Rocket League - A crate mess

Image courtesy of www.gamespot.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. July 7th 2015, a mysterious game was released for free for all PlayStation Plus owners, and therefore began making the rounds all over the gaming scene. It perked my interest, and thanks to my friend Charlie encouraging me to download it, I have the only game that outside of pure racing games that can hold a candle to GTA.

If you wanted me to summarise this game into a simple sentence, it would be simply, car football. But that on its own doesn't do it justice, as the addictive game physics in regards to the jumping, the rocket boosting, the stadiums that you play in with how they're mapped out, and ever since the game was introduced, the countless variations of the regular matches.

I would highly recommend Rocket League to anyone looking for an addictive, fun and simple but above all else, easily accessible game that you can play with friends online, or friends sat in the same room, or both at the same actually. You can play it on PS4, Xbox One and PC, you can even cross platform, PC players can play with both Xbox One and PS4 players, but because of Sony's stubborn methods, they won't allow PS4 players to play with Xbox One players. Come on Sony, quit this act and allow us to do just that.

Oh whilst I'm on this, turns out that Rocket League is coming to the Nintendo Switch, though don't ask me if you'll be able to play that with your PC and console buddies, I'd hope you can but I don't know.

With all of this being said, a formality with the modern video game now, is DLC. Now, I have to say, having grown up in an environment that is used to that, I am of the stance that DLC can be a bad thing but not if handled correctly, and unfortunately in most cases, it is not.

You can have DLC like GTA, which advertises itself as being free but has in game currency that you can buy so Rockstar try and push for you to buy their Shark Cards by overpricing things. Next we have is a by chance crate system like on Call Of Duty where you have to pay to open Supply Drops to have a chance at getting the new items that will help you do better in matches. Finally you have most car games that I'm used to, spending a few quid on getting some new cars to drive.

As far as I'm concerned, my stance on video game DLC is that if I pay, I must be guaranteed whatever it is that I want, but if there's only a chance of getting something, I won't tolerate it. There is a grey area though when it comes to Rocket League, as it began with new battle-car bodies that you could buy for less than two pounds, but then evolved into this crate system that I have mixed feelings on.

By chance, you can earn any one of many different types of crate after a match that all consist of their own possible items, including battle-car bodies, rocket boosts, wheels, decals, toppers, antennas, goal explosions, trails, and for some reason since matches dictate you have to pick a blue or orange team colour scheme, paints. You have to buy keys to be able to open them, and thankfully for pretty much the most part, none of this actually has any knock on effect when it comes to making you any better in a game, a criticism that Call Of Duty constantly meets with this casino style system is that you have to spend so much money on the chance of getting a weapon that is so much better than the free weapons.

Another way that the Rocket League system is better is that you can perform trades with other players, and from the outset, it looks like a great idea. My friend Ahmed for example, he only uses the battle-car body Sweet Tooth (A PS4 exclusive body taken from the video game Twisted Metal) which can't carry any of the items that can be used to customise a vehicle so he just lets me have all his stuff, so thanks Ahmed, I appreciate that!

But in a fair trade, the items are so littered around that you can never perform a fair trade. I have two Candy Cane antenna items, I don't like having duplicates so I told this one guy in my game that I was willing to give away one of my Candy Cane antennas and we began trading. I offered my Candy Cane antenna and asked him to show what he would be willing to trade with me, but he kept being difficult and in the end, he left and we never ended up trading anything. If anyone wants a Candy Cane antenna if you're on PS4 or PC, message me.

Thankfully, I've never had many difficult experiences on Rocket League in regards to trading but I imagine a lot of people go through this everyday, because these mindless items for customisation are not categorised in such a way that I'm not sure as to what would constitute a fair deal.

The only reason I give a shit is because the two year anniversary for Rocket League rolled around and to celebrate, the developers released a new type of crate equipped with two battle-car bodies that really took my fancy, the Cento V17 and the Animus GP, which are visually based on a Le Mans Prototype and a Formula car respectively. I really wanted them, and apparently it was only last weekend that you could obtain these new crates so I did as much as I could.

I opened these crates and as ever is my luck, I got some shitty decals that I'll never end up using, some of which were for a battle-car body that I don't even have.. it pissed me off because on two of the three crates that contained these two new cars, the item I got was one above the Cento V17. But what pisses me off even more, if you have five items from the same crate and of the same level of value, you can trade them in for an item of the next level of value and because of that, I cannot trade it up with the game and get something further up.

All this would be completely negated if I got crates more often, I wouldn't mind having to pay for the keys since they don't cost much at all. But when there's that slight chance of getting a crate, then a chance of getting a certain thing, you may as well pick five numbers to submit in to the National Lottery Jackpot because you surely have better odds.

We can't get these crates that often, at least I don't know if there's a system that comes with it like you play one match, you get a random guaranteed item, then five means the lowest type of crate, you see where I'm going. As far as I am aware, it is a random system.

Then you have the duplicate items. I know I said earlier I have two Candy Cane antennas but that's because Ahmed gave me his to get rid of his items and I could use it to trade since according to my friend Matthew, they're highly sought after. But I have had friends who get two of the same decals multiple times, and I hate that rigged system.

My friend Matthew who I just mentioned, he's into Yu-Gi-Oh and he buys those card packs that are deliberately sealed off so you don't know what's in there. I get the appeal there because at least after the developers release those to the world, they can't tinker the results afterwards, they can't change a high statistic Red Eyes White Dragon for a sub-par Dark Warlock or whatever the fuck they're called.

The reason why I am bringing this up, is because with gaming, surely the developers are ensuring the odds are so low that you can't get anything of proper value. In Call Of Duty, the odds of getting any of the 'new' weapons in a DLC, are apparently below 0.1% and it is just a thoughtless exploit and abusing of the system as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not in any way saying Psyonix or Activision are scamming people like those CS:GO sites that Syndicate, TMarTn, FaZe clan etc. all owned and never disclosed when playing on it. But it does give off that uneasy vibe that they're accessing the backlog and making sure the items we want are never given to us and in return, we have to make do with a decal for a car we don't have because the game didn't allow us to have it.

Having brought up those CS:GO sites, these highly sought after items have prompted people to sell them on Ebay and all these other selling sites and again, that just screams scam to me. Not the fault of the developers for people who will scam you, just the fact that this incentivises them to do so and have that ability to take advantage, honestly I hate to say this but that part IS on the developers, for allowing such a system to be in place.

I love Rocket League, and it certainly a lot better when it comes to its crate system than something like Call Of Duty and FIFA, but this is like saying Chlamydia is worse than AIDS. I still strongly disapprove of the system of having to pay to have a chance at getting something, but I know for a fact that the game companies of the world aren't going to form an emergency meeting because some blogger from Britain was like "I don't like it".

So whilst I'm not out of touch and very much aware that it's not like this way of doing things is illegal, I do think it's exploitive and wrong. I'm still of the mind-set that you should pay for the certainty of getting something as far as video games go, but as long as these corporate companies get money for what they do, it won't change.

I guess what I'm saying is, pay for what you know you will get in video games, as long as you get enjoyment out of it. I always pay for Shark Cards on GTA because it's worth it for me, and it's the only game that requires a lot of money from me. Rocket League will continue to be a game that I will play and enjoy a lot, it has revolutionised the gaming experience to the point now where I can sit here and hope that one day, all major gaming platforms can play the same games at the same time. I hate how I can't play with my friends who have an Xbox, still the case of course with Rocket League with me being on PlayStation 4 but it is a step in the right direction.

Whilst I am talking about that, my best friend Nadine doesn't play Rocket League but her boyfriend Bas does on his PC, and we managed to arrange a few matches which was awesome. I mean, he handed my arse to me as he is way too good, but I put on my headset to talk to Nadine as she was wearing his headset too, we couldn't hear each other for some reason. Maybe we weren't pressing the push to talk button? I'd hope that was the case and we weren't able to talk to each other, someone who knows the game help us out please.

Anyway that's all I have to say. Again I reiterate, pick up Rocket League on whatever platform you're on whether that be PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC or even Nintendo Switch later this year and I'd suggest you avoid the crate system or at least getting too suckered into it.

Thank you all for reading, hope you decide to come back for more in which case, I'd recommend you go to the 'Follow By Email' option if you're on desktop or following me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat. Hope to see you all back here soon.

So until we meet again,
Luca.

