The name SimBin is synonymous with breathtaking reality for PC race fans.‚  For years SimBin has steadily released first rate-racing sims, most famously in their latest PC release, GTR Evolution.‚  An over the top commitment to providing ultimate immersion and sense of wonder for their hardened fans has won the development studio high praises.‚  However, the Swedish studio was not satisfied with dominating the PC demographic.‚  Their sights moved to the powerhouse of a gaming platform, the Xbox 360.‚  For the past two years SimBin has been working tirelessly to perfect their winning formula and the end result is RACE Pro, the most realistic racing title I have ever played.

Before we delve deep into the components that make up RACE Pro, it should be known that the $40 price tag is clear evidence that SimBin desired to nail core game-play, multi-player both online and off, and not much else.‚  That is not to say RACE Pro is a title you will zoom through in three hours and be on your merry way, nothing could be less true.‚  Only that the narrative is absent, your desire to progress is fueled not on your passion for a character, rather for your desire to win every race for your own sake.

When first firing up RACE Pro you’ll be treated to some over glorified corporate logo’s.‚  One that stood out however was that of LIZARD, the core game engine RACE Pro.‚  Developed in-house, the LIZARD engine is a reusable engine primarily focused on the racing genre, but SimBin is hinting at future application to a first person shooter title utilizing the engine.‚  Furthermore, while RACE Pro is exclusive to the Xbox 360, SimBin is continuously building and adapting the engine to fit the needs of another next-gen console.‚  Any guesses? That’s right, the PlayStation 3.

RACE Pro has two major single player modes, Career, and Championship.‚  Career has seven different contract classes, labeled A through H each constituting a different car class on varied courses.‚  Each contract begins with a tryout in which you must beat a predetermined lap pace.‚  By completing a tryout, your “credit” fee to sign the contract is dramatically reduced to an affordable level.

Now that you are a signed driver, what else is there to do but prove yourself against formidable AI opponents on the course?‚  Each contract consists of three races that vary from two laps in a Mini Cooper against five others to the grueling seven lap, eighteen minute affair in a Formula 3000 racer.

Many of the courses are accurate representations of their real world counterparts.‚  I guess this would mean something to me if I knew anything about the sport and its famous locations, but even though I don’t, there is lasting appeal in each and every course.‚  ‚ My personal favorite, Macau, set on the urban streets of Portugal features long straight-aways followed by the narrowest of hairpin turns, a recipe that yields frustration but also pure joy when executed correctly.

Before you begin a contract you must select your difficulty setting.‚  Novice difficulty, which is a must for beginners, allows all driving assistants to be on and at their highest level.‚  The various driving aids are traction control, antilock brakes, the race line, and stability help.‚  Both novice and semi-pro allow the driving aids at a certain degree but professional removes every single driving assistant and is the most challenging experience I have ever encountered.‚  The race line, spoken about earlier, shows the best possible route to take when approaching corners and brake periods.‚  Furthermore, this line changes color and number to correspond with the severity.‚  A green line with a number 6 means the turn is barely noticeable and there is no need to slow down.‚  On the other end of the spectrum, a dark red line with a number 1 means you must almost come to a complete stop to negotiate the turn.

The load screen that follows your difficulty selection shows the course you are about to race on and has hints and details available for each and every turn.‚  Using the D-pad to scroll over a particular turn will show you the number severity of the turn and how, in words, is best to approach it.‚  I found this tool incredibly useful.‚  In the latter stages of the game when getting a great start is so very key, you must know how to approach a turn before you enter it, and without these hints you’ll see yourself lagging behind unable to catch up.

Atari, on the home continent of its parent company, Infogrames, brought the same strong lineup of games to Leipzig as it did to E3 this year.

Some of its top premiering titles include What’s Cooking wit Jamie Oliver for the Nintendo DS, which Nintendo featured in its E3 press conference, as well as My Horse and Me 2 for Wii and DS, the mature “Witcher Enhanced Edition” for a good role-playing experience, and the PS3 port of Alone in the Dark.

