STCC which is set for a November 25th release (in Europe) is the first realistic simulation of the Swedish Touring Car Championship, the game features six detailed tracks that have been modelled after their real life counterparts, 15 real STCC drivers are also featured in the game and ten different cars are available to choose from including the Swedish Volvo S40 and others.

In terms of game modes, STCC offers both full Championship with time qualification, shoot out and standard race each with variable difficulty. For the tweaking freaks there are options for setting tires, suspension, breaks, gears etc. To add a bit of realism to the mix there's real-time car damage inflicted when you bump into your opponents or go for a spin out on the grass. And of course in this day and age there is support for both LAN and Internet multiplayer gaming, with all the various game modes available online and on dedicated servers. There's even an IRC chat lobby where you can meet up with players from around the world to race in a mix of real life opponents as well as computer controlled cars.

Last but not least being a game which derives its heritage from the strong Direct3D engine of Motorhead, the game offers some pretty spiffy visuals and supports the majority of 3D features that today's high-end 3D accelerators can offer including 32-bit rendering, AGP texturing (with 24-bit textures for that extra detail), tri-linear filtering, single pass multi-texturing and 24-bit Z buffering for that extra depth.

Anders Hammervald
Contributing Editor