Women in motorsport

Image courtesy of www.tumblr.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So it has not been too long since I wrote an article called 'Women in film' and now I'm doing 'Women in motorsport', but before you ask, no I'm not one of those extremists who call themselves feminists and hides themselves in an echo chamber and calls everyone who disagrees with me a sexist, misogynist pig. Sorry, bit of topic but I'll continue.

I've always wanted to talk about this but it was only today as I am writing this that I have a reason, which I will get to near the end. But to talk about the history of women in motorsport, since this is mostly centred on Formula One, how many women do you think may have been in F1? Baring in mind, F1 has officially been around since 1950, so any guesses? Well whatever it is, not sure how close you were, it's five. Only two have started a race, and one of those two who scored half a point in a shortened 1975 Spanish Grand Prix being Lella Lombardi.

In other forms of motorsport, there are many other levels of success for women. The most successful woman in an FIA championship being 1982 World Rally Championship runner-up Michèle Mouton and in junior formulae there is many names that have come on through with a lot of great performances in their own right.

Firstly, someone I rate very highly is Alice Powell, who became the first woman to score points in GP3 and won the 2010 Formula Renault BARC and the 2014 Asian Formula Renault Series. I personally believe that Alice belongs in the British Touring Car Championship, I think a load of sponsors would pay handsomely for a leading lady to race in such a highly televised British championship like the BTCC.

Then we have former Red Bull junior driver and ADAC Formel Masters race winner Beitske Visser who is now a BMW junior driver, there's also 2015 BritCar Silverstone 24 hour winner and GT4 British GT championship Jamie Chadwick who now races in British F3, and finally Simona de Silvestro who used to be affiliated with Sauber F1 and has a wide variety of championships that she has competed in such as IndyCar, Formula E and now the Australian Supercars championship. That is just to name a few.

All of them have had varying levels of success but none have ever jumped out to the point where I'd like to think that they could one day, become a Formula One driver. But there is a major issue that would come with being a woman in a male dominated sport, is exactly that, being a woman in a male dominated sport.

Having mentioned some of the examples, nobody as of yet has ever stood out massively and despite how some have impressed me, I can't help but think that they wouldn't impress me had they been male drivers, or 'the norm' if you will. Both de Silvestro and Tatiana Calderón (F3 and GP3 driver in recent years) were signed up to be a part of Sauber and whilst they've had strong results in the championships that they have competed in, it has never been an overwhelmingly strong record that would warrant their signings.

Despite this though, it isn't enough to stop the criticism that they only got their place because they were women, and whilst I can't sit here and say that's completely true, I can't say it's false either, I know it played a part as ever with this push for a woman to get to F1. So much so, that my worst fear has come to fruition from a few years back.

Back in 2012 when Alice Powell was in GP3, she was joined by two women, one of which was Vicky Piria who I really liked but another woman who, well, let me elaborate.

You may have seen her face whenever the F1 broadcast would pan inside the Renault F1 garage, her name is Carmen Jordá and I can't mince my words, she is absolutely terrible. Having known her from GP3 - where they use all the same car - and well, she was so slow to the point where it seems like a comedy TV show.

For example, qualifying in GP3 at Spa-Francorchamps in 2012, the driver on pole position was Mitch Evans with a 2:10.513 and second to last place qualifier John Wartique did a 2:13.478, a gap of 2.965 seconds, pretty bad by GP3 standards but we then go to Jordá in last place with a time of 2:18.719, which is a further 5.241 seconds adrift of the driver ahead of her. That is inexcusably atrocious, and I'm not trying to remove any context or pin this one instance on her whole career, she's set a qualifying time so slow that she was unable to qualify for a round that same year.

Allow me to hammer home this point, if she was a guy, I'd say these points if Jordá was a man but it just so happens that she's this terrible and a woman, it isn't because she's a woman that she is this terrible. Honestly though, this would be harmless if she had remained off the radar and disappeared like all drivers who churn out such awful results, then I wouldn't batter an eyelid. But.. remember how I said earlier that we would see her in the Renault F1 garage on the broadcast?

Yes that's right, the Enstone based team hired her as a 'development driver' and I remember reading this on Twitter back in 2015 when it was still known as Lotus, I thought it was a joke. A lot of her fellow competitors chiming in saying how it wasn't deserved, and the fair few coming to her defence saying how everyone was jealous and sexist, that of course is a conversation in and of itself but I'll tell you why I was annoyed with this.

F1 is a global sport, I'd say less than 10% of the F1 viewers stick around to watch any of the junior formulae so that's why I said having her drive around nearly seven seconds off the pace is somewhat harmless when nobody outside of a motorsport fanatic is watching you. But when you couple on the casual viewer of F1 who turns up to watch the race in this day and age, if Jordá was ever given a chance to race, her performance isn't put down to her as an individual in the casual F1 viewer's eyes, it's down to the fact that she's a woman.

The difference being that if she was running around at the equivalent pace in an F1 car, in front of the casual F1 fans who don't see some actually somewhat decent driver who just so happens to be a woman in that car, what they see is what all women would do when in an F1 car. This is something that all women who want to be an F1 driver will have to face unfortunately, the inescapable tokenism that would come with being a woman in a male dominated sport.

Which is why we can't just stop at being allowed to make it in F1, we need to find a woman who could become a race winner, or championship contender, and a few days ago, we found just that.


Image courtesy of Noda Racing Academy

Meet 11-year old Juju Noda, daughter of former F1, IndyCar, A1GP and endurance driver Hideki Noda but judging by the way things are going, we will be saying Hideki is Juju's father rather than Juju is Hideki's daughter.
Noda tested an FIA grade Formula 4 car at the Okayama Circuit in her native Japan, and apparently has the lap record in that tier of racing car by over a second, with people of age to race an FIA sanctioned championship F4 car to compare against her times. Everyone is talking up this young lady as being a once in a many lifetimes type of talent, and I am rooting for her more than you can believe. Though I have to say one thing.

We have to ensure that she isn't rushed. Thankfully, she legally isn't allowed to race in FIA single seater commissioned championship races until she's 16 so already, she has about five years to develop. I mean, with that already being the case and the fact that she is decimating the competition already and according to her father, she is incredibly determined and willing to work in order to earn her place in motorsport, we still can't forget that we shouldn't put too much pressure on her shoulders. She's just a child.

The great tragedy is, I feel she will be watched upon very slowly and pushed, and we have seen countless examples of people who could have been great at what they did but they fell out of love with it. Noda will undoubtedly be greeted with the typical criticisms of being a woman in a man dominated sport, but should she be able to consistently put in great performances then she will feel the weight of representing women in motorsport.

Then we have the idea of rushing her. Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen is one of the few examples of someone leaping up the racing ladder, in which he did one season of car racing between his final year in karts and then taking a seat in F1, and we see how successful he is. My fear is with Noda being tipped as possibly the first woman to win a Grand Prix and maybe even a championship, that they'll do a Verstappen with her. Let her go at her own pace because we cannot afford to lose this alleged incredible talent.

We need a woman in F1 but not there just to act like a media dream, to make F1 come across as well meaning and all including, but make an absolute mess of it when greeted with the possibility of being able to race. I know I may be jumping the gun on Juju Noda but I've heard how good she is at 11, it might be well over 10 years from now that Noda enters F1 but when she's ready, she will give girls of her age now, an inspiration.

These are my words on women in motorsport, I hope you enjoyed what I had to say. If you want to stick around for anything more I have to say, put your email address in the Follow By Email option at the right of your screen (If you're on laptop that is) and/or follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat.

So until we meet again.
Luca.

My thoughts on Tooned

Image courtesy of www.imdb.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So I'm somewhat of a Formula One fan, I say somewhat because being on social media during the Grand Prix can be depressing with the amount of toxicity that there is. I can say though with certainty that the best years watching F1 for me, even though the driver I disliked the most was dominating, were the years that Britain's two most recent champions drove for the same team.

Starting in 2010, McLaren had both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, Hamilton having won the championship with them in 2008 (and would later go onto win the 2014 and 2015 championships with Mercedes) and Button coming into the team having won the 2009 championship in complete and utter fairy-tale fashion with the Brawn GP team. From then until 2012 when Hamilton moved to Mercedes, you'd know what merchandise would be sold the most when you went to Silverstone.