For anime fans, Atari is bringing out Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 for PlayStation 2 and Naruto: Ultimate NInja Storm for PlayStation 3, which expands from the original anime storyline. Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit for PlayStation 3 will also be around.

One game we did not see at E3 was Family Trainer for Wii, featuring mat-based fun and games designed to get the blood pumping family-wide.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition was one of the top PC titles we demoed at E3, and it promises to include a bunch of gameplay improvements and new content when released.

Another game that ranks high on the potentiometer is Race Pro for Xbox 360, which brings a little familiar taste of Gran Turismo to Xbox. The game is very realistic, but be warned that it’s no arcade racer. Race Pro requires subtle adjustments, lots of braking and gear shifting and other movements — but that what y’all wanted in a realistic racer eh?

For information about Atari’s entire product line up visit www.atari.com.

LOS ANGELES — The biggest underdog story of E3 was by far Atari. As a company that’s been through every kind of trouble imaginable in the last few years; management changes, financial troubles, and struggling through complicated ownership situations with their French parent company, Infogrames, Atari managed to put out a well-rounded display of their game development potential.

Winning E3′s Best in Show for DS and PSP, N+ led the charge to highly acclaimed gaming. Based on the award winning flash-game N, N+ is a uniquely addictive platformer experience.

As a ninja trying to obtain as much gold as possible during your average one and a half minute lifespan, N+ has 300 puzzling levels to explore, plus some hidden unlockable ones. Each level of N+ has a door to the next level, gold coins to obtain, and various robotic bombs and missiles to explode a player as often as possible. Luckily for N the ninja, he has remarkable regenerative capabilities that allow the player to restart the same level where they most recently had a tragic death.

In addition to the faithful translation of the original online game, the DS and PSP versions also have a wide array of multiplayer capabilities. With 100 cooperative levels and 50 competitive levels, N+ also had the ability to download new maps from the N server as well as design new maps with the integrated level editor. The ability to share levels over the PSP and DS wireless connectivity services is new to the N universe.

N+ is coming to handheld systems worldwide on August 12.

Atari’s big PC title came in the form of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition; an updated version of the role-playing game released in October 2007. In addition to updated features like more than 5000 rerecorded lines of dialogue and a new character differentiation system for non-playable characters, the enhanced edition also includes a multilingual game disc which allows any language combination of voice-over and subtitles, the official soundtrack CD and a short story by The Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski.

The Witcher, based on the novels by Sapkowski, has won more than 90 awards and has sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide since its release in 2007. The player takes on the role of the renowned monster slayer Geralt of Rivia in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. A unique feature of the game is the way that each decision made may not directly affect the game until hours later. The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher is set to be released in September.

On a different note, RACE Pro is an ultra-realistic simulation racing game coming from Atari in November for the Xbox 360.

RACE Pro’s new ‘Hot Seat’ feature gives a different meaning to multiplayer racing. Each player drives in the ‘hot seat’ for a short period of time before they have to pass off the controller to the next player. This unique feature accelerates the pace of the game and makes multiplayer a more communal experience.

Atari went out of their way to produce as realistic a racing game as they could. RACE Pro features more than 15 real life tracks that span all continents across the globe. Players can win official championship titles using a wide variety of realistic car models. Participants earn their skills as a true racer would in real-life; through intense training, scoring key wins and receiving big sponsorship deals.

Hailed by many as being better than 2K’s 2008 tennis title Top Spin 3, Smash Court Tennis 3 was Atari’s big sports game release. Coming out in August to the Xbox 360, Smash Court Tennis 3 allows players to compete against or alongside some of the biggest names in the industry such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Justine Henin.

Smash Court Tennis 3 allows the player the ability to compete in the tennis world on more than a dozen courts and championships in five different modes; Arcade, Tutorial, Exhibition, Pro Tour, and mini-games.

Players can play with their local or online friends via Xbox Live. Smash Court Tennis 3 has already been released on the PSP.

Coming this fall is the newest installment of the Deer Hunter franchise and, as the Atari producers said, the most addictive. Deer Hunter Tournament is to be released for the PC and, for the first time, the Xbox 360 later this year.