Video: Vaughn Gittin Jr. Makes His Video Game Debut

There are basically two kinds of racing video games; arcade racers and simulations.  In an arcade racer, doing a double-backflip through a ring of fire in a “Fourarri” is all about getting those big points. Simulation racing games, meanwhile, strive to pull the player into the world of the race car driver, offering realistically-handling vehicles. These games have been getting realer and realer with every new release, and Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed may be the most realistic racer yet.

Formula Drift champion and Ford Mustang driver Vaughn Gittin Jr. helped contribute to NFS: Shift 2 Unleashed with the addition of the helmet cam, which directs the player’s view towards the apex of the turn rather then straight ahead.

In a video detailing some of the work that went into this mouthful of a race game, the games producers and racers from different series explain what went into making it so realistic. Getting the sound of the engine is one thing; getting these virtual machines to handle like their real world counterparts is another thing.

Vaughn Gittin Jr. made a major contribution to Unleashed with a whole new take on the helmet cam. While games have done this view before, all it really added was a view of the hands and steering wheel. Yet the view has always felt stiff, unnatural, because the head did not move. As Vaughn Gittin Jr. explains, when he is drifting a hard corner he is actually looking out of his side window towards the apex of the turn. The video game shows just that motion, and it adds a whole new depth to the helmet cam mode. The game hits stores on March 29^th, so get ready for some fun Mustang drifting action.