Even with arguably, F1's best driver in Fernando Alonso from Spain (The 2005 and 2006 champion) moving to McLaren in 2015 to partner Button, it didn't cause anywhere near as much a stir as the two British champion drivers. I have to admit, when it was announced that Hamilton was moving to Mercedes, my heart broke, and whilst obviously it turned out to be a great move since Merc became the dominating force and McLaren are now, well.. at the back with a horrible Honda engine, the fact that my two favourite drivers would no longer be team mates sucked.

As team mates, Hamilton and Button had a great battle with Button becoming the first team mate to beat Hamilton over the course of a racing season, and their time together was made that even more special when I got home from the 2012 British Grand Prix to find some weird animated segment on Sky Sports F1's broadcast with Hamilton and Button. That being called 'Tooned'.

The formula (Pun intended) was simple, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button both muck around at the expense of McLaren's head of engineering Professor M, voiced by British comedian Alexander Armstrong whilst they are testing out a load of high-tech equipment mainly at the McLaren Technology Centre. It was a sitcom during its first season, and it had a great platform on which it could build.

Because McLaren were a British team and their two drivers were not only British, but very contrasting characters, so the Framestore studio and directors Chris Waitt and Henry Trotter had a lot to play with in regards to the British sense of humour considering also they were playing up to a British audience. Even for a pair who aren't normally voice actors, Hamilton and Button took up the series incredibly well, with Hamilton coming off of the back of his cameo in Cars 2 (and will also be in the new Cars 3 movie as a different character) but despite that, Button was much more at home due to his charismatic charm being more prone to seamlessly comedic moments.

It was heading into season two where my problems are brought up, that being in 2013 after Hamilton had left McLaren and therefore Tooned as well, and the man brought in to replace him was Sergio Pérez, who if you can't tell, is Mexican.

Image courtesy of www.framestore.com

I have nothing against Pérez but even if he had not had any characteristics to play upon for the jokes and narrative to play around with, I wouldn't know because Tooned went a drastically different direction for 2013. What they did was, they instead told the story of (Nearly) all of McLaren's champions and its founder Bruce McLaren, since it was McLaren's 50th anniversary that year.

Adding onto the cast of Armstrong as Professor M, along with Jenson Button and Sergio Pérez, there was an old Scottish man - voiced by Brian Cox - who came along to the celebratory event that Professor M was hosting to celebrate the 50th anniversary and took over in order to tell the story of McLaren, as he claims to have been there for all of it. You had an episode focusing on Bruce McLaren, then onto all of McLaren's champions starting at the beginning with Emerson Fittipaldi, then with James Hunt, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Mika Häkkinen. (They couldn't do an episode on Niki Lauda and Lewis Hamilton since they're both contracted to Mercedes, though a parody of Lauda was used in the James Hunt episode).

All the surviving champions returning to voice themselves, and with James Hunt's son Tom and Ayrton Senna's nephew Bruno voicing their father and uncle who are both no longer with us, but I have no clue who voiced Bruce McLaren. Funnily enough, rumours were floating around that Hunt was voiced by Thor actor Chris Hemsworth, who portrayed Hunt in the film Rush, set to be released later that year. This fact however turned out not to be true.

I did welcome this concept but with no room left to do typical Tooned, season two left the series in a bit of identity crisis and since Pérez left McLaren after 2013, Button was set to be joined by yet another different team mate for the following year. But the Tooned series stopped and has only kept going in the form of a Mobil 1 motor oil educational series where Button, Pérez and Professor M were joined by three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart, and into 2014 with Pérez's replacement at McLaren, Denmark's Kevin Magnussen.

Image courtesy of www.framestore.com

Having Magnussen play a very level headed 'teacher's pet' if you will made for some amusing moments when Button and Stewart would lark about, made for some great exchanging of dialogue. There was a lot of potential here but the series did seem to grind to a halt and it still is on hold, I do have some news on its future that I will get to soon but I know what's wrong with Tooned.

I've seen this sort of thing before, and I call it an 'Eddsworld situation'. Eddsworld was a web animated show ran by a man named Edd Gould, and it was a simple yet very charming concept where Gould would just draw him and his real life friends, including Thomas Ridgewell (Better known on YouTube as TomSka), Matt Hargreaves and Tord Larsson, and they would go on various adventures that would range from saving Christmas, going into space or heading down the toilet to Atlantis.

The issue with the show arose in 2008 when Tord Larsson didn't want his character to be in the show anymore due to the attention he was receiving from fans, so Edd wrote Tord out and the show became locked in with the characters Edd, Matt and Tom. Ridgewell ran the show after Gould passed away in 2012 after a long battle with cancer, up until last year where he handed control back over to Edd's family and leaving the show.

I think Tooned has a very similar problem, that ever since Hamilton left and there didn't seem to be any opportunity for some comedy but it has not maintained a consistent cast over the years and it didn't maintain a particular method of narrative and style. The contrast between the sitcom style first season and the cinematic season two, I'm not sure if it did any good for the show because if there is a season three, I imagine it will revert back to season one's style but now there's a bigger concern.

Image courtesy of www.mclaren.com

To celebrate 40 years since James Hunt won the 1976 world championship, McLaren put out a special Tooned episode where they pretty much repeated the James Hunt episode from Tooned season two but with Jenson Button talking to Fernando Alonso (fourth team mate in four years) in the modern day as well.

After nearly two years away, McLaren confirmed only a few days before this one-off video was released that Tooned would be making a comeback. With Fernando Alonso, and McLaren's Belgian newcomer Stoffel Vandoorne, maybe with Button involved in some way since he's still contracted to McLaren. I imagine we will see the first episode probably during Sky Sports F1's build-up to this year's British Grand Prix on July 16th.

I'm obviously very happy that Button may still be involved though I believe it will be to a much lesser degree now that he doesn't race in F1 full time, but the fact that he may still be in it means we can laugh since he's proven himself to be very funny quite easily. Alonso and Vandoorne on the other hand? I'd be happy to be proven wrong but Alonso's lines in the Hunt special didn't particularly, flow off of the pages and sound convincing as also didn't Vandoorne's small cameo at the end of that episode.

I want this series to succeed as I love the concept of Tooned, but I do have some way of redeeming it. Having struggled to think of the word all evening, Button carried this series because of his wit and great comedic timing so having him in this supposedly upcoming series of Tooned is a no brainer, but the lack of consistency in regards to the characters and the series' struggle to write around them due to racing drivers not always being naturally funny or even very flowing with what they say, but there is huge potential.

McLaren as a team has proven themselves to very in tune with the future and technology, I saw someone suggest Ferrari should do a show like this and I'm not sure that would work since Ferrari are still fairly old fashioned. Anyway, I got off track there (Pun intended), seeing in Tooned a team that had access to such incredible technology that you'd think would never exist outside of fiction, makes for some great scenes and how they all play off in the actions that Button and Hamilton would end up doing.

But more so than any of that, having a British audience who are accustomed to British humour, with lead characters who can easily commit to that made season one of Tooned work and you never had too much in the way of conflicting elements. Which is why despite the fact that my main pull to this show being seeing my two favourite drivers, I stayed because the comedy and the ability to write around Button and Hamilton as characters and not real life people was why I stayed, and I know for a fact that the reason I was pulled into the show was because of their presence means that what I am about to propose will be negated immediately.

I want to see a proper Tooned like show, but without any of the real life elements like the real drivers voiced by themselves. A team like McLaren with their futuristic setting, with two British drivers who are written with very contrasting personality traits but meet the expectations of the British sense of humour, and a no-nonsense boffin like Professor M to take a lot of the hits in the comedic scenes.

That way, having fictional characters means you no longer risk losing them if circumstance dictates that a certain person will have to have their character written out. If Professor M had instead been Martin Whitmarsh when Tooned started, he would have been forced out of Tooned then we would have had Ron Dennis but after Dennis left McLaren at the end of last year, we would then have had Zak Brown. See what I mean?

With Button having been joined by Hamilton, then Pérez, Magnussen and Alonso, then Vandoorne joining, it's hard to maintain a grip on a show when the characters keep coming and going. With fictional characters, it won't cause any of those headaches and having a show like this born out of the ashes of Tooned should this show unfortunately fail, I reckon the fictional character version of Tooned would be successful if it shows links to the McLaren version.

So this pretty much is what I think, if Tooned had kept a consistent cast with two British drivers, it would have worked out. I do hope this apparent upcoming season of Tooned with a Spaniard and a Belgian driver isn't what I fear it will be, I am happy to be proven wrong.

