that title is likely to be much less often than a home release, but hearing the same FX each time you go past an area in an environment, just feels a little lazy on the part of the audio team, as does the rest of the aural presentation.

If you loved the original Hydro Thunder, Hurricane is a tremendous return to form for the franchise, and if you’re looking for a slightly more old school (read: straightforward) arcade racer, this comes highly recommended. Hydro Thunder Hurricane is excellent and though it doesn’t break any new ground, it’s a thoroughly accomplished title and a fine – albeit polemic – release to follow up Limbo in this second week of the XBL Summer of Arcade.

MLG Rating: 8/10

Platform: Xbox Release Date: 28/07/2010

Disclosure: Midlife Gamer were provided a digital copy of Hydro Thunder Hurricane for review purposes by the promoter. The title was reviewed over the course of five days on an Xbox 360 Pro. For more information on what our scores mean, plus details of our reviews policy, click here.