That will be all for now, everyone. Hope you did enjoy my article on Tooned, all episodes are available via McLaren's YouTube channel if I'm not mistaken, so go check them out if you aren't already aware of them. Oh one last thing, if Tooned is 'rebooted', could we see that pigeon or parrot brought back in some way, Cosworth was its name I believe, from the last episode of season one. He was a legend.

Alright! If you like what you've seen and want to see more, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or put your email in the Follow By Email option that you can find on the right hand side of your screen if you're on laptop. Hopefully, we will meet again.

So until we do.
Luca.

Women in film

Image courtesy of www.spotern.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. I'm seeing Wonder Woman today and I am very much looking forward to it, but more than that, I'm hoping it is a success and from immediate reaction, it looks set to be so, with some very positive reviews from both critics. As DC's most prominent character aside from Batman and Superman, you would think that Wonder Woman would have had many other movie adaptations like how Batman and Superman have had many live action theatrically-released movies with multiple different versions of the character. However, Wonder Woman's live action theatrically-released movie track record includes only one movie, last year's Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice where of course, she wasn't even a main character.

This is an alarming fact, that for such a beloved character is only now going to be the lead in her own title movie. I mean yes, it was inevitable that this would happen considering that DC wanted to merge all of their characters into one interconnected universe like how Marvel have done with their MCU, but like how Henry Cavill has succeeded Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh, Ben Affleck has followed on from Christian Bale and Michael Keaton who all were in movies that didn't cross over, surely Gal Gadot would have had some company in the form of past actresses in standalone interpretations of Wonder Woman. But no, only Lynda Carter when she portrayed the character in the TV series, not a movie.

I believe all of this speaks volumes to how the movie industry is, the old fashioned business that it is. I mean, right this second I just had a look on Wikipedia for women-led movies and I got this article 'Women in Refrigerators', imagine the confusion washing over me at that moment. So I clicked on it and it is actually quite a strong example of what I am referring to, as the term refers to a trope that plague women in not just movies but in many forms of media. From the Wikipedia article it reads, women characters who have been injured, killed or depowered as a device to further the plot within various superhero comics.

Now before you roll your eyes thinking I'm some Social Justice Warrior who will try and make any situation about men being pigs or something, I'm not that at all. What I am is someone who watches a lot of movies and doesn't appreciate how the industry seems to have apprehensions about placing women in the forefront. When it happens, notice how everyone is happy and praising the fact that it happens and not just used to it? Many times in the past we have a female led movie, it's mostly bouncing off of men either as source material, the way it is written and even character motivations.

In anticipation for the Wonder Woman movie, YouTube personality Jack Howard uploaded a video pretty much saying what I'm going to say, but I promise you it isn't plagiarism! Jack pointed out how last year, we had a Ghostbusters reboot and we are going to have another Ocean's movie but with women characters. The Ghostbusters movie was hated but not always for having women as the leads, I believe a large portion of the audience would have hated it just as much had they casted Channing Tatum, Chris Pratt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie instead of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon. But because nobody wanted a Ghostbusters reboot anyway, have it with women and watch the audience try and justify not liking it because apparently that makes them sexist, or if it doesn't work out then instead of blaming it on the fact that nobody wanted a Ghostbusters reboot, blame it on the fact that it was women instead of men. You can't help but make comparisons but I'll get to that bit.

As for the Ocean's film, after the trilogy with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt leading the charge, 2018's Ocean's Eight will feature Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway and even Rihanna! Now I haven't seen Ocean's Eight (Because it isn't out yet) - I know already if it is bad, we will have some Hollywood executives believing that "Oh, women as the lead? That's why it did bad surely!" - and it could turn out good for all I know, but here's my issue. Spring boarding off of the name recognition with the original Ocean's trilogy as well as the original Ghostbusters, why must a female led movie have to be latched onto something that was already well known?

I mean yes, the new Wonder Woman movie is an adaptation of the DC comic book character but that's not what I am referring to, when what I mean is could you honestly look at those two examples and tell me how to explain it to someone who has seen the Ocean's trilogy and the original Ghostbusters. Because all I can think of is, "It is Ocean's and Ghostbusters but instead of men, it is women" and that's it! They exist just to have women instead of men, and it's shallow thinking and rather unfair frankly. Later this year, there will be a movie called Atomic Blonde, this example is different to the other two because whilst a lot of people have seen the trailer for it and said that it looks like the female version of John Wick, it has not got any comfort of being able to fall back on that name for the sake of brand recognition, it has earned that audience comparison alone just by what we have seen from it.

Having made a point like this before in an article talking about what I'd love to see from a Queen & Country movie adaptation, my point is if you're going to pave the way for more women led movies, you don't immediately latch onto something insultingly close in comparison deliberately for the sake of name recognition. This Queen & Country comparison being born out of the call for the next person to take up the role James Bond to be a woman, and I've already said my shit about how it would go against what the character stands for but I know I'd be called a sexist misogynist piece of shit if I said that, I know I'm not so deal with it. But having a Jane Bond instead of a James Bond would just show that the big wigs have no faith in something with a woman in the lead standing on its own.

That's before we get into characterisation of most women in film, I mean all that I have just said, that's a lot on just one subject! But anyway, the general vibe from most women in movies as in how they're written, they are written to be very typical and have no extra layers other than just being a woman, and that rings true to more than just women too. Speaking to a friend of mine whose name I will refrain from saying for personal reasons, she is obviously a woman as you can tell by the pronoun, but she also is a part of the LGBT community, and she wasn't happy about how they handled a major character in this year's live action Beauty and the Beast movie.

Disney decided to make a big deal out of the fact that they had decided to make Josh Gad's LeFou a gay character, who had a bit of a thing for Gaston. In the end, I think them making a big deal out of it probably did more harm than good because in the film, it's strongly hinted at but never explicit, and my friend never particularly liked how they decided to pin the homosexual tag onto a character whose name quite literally means 'The fool' just to appease those calling for a gay character. I for one would like to have seen Finn and Poe Dameron from Star Wars be gay, not because I fantasise about seeing John Boyega and Oscar Isaac doing it and want to read Tumblr fan fictions about them.. I mean it may or may not be fitting personally but they could write around it and have it flow.

Anyhow, my point with this, and it applies to all minorities, the industry is desperate to play catch up with society and tries to throw in elements that they think will empower such groups but do it in a very shoddy manner. They take characters that could vary from not developed enough to maybe even fully fleshed out, but add on the fact that they're let's say, a woman, black, Latino, homosexual just to be all like "Hey! Look at us! We are all inclusive!". In the end, a character should be fully developed and have everything written to be a fully fleshed out a character, adding in a minority aspect to it to ruin the flow comes off as lazy. Plus like in real life, gender, skin colour, sexual orientation is not all a part of someone's identity, and focus should be to have well fleshed out characters that diversely represent society rather than making characters just to tick boxes

But more than that, the way these characters are written also is very much flawed because as well as being very bland and cookie cutter, and most of this is down to in the early years of writing films, it would be mostly men in the writing room who wouldn't know how women would behave other than the typical stereotypes. A film I saw recently illustrates this perfectly, 'Their Finest' which stars Gemma Arterton as a Welsh screen writer who is tasked with writing a film to help keep the public's spirit up during a wartime Britain. At first, her role demonstrates the lack of power a woman had in those times and how often the men around her would underestimate her, and be surprised that she would ever propose that the female characters in the film she was helping to write ever do something other than sit there and be pretty?! It's an amazing watch by the way, it taught me a lot about the need of studio interference in movies. Go watch 'Their Finest' when you can.

Now onto the main bit, I am frankly very surprised I had enough to talk about here before getting onto who you see at the top of the page! If you have known me for any amount of time, you will probably know that I am an absolute fanatic about the movie Kingsman, and the person you see in the picture is none other than Roxanne 'Roxy' Morton, portrayed by Sophie Cookson.

Whilst not the main character of the first film, Roxy played a surprisingly large part and made the story play out a bit differently than what we expect. Roxy was a candidate for the Kingsman agent role of Lancelot, since the previous person who had that title was killed and Roxy won that despite the focus being on the main character, Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin.

Roxy was received unbelievably well by audiences and critics alike, they praised how she wasn't introduced to be someone for Eggsy to save constantly, or someone for Eggsy to just fall in love with, she displayed a level headed and focused nature yet with some vulnerability to make her believable as a well grounded character, she and Eggsy quickly become close friends. It was such a breath of fresh air to have a character like this where she could stand on her own two feet and merely not provide a motive for Eggsy.

I even saw an article posted by a Sophie Cookson fan account on Twitter which reads: A damsel out of distress, actress Sophie Cookson is a femme fatale who sucker punches her way into the big screen and pulls all the cookie-cutter cut-outs back to the drawing board with her role as the gun-toting heroine Roxy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle. This couldn't be more true, but why am I bringing this up?

The trailer for the upcoming Kingsman: The Golden Circle was released not that long ago, and I was obviously excited and after watching it multiple times, I started having some concerns. The synopsis for the film is that the main antagonist of the film Poppy, destroys the Kingsman Headquarters which forces the Kingsman to have to seek out their American cousins, the Statesman, and this is obviously shown in the trailer. Before we see that, we see Eggsy arrive at the tailor in his brand new E-Type Jaguar and walk into the meeting room where he is greeted by the new head of Kingsman along with Roxy, but after the Kingsman HQ is destroyed, we see very little of Roxy.

This thought has me awake at night, I know that's a bit pathetic to say that but from now until September (When the film is released), I am petrified at the thought of Roxy being killed off due to how she was portrayed in the last film. This may all very well be all smoke and no fire, as my friend told me, they could be hiding her to prompt conversation and discussion, not playing the card to get as many people talking about the film. I certainly hope this is the case and in the next trailer, we see her playing a big part.

With all that being said, it wouldn't be a surprise given how bold Matthew Vaughn (The director and writer of both Kingsman films) has proven himself to be. But this would be too much, given how Roxy hasn't even been explored as character and for her just to be killed off, going against all that she stands for as a character and the role she is playing in this Kingsman franchise, and what she represented in the first film, it would be a massive step backwards.

I want to say something just slightly off topic. Not too long ago, I was scrolling through Instagram as I do so often, I came across a post of a product advertisement with a family playing together in one of those blow up pools, and you had the father, mother and three children. Then it showed the same advertisement but from Saudi Arabia, the mother was replaced by a ball.. This is upsetting for me.

Now I'm not saying that having a fictional character killed off in a film is the same as for example, not having the right to vote or having to cover your entire body. It just sucks that there are varying levels of oppression and non representation for any minority, not even just women.

Starting this article off, I was thinking I just wanted to talk about how I don't want Roxy from Kingsman to be killed off, not even just because she represented a rarity in film and media, but also because she's such a likeable and interesting character. I can very well think of how to further explore her character in further Kingsman films, with Eggsy being a rather reckless and funny but well meaning character and Roxy being - and the pun here is completely intentional - the 'straight man', being more focused on the job at hand.

I say all of this because I saw a video by one of those big movie talk channels on YouTube detailing the 'Seven things we want from Kingsman 2' and one of them was, more of Roxy. I peeked down in the comments section and they said "All of them apart from number (Whichever one that 'more of Roxy' one was)" followed by a few sexist remarks, and I went to town on them. I can't remember what they said but they were genuinely sexist, didn't want a woman to have any part in it. I was disgusted by it.

That's all I can say on that, and it's a lot, I am very aware. I couldn't let this one go unnoticed, I want to see this ship pointing in the right direction to help women and other minorities to be represented in more flowing and centred stories. I am also very aware that I can't single handily achieve this with this single blog post, but it was something on my mind and I just hope you enjoyed reading.

Last thing before I end this off, the friend I have constantly referred to in this article, I am not naming her but she knows who she is. I am unbelievably grateful for her contribution to this in the many ways that she has done so.

Anyway that will be it from me. Check back in September for my inevitable article on whether Roxy is killed off or not, let's hope it is the latter. In the meantime, as ever you can follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or type your email address into the Follow By Email bar if you're on desktop. So until we meet again.

Luca.

Religion - Taboo topics

Image courtesy of www.gothictimes.net

Hello you, the name is Luca but you can call me Luca and religion is a thing that's a thing, isn't it? Well, everything is a thing, a thing is made up of matter and it has to exist to be a thing.. okay I'll shut up. This is meant to be a serious article, I've fucked that up already.

Anyway, religion has been a very complicated thing for me growing up and I have come to my own conclusions about it, and I thought I'd detail a lot of what I have to say about it having experienced what I have. Plus I feel a lot of what I say will resonate with some of you at the very most.

So if I remember correctly, my family practiced Church Of England during my early years, but we stopped doing so for whatever reason, I think it's because I always threw a tantrum for being pulled away from my toys. I was sent to a Church Of England primary school, and thankfully I was very unaware of the religious influence but didn't know any different outside of the heavily religious environment.

Going into secondary school, it wasn't centred around a religion and I started thinking about being a Christian, and I would wear a crucifix but only because I used to see Michael Schumacher (Who was making his F1 return) wearing it, not that he's my hero or anything but I latched onto that. This was a huge learning point in my life, I began placing all of my individuality into this religion, and people used to make fun of it, not that my secondary school peers would have short on reasons and motives to do so anyway.

I grew out of it eventually thankfully, it was a phase in my life like any other as simple as wearing a scarf, fingerless gloves and a trilby (Yes, I used to wear those un-ironically), but looking back on that point in my life, I remember thinking about what religion prompted. Let's just say after thinking back on that, I realised why religion as a concept is so negative.

Coming in and out of college and afterwards, I could see how religion seems to differ and how individuals who assign themselves into these religions are so extreme. The YouTuber Thomas 'TomSka' Ridgewell - who is mostly known for asdfmovie - made a video talking about how he met a public preaching Christian evangelist who he described as incredible with his public speaking and knowledge of the bible. For context purposes, Ridgewell grew up practicing as a Jehovah's Witness because of his parents and despite not agreeing completely with this man, he was in awe of him.

Afterwards, Ridgewell walked up to the man and told him how incredible he was and the man was very humbled by Ridgewell's words, but it was when he told him that he was a Jehovah's Witness that the man's look of joy turned into a sympathetic smile and he said to Ridgewell, "Well my brother, you're going to hell". This was followed by the man trying to convince Ridgewell to convert to his religion or he was going to spend the rest of eternity suffering at the hands of the devil, and from that point on, Ridgewell's faith died and he was no longer a Jehovah's Witness.

This video described pretty much what I had been feeling for years, that religion unites people for all the wrong reasons, it perpetuates mob mentality and oppression and for what reason? Because apparently if we all don't believe in a certain religion, we are all destined for hell, there's so many religions that if you don't believe the right one, you'll rot in hell with all the murderers and rapists. That's the vibe that I am getting at least.

But how can anyone be certain about what happens after death? I certainly don't and the thought terrifies me. We walk on such metaphorical tightropes because most religions can be separated by the most minor of details, such as whether it is okay to use a condom or not, or if Jesus died on a cross or something else. In the end, I don't identify with a religion because there's too many extremes and if there is an afterlife, I'd hope whoever the person up there is can understand where I am coming from, I do believe in a higher power.

I realised that what I am about to say extends beyond religion and into pretty much anything, the second you identify yourself as a part of any sort of group, you begin relying on everyone else and your label as a shield. Whether it is religion or political group, or even something as seemingly harmless as which out of the PS4 or the Xbox One or whether Marvel or DC is better. All of this prompts such toxicity.

You see so many religions be incorporated into someone's life so early on that it really messes with them, like those extreme Christian families who will then force their ideology onto their children and then as a result, these children then know no better. They'll be raised with the idea that homosexuals are even worse than murderers, or that any major disease will be cured by prayer and not medicine, but the second you begin attempting to criticise that belief, you're seen as personally attacking them or being the devil tempting them out of their faith. This by the way, isn't me trying to say all Christians are like this, I'll get onto that as a whole.

Basically, what I see faith and organised religion as, it's a self sustaining bubble of ignorance and sensitivity. I no longer want to be religious because I'm just overwhelmed by the vast scale of religions as a whole, and how on earth anyone can know with 100% certainty that their religion was the right one and someone else's wasn't? It's mostly based on what happens after death anyway.

Here's what I think might hit home for a large portion of you. There are so many religions out there, and so many groups of people who force their children to go by that religion and how dare they deviate? Because if they do, not only will they disown their children, they'll spend the rest of eternity suffering in damnation.

How can someone be certain that their own interpretation of an ancient book means that they'll be accepted into wherever we go after we're done fucking around here? That they hold the key to eternal salvation and that everyone else is wrong? Surely some interpretations are lost in translation. I mean, with all of these many variations of the countless beliefs what billions of people throughout history have believed in, that one single belief apparently results in either salvation or damnation, who is anyone to believe that they alone hold the key to the truth?

My personal belief is, I'm not going to glue myself to any one group and just hope that my actions as an individual mean that I am a good person. Believe me, I don't think I'm the best example of a good person just yet, I know I've done wrong in my life and I seek to be unburdened as not a man of religion, not a man of a particular political party, not a man of anything, just a man. I believe there's a higher power, and not only speaking for myself here, I hope that the many people out there who have ideologies forced upon them and know no better, they are not turned away at the pearly gates because they "Led the wrong life".

We all have a life here on earth, lead it and be as good of a person as you can.

Let me just say right here, I fully respect anyone who practices their religion. As long as it isn't a religion that involves hurting people or being a bigot who hates someone for their skin colour or sexual orientation, and as long as you don't force anyone into that religion, then you do that. This is aimed at those folk I like to call the 'Religiously aggressive'.

I'm going to end off with a quote that was said in one of my favourite films, Kingsman: The Secret Service by Colin Firth's character Harry Hart. He was attending a hate group rally whilst seeking the main antagonist and got up to leave, but a bigoted church woman tried to stop him and what follows is the most amazing thing ever. He says to her:

"I'm a Catholic whore, currently enjoying congress out of wedlock with my black Jewish boyfriend who works at a military abortion clinic. So, hail Satan, and have a lovely afternoon, madam."

 

Anyway, that will be all from me. If you're new here, I don't particularly talk about this often but every so often, there's that one thing that'll be out of the ordinary for me that I will need to write about. In the end, just be the best you possible.

 

Until we meet again,

Luca.

What I'm hoping from Project CARS 2

Image courtesy of www.racedepartment.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So today as I write this, earlier I was on Project CARS and I was racing an IndyCar around the Brno circuit and we just completed qualifying, so I was raring to go for the race and at first, all seemed well. What happens next? The session glitches which means the race won't start and I'll just sit there like a numpty if I don't do anything, so I try and exit the session and it proceeds to crash the whole game, but no big deal though right? I mean, I've been through the game crashing before. Well, I load up the game again and it has reset everything! My career mode, my control preferences, everything.

It's a good thing I didn't really give a shit for my career mode and everything else it seems is just a minor inconvenience but still, I didn't do anything to deserve this (Maybe I murdered someone in a past life, who knows? Ha!). But in a way, I am glad that it happened with Project CARS where the only thing I worked for was my career mode and I could do without it. Not like when I played Gran Turismo 5 where you actually have to buy pretty much all of the cars, and I turned the game off incorrectly which reset everything - I learned not to after that, believe me - and also considering that the highly anticipated follow up to Project CARS is out soon, I would hope basic errors don't happen like this.

But I thought I'd take the opportunity here to discuss what I loved about Project CARS, what I'd like to see in the sequel, Project CARS 2, what I despised about the first game and that they need to fix in the follow up and what I know to be in Project CARS 2 that I'm excited about.

Career Mode

So I know I just said that I can do without my career mode but honestly, the career mode in Project CARS is the best career mode from a motorsport and car centred game that I can think of. I absolutely love that it is all properly organised championships, anything from top-level Formula A to World Endurance or even something basic like Caterham club races, there's something there for everyone and you can go down any path.

You have to start at karts of course, which is a pain for me because I could never get the hang of the small kart circuits. Before my game corrupted, I was racing for a GT3 team driving a McLaren MP4-12C and had just completed my first round at Laguna Seca. Before that I raced some random BMW M1 Procar races and Caterham Club UK, as well as some Formula Rookie and SuperKarts which were incredible, and you had varying levels of championships. For example, you could have a British championship in which all rounds take place on all the British tracks in the game, then a European championship and a World championship.

I do have to say though, I would like to see in Project CARS 2, a more clear cut way of knowing what you're committing to. Had I known that I'd have to race M1 Pro-Cars, I probably wouldn't have signed for the team that I did, and I'd love to be able to do side campaigns and race in other series with arranged deals with teams. I never got as far as racing in Formula A so I don't know if this is the case, but I'd love to perhaps race in FA and also the World Endurance Championship like the F1 drivers of yester-year used to with the old FIA Sportscar championship.

Improved driving experience

This isn't a huge complaint for me because I am very much into my simulator driving, but all of my friends for the most part are into drifting, and it is impossible to drift on Project CARS. Having driven Assetto Corsa for a while on my wheel, the drifting on there is incredibly easy, and one of the reasons why I believe it is easier on AC is because the setup and driver aids are better placed for the driver.

This was something I hated about Project CARS, the layout of the driver aids are almost non-existent and you actually have to go to the button assignment menu to assign traction control a button! I was looking at the menu and realised that there were more things that needed assigning than there were buttons on my wheel, so I would hope in Project CARS 2 and other car games, there could be something you have in the bottom right corner like on Gran Turismo Sport (yes, I was allowed to test the beta) and F1 2016 that would allow us to change more than few things like traction control, brake bias, MGU-K recovery if the car has such a thing etc.

Another thing I'd beg for, I have had the game since May of 2015 and I have only just figured out how to actually perform a pit-stop. Oh and before you smart-arses message me and be like "Drive into the pits, it's that little road next to the start/finish line", no I mean I have to go into 'Edit', confirm what details I want, and back out and just hope my driver pulls into the pit box. After driving on Assetto Corsa, I have to say I much prefer manually driving into the pits and having a menu pop up after I pull into my pit box, and it is so much simpler with what it asks what I'd like to do.

The Project CARS pitting options, it has so many details and when you're racing, you cannot afford to miss a single beat because any more time you spend fiddling something and missing a detail like confirming one thing and not another, it could be the difference between remaining ahead of your fellow competitors, going a lap down, running out of fuel etc. You basically want to get back out there as quickly as possible, hopefully Slightly Mad Studios listens to this, I can't spend so many minutes fannying about trying to find what I need.

More cars and motorsports

This one is something that I applaud Project CARS for because you have fictional cars making up the Junior Formulae ladder, Formula Rookie all the way up to Formula C, Formula B and Formula A. We also have GT3 cars, my favourite form of GT racing with the variation of manufacturers that compete (And will only grow in the follow up with the introduction of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche), LMP cars and even some obscure series to the rest of the world but incredibly familiar with me, Ginetta SuperCup which run on the same weekends as British Touring Cars.

One thing I'd love to ask though, and it's a selfish request I know, the uptight bastards at Formula E have exclusively licenced the brand for the Forza guys, which is an Xbox exclusive game.. and I am on PlayStation. So since the Formula E cars being on a game that I can't play unless I buy an Xbox, I ask of Slightly Mad Studios to create a Formula E inspired car. In the same way that Formula A is Project CARS' equivalent of a Formula One car, and Formula Rookie is based entirely on the classic Formula Ford cars without their wings, the Formula E inspired car in Project CARS 2, would be called Formula Zero (Because zero emissions, since it's an electric car). I even have a great design template for it, the Ferrari F1 Concept that you can find on Google Images, due to Formula E planning on a radical redesign for season five in 2019/2020.

As for other forms of motorsport, I got very excited when I found out that World Rallycross would be coming to Project CARS 2, I'm particularly looking forward to that. Oval racing will be included, not my thing for the most part but I still do look forward to trying it out, as will IndyCar though I don't know why they made a big deal out of it, since the Dallara DW12 car that is used in the series has been included in the original as part of a pack you can buy.

I'd love to see a fictional car that was incredibly different in some way, on par with that of the Red Bull X-cars or the SRT Tomahawk Vision cars from Gran Turismo, that would be so off the charts in terms of numbers, that it could never possibly exist outside of the video game world. Along with some incredibly bizarre cars like the DeltaWing coupé that used to race in America, the short-lived Nissan 2015 Le Mans car that had a front-engine and front-wheel-drive layout, Sébastien Loeb's Pikes Peak record-breaking Peugeot and a whole lot more absurd and popular vehicles.

There's an array of possibilities and I'd hope every single high end motorsport fan would be appeased, like how the Rallycross folk are now, maybe a drifting championship too? If they sort out the physics to allow drifting to be a lot easier.

Tracks

This area is where Project CARS 2 is looking incredible. You will remember that I said that I was not looking forward to Gran Turismo Sport because of the appalling amount and selection of circuits, which I criticised because of the FIA's involvement and I should probably blame myself for expecting a load of top-line international FIA circuits, but it was such a basic thing considering the circuits on past Gran Turismo games.

Back to Project CARS 2 though, the track selection varies incredibly. You have the typical selection of popular tracks such as Monza, Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps, Brands Hatch and the Nürburgring, but now you have new additions such as the Circuit of the Americas, ovals like Daytona, Indy and Texas Motor Speedway to even Rallycross tracks like the Hell Rallycross circuit in Norway and the Swedish ice track that Mercedes apparently use.

This is some incredible variety, Slightly Mad Studios go well above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to the tracks, even going as far as including a load of British circuits not utilised for international usage, such as Oulton Park, Snetterton and Cadwell Park. Then again, SMS is a British studio so it shouldn't really come as such a surprise.

So if any of these racing games are going to include a load of tracks that I'd love to see introduced into the game maybe a bit later on as a part of an update. I did in particular want to see the London Grand Prix circuit that Santander, Sky Sports and McLaren created and showcased in 2012, I have always wanted to drive this circuit, I recommend looking for the showcase video on YouTube with McLaren's then-drivers and Britain's back-to-back F1 champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Another F1 street circuit that has been long since been attempted is the seemingly cursed Port Imperial Street Circuit on the shoreline of the Hudson River in New Jersey, that was first rumoured to be happening in 2013 as the Grand Prix of America. I have seen an onboard lap there and the track is incredible, I'd hope that IndyCar pick up the track as well, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Indy have a round in the New York area. (Correction: Watkins Glen is in New York state)

Other tracks that I'd love to see include Sebring which hosts the annual 12 hour race, teamed with the newly included Daytona, the Nürburgring Nordschleife and Le Mans that make the four most prestigious endurance races in motorsport. Also some historical street circuits like the Pau and Macau Grand Prix tracks, or the Argentine Potrero de los Funes circuit, Phillip Island which hosts the Australian MotoGP, a few more British national championship circuits like Thruxton, Rockingham and maybe the track they're attempting to make Ebbw Vale in Wales to host the British MotoGP.

I'd like to see the Goodwood Festival of Speed included as I have some fond memories of playing that on Gran Turismo 6, and I'd also hope that since the World Rallycross championship will be heading to Silverstone for next season, SMS will add in the Silverstone RX layout. Other than that, mostly all FIA high grade car tracks would hopefully make their way onto Project CARS 2 or in a future instalment.

New features

A custom livery editor, custom helmet, those are some of the things that I'd like to see in maybe a future Project CARS game considering that there is also an easily accessible eSports feature in the Project CARS 2. eSports being competitive online racing that I have spoken about before, and since GT Sport is utilising a feature that ranks drivers of the same ability together, and also considering the fact that Project CARS' handling model is better suited to me on my Logitech G29, I am looking forward to some eSports racing on Project CARS 2.

I'd be not necessarily pushing for this as I can understand why SMS wouldn't want to incorporate such a thing but I never made it long enough into Gran Turismo 6's span to see the track creator that apparently could create circuits that were 100 by 100 kilometres or something like that. Personally having experienced GT5's course creator, they always got dull due to the same surrounding areas, but who knows? Maybe a Project CARS equivalent could make them look a lot more authentic and less repetitive. But judging by the creations I've seen on GT6, the tracks that just go from the highest altitude to the lowest in a matter of a few meters, I'd understand that maybe it'd be best to be without a course creator.

Another big thing I'd absolutely love to see, a racing school to teach players how to race. Whether it's something basic like racing lines, to something complicated like throttle application without traction control, fuel saving techniques could be another, and even a very specific situation like knowing when to pit for slick tyres on a drying track during a race. I know Gran Turismo utilised a racing school, one of my fondest memories being that in one particular racing school lesson, I had to stick behind a safety car but get the best lap time, and I never got that first bit right so it was constant frustration as to why it kept failing me!

I could see this utilising the Mojave test track that was in the first game and I fully expect to see in the follow-up, this being utilised for basic features on your own but then later on you could be put into racing situations like a GT race at Silverstone to then jumping from car to car and learning what to with what car, like a Rallycross car. I bring this up because I see a lot of potential with this, but I also do so because despite being an avid racer online, I still can't handle very powerful cars without the aid of traction control or braking without locking up when not using ABS, and I'd love to get better at that. You could even have a well known racing driver be the head of the Racing School, no idea who though, SMS get on it! Either that or a fictional character, such as Alexander Armstrong's Professor M from Tooned or Rick Scott from the old TOCA games.

Last little feature, The Grand Tour test track. Back on Gran Turismo 5, Top Gear's test track was in the game and then Top Gear had an expanded role exclusively in the Forza franchise, and as you can tell, Top Gear neglected a large portion of their audience by having the track on a select exclusive console, with Gran Turismo being only for PlayStation and Forza being only for Xbox. So with The Grand Tour test track, having it in the Project CARS franchise gives gamers on all major platforms a chance to drive the track which is featured on the show that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May present.

The reason I ask this is because I want to see that segment on The Grand Tour 'Celebrity Braincrash' removed and in its place, a segment that has guests who don't immediately die, and get into the studio for their interview but having had some lessons from a gaming driving expert beforehand on a gaming wheel and frame, with Project CARS 2 up and ready for the guest to commit to one hot lap after their interview. The presenters did say they wanted to bring their track around the world so with this method, they can! Hopefully there can be some centred The Grand Tour based challenges to couple onto this, in the same way that Top Gear game modes were incorporated into Forza.

In conclusion

I am looking forward to Project CARS 2 and I know a lot of this could end up just being a wishlist for Project CARS 3 but either way, I'm glad I could make this because as is the name suggesting, CARS stands for Community Assisted Racing Simulator. Project CARS 2 is set to launch in September, not official by the way, all that's said about the release date is that it'll arrive late 2017.

As for me, thank you for reading. As ever, follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat and you'll see me tweet out whenever I post, or go to the Follow By Email option if you're on desktop to have my latest posts sent straight to your email. So until we meet again.

Luca.

My life ambitions

We all have dreams don't we? Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So today, I would like to tell you the dreams that I have in my life that I either need to meet now or eventually, some of which I have already spoken about before.

I want to talk about this because ever since leaving college, I see some of my friends going to university and some going down the path for an incredible career, making something of themselves. All of us do owe it to ourselves to make a dream become a reality, I don't use the 'YOLO' phrase un-ironically but along those lines, we do have a single life time and I don't want to spend mine just following the rules.

So without further ado, here are my dreams and long term ambitions.

Curious Incident movie adaptation


Image courtesy of www.wikipedia.org

This one has long since been a thing here on my blog. Many of you may be new here because I recently did a radio interview on Zetland FM, a local station where I live. I'll link the interview here: https://www.mixcloud.com/zetlandfm/zetland-fm-mid-mornings-hour-1-354/

The initial post that I made regarding all of this is linked at the side, from July 2016 and it has been something that I have desperately been wanting to make happen for so long, and I haven't backed down. As I've stated in the interview I conducted, I've been in contact with Warner Bros, Working Title, Studiocanal, I have a mutual friend of Matthew Vaughn who directed Kingsman who I've been trying to get things sent to him, even a cast list would you believe?

Even a small independent movie called Po, I got in touch with them and we were talking for a while, then that line went dry, and I have also tried contacting YouTube movie reviewer Chris Stuckmann who worked with autistic children before his YouTube reviews became his full time job. Probably best I fill you in if you are not already aware.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 best-selling novel by Mark Haddon and was adapted for theatre by Marianne Elliot and Simon Stephens, which resulted in it winning many Tony and Olivier awards and is still showing in many places. It follows 15-year old Christopher John Francis Boone from Swindon, who is described by himself as "a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties".

I've alluded to autism earlier when talking about Chris Stuckmann working autistic children, I say this because whilst the story never explicitly states what Christopher's condition is, the book's blurb refers to anything from Asperger's Syndrome, High-Functioning Autism and Savant Syndrome. Christopher lives with his father Ed and he wakes up one morning to find his neighbour's poodle Wellington, with a garden fork stuck in its corpse, and Christopher says he wants to try and find who killed him.

Following in the footsteps of his hero Sherlock Holmes, Christopher soon finds out clues for a mystery that hits so much closer to home for him. That is as much as I'll ever tell anyone who wants to know about the story, and I cannot recommend this amazing story enough so seek out the book or the theatre show, you're welcome.

I've been so incredibly certain that a movie needs to happen, so since February 2015 my life changed since finding out about this book, discovering who the perfect Christopher would be as well as putting together an incredible cast alongside him over those next few months, that being as follows; Taron Egerton, Gary Oldman, Rachel Weisz, Joanna Page, Andrew Scott, Carmen Ejogo and Una Stubbs.

I'm so passionate about this and I know fine well how incredible naïve and delusional I have been, but this is a cry for help and I need someone out there who has the power to help me out here, because we don't have a lot of time left to make this a possibility. I know the movie has been something that Warner Bros have been sitting on since 2011 with Harry Potter writer Steve Kloves and producer David Heyman working on it, I know I can make this work. I just need the chance.

GTA vehicle artist

Image courtesy of GTAWiseGuy

This is something that I have been wanting to tell you all for absolutely ages but now I feel ready to talk about it. Ever since I got Grand Theft Auto 5 back in January 2014, I have followed and developed an understanding and passion for the vehicles in the GTA world, you've probably seen me talking about it before already, but I'll remind you or inform you anyway.

Rockstar don't have the licences to utilise real world manufacturers so instead of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, in their place they have Grotti, Pegassi and Pfister, and all of the vehicle brands in the game utilise vehicles based on the real life brand's counterparts. I became really passionate about this when a few cars were added into the game and I became very critical of design, driving characteristics among other things.

When I was younger, I used to watch episodes of Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson's end of year DVD's, and I'd be drawing on some paper piled on a book on my lap whilst watching them, and whatever car was on the screen, I'd take inspiration from all of them until at the end of the evening, I'd have a weird hybrid of so many cars. Fast forward to now, utilising the real world inspiration to make a car look similar to its real world counterpart, this is the perfect job for me, which is why I have now applied.

Over the past few months, I have been working away in a sketch book with designs that I am certain would be beloved in GTA, knowing fine how vehicles have been what has generated Rockstar the most money, I know what vehicles to put in and I also have ideas for what cars to use in themed updates. For example, the picture from GTAWiseGuy that I used for this section, he created a Mitsubishi Evolution inspired car called the Maibatsu Revolution which he created for his trailer for a fictional update he created, Tuners and Outlaws.

It was after watching his trailer that made me realise the potential with the in-game vehicles and how I could perhaps contribute, with my eye for detail in car design and having such a large array of possibilities. Since vehicles are the largest form of generating of Rockstar's in-game currency, I know what cars people want to see, I know for a fact that I can be a great asset to them.

I applied recently, and I am waiting on a reply, I am really hoping that soon I'll move up to Edinburgh to work for Rockstar North.

Giro d'Strada

Image courtesy of www.youtube.com

I wrote an article on this beforehand, link here if you're interested to know more: https://redsone-shot.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/an-idea-giro-dstrada.html

Giro d'Strada came about when I just got my PlayStation 4 steering wheel and I was driving on Assetto Corsa in a LaFerrari, and I was thinking about all the lucky bastards on Xbox who get to own Forza Horizon, because us PlayStation users don't have an equivalent. I thought to myself "I would love it if us PlayStation users had a free roam driving game", I then teamed that with "Utilising the physics of simulator based handling model games like Assetto Corsa", and then I followed that on with "Based in mountainous and coastal continental Europe". That my friends, was how Giro d'Strada was born.

I love the name, I'm very proud of that. Assetto Corsa is Italian for racing setup, and Giro d'Strada is Italian for tour of the road, and that is exactly what you will be doing as you compete in the Grand Tour World Championship organised by the in-game fictional version of the FIA, and revitalising famous road racing events along the lines of the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and the Tour de France Automobile.

There is a heavy emphasis on the social aspect too, you'll have your own teams and team bases in which you can hire other players or go and join a friend's team at any time to represent them in races against other online players that you have been matched up with, or you can go it alone offline as well. I even have an idea for a constant broadcasting radio station to play in the game which brings together players and other members of the community on Giro d'Strada, so we don't have a repetitive set of radio stations like we do on pretty much all games.

To be rather selfish, I want Giro d'Strada to exist so I can drive a LaFerrari Aperta on a mountain road with my friends, but I wouldn't be pushing for this game to be a reality if I wasn't sure it would benefit everyone and not just me. I mean traditionally, I've always been a circuit racer, I would go for Shift over Need For Speed, and the Forza Motorsport games over Forza Horizon but since getting my steering wheel, I need to get my hands on a game that will allow me to go across a mountain road in the glorious sunlight and looking at some incredible views.

As far as this goes, I have reached out to Assetto Corsa developers Kunos Simulazioni with the help of 2013 FIA European Formula Three champion Raffaele Marciello, who has been so helpful and kind to me so props to you, Lello. I haven't got a response and I'm kind of hoping that if Rockstar North do employ me, they don't see my side project here as something that would negatively impact them, I don't think Giro d'Strada would be an immediate competitor to Grand Theft Auto.

My novels

Image courtesy of www.connieberry.com

We all do it don't we? "I wish I could write a novel", I do too. I have a few ideas and I am here to share them without going into too much detail because some plagiaristic arseholes may be out there ready to claim them for themselves.

First novel idea, 'Nadine' is the name with a titular character, who I've named after one of my closest and most beloved friends, a Dutch girl who loves MotoGP, Star Wars and Pokémon. Anyway we follow a bitter, veteran, widowed British police officer who discovers a young red-haired and freckled girl who has been interfering with the work of one of Britain's most ruthless mob bosses.

Throughout the story, we find out more about the background of Nadine and discover some really tragic circumstances. The themes of this story is deprivation of youth and tragedy.

Next up, 'Winds of a new beginning', I have a longer version of that but it follows a boy who has travelled to the fictional Scottish city Emeriavale to bury his recently passed grandfather, who grew up there. Whilst there, the boy meets an older woman who knew his grandfather, and was engaged to be married to one of his grandfather's friends before he was killed in very unfortunate circumstances.

However, the boy is miraculously sent back in time to the day that his grandfather's friend was killed and tries to do his utmost to prevent what happens to him. The main theme of this novel is living a full life, since the main character's grandfather died at an older age having led life to the full, whereas his friend wasn't given that opportunity, I've always said I'm more sad if someone young dies and I hope that I can make something that tells people to live their life to the full.

Final idea, and this one I don't want to go too deep into, I'm calling it 'Pulling Favours' and I want to remain as vague as can be, we follow a guy at university who engages in many casual relationships with a load of girls. To put it bluntly, my aim with this novel is to illustrate a lot of hypocrisies and flaws in this society's stigma and taboo against sexual culture.

I'm very much looking forward to writing this one, not just for the reasons you might think (Wink wink) but because I believe it has the potential to make everyone re-think a lot of their morals and viewpoints on something that is quite a sensitive and controversial subject to discuss. Who knows?

I'd also love to write a whole series of novels based on The Accountant, the movie that was released last year and had Ben Affleck as an autistic man who was both an incredible mathematician and assassin. I just wish I knew anything past just wanting to continue the story, I'd probably just entrust it to someone else.

Motorsport interaction

Image courtesy of www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk

Yet another blog post that I have done before, but I won't bother making you go read yet another one and just tell you about the Blancpain F3 EuroCup. The Stéphane Ratel Organisation - who used to run the British F3 championship - and I had some conflict a few years ago which led to the demise of British F3 in the guise that it was and eventually brought back but not under their control. So they have every right to be annoyed with me but I want to make amends.

There is a hole in the market for many types of drivers to compete in, a small scale series with much lower costs that can give full-time F3 drivers and higher tier drivers a side campaign to race in, lower tier drivers to prove themselves against them and then sponsors may consider investing in them. Basically with the cost of motorsport these days, a Formula Three championship utilising a four round mini championship is beneficial to all parties.

SRO are ignoring me, which is a shame because the F3 EuroCup would be of huge benefit to them, I have no doubt.

Those everyone, are my life ambitions. I seek to give back to the world and I hope you all join me as I aim to make all of these a reality and please if anyone can help me, please do. Because as much as I am trying to take charge, I don't know how to do it.

But what are your life ambitions? Feel free to create your own version of one of these however you know how, and you all owe it to yourselves to meet these goals because well, are you really content just confining to these rules? What will be your legacy?

Thank you all of you for taking the time to read my article, I hugely appreciate it. If you're new here, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or go to the Follow By Email option to have these sent straight to your inbox. So until we meet again.

Luca.