After a few whispers and leaks, Atari today confirmed that Test Drive Unlimited 2 is in development for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  The game is set in the Spanish island of Ibiza, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Early details are scarce, but Eden Games (developer of the first in the series) has returned to craft the sequel. The huge open world system returns and is touted as M.O.O.R. – Massively Open Online Racing. New race types, vehicles and challenges are promised. First screenshots:

The new Race Pro downloadable content includes the most recent revisions to the Imola circuit, a new gameplay video has shown. The most significant change from previous versions of the track is the removal of the final chicane, making the main straight significantly longer. It is believed that this is the first time the new Imola has appeared in a video game officially.

The first piece of downloadable content for Race Pro has just been released. For 800 Microsoft Points, players can get four new cars and and a new track in a package which weighs in at 1.5GB.

The pack includes production and race versions of the Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, Cadillac CTS-V and Chevrolet Camaro alongside the Imola circuit. There are also two extra variants of the Road America track included.

Race Pro Pack 1 [Xbox Live Marketplace]

Kotaku managed to get some hands on time with SimBin’s Race Pro for Xbox 360 and promptly sent one of their best journalists over to try it out. Of course, the lady they sent promisingly started her report with “I’m clueless about racing games”.

She made up for that early slip by giving a detailed explanation of the game’s career mode and says that the title as a whole is “more like a racing sim than a racing game”. I’m not sure if she’s just spent too much time on Mario Kart or whether she really does understand that there is a whole world of subgenres living beneath the “driving” title. Oh well, here’s some new screenshots to make the wait for this title a little easier:

Hands on: Race Pro [Kotaku]

SimBin have unleashed a new trailer of their forthcoming super-sim Race Pro. The video makes it very clear that they’ve spent a long time making this as much of a simulation as possible with real cars, real drivers and real coffee, but it also indulges us with a look at (at least some of) the classes which will feature in the final release. They are:

• GT Sport
• Audi R8 (single car class)
• WTCC
• Koenigsegg CCR (single car class)
• WTCC Extreme
• Dodge Viper (single car class)
• GT Club
• Mini Cooper S (single car class)
• GT Pro
• Caterham (single car class)
• F3000 International Masters

I’m going to file the possibility of racing between classes in the “highly unlikely and probably never going to happen” pile. Look for the game on shelves in November, exclusively on Xbox 360.

I don’t know if I’ve just been spoiled by the visual splendour of GT5: Prologue, GRID and Formula 1 Championship Edition over the past few months, but these new shots of Race Pro are looking decidedly lacking in the visuals department. That image above shows that a lot of attention has been paid to the car models but when it comes to scenery it’s almost as if SimBin couldn’t be bothered. Now I’m no expert, but I’d imagine there’s something more than completely flat grass in the middle of that circuit and it’s too bad it didn’t get rendered. Check out all three of the new images below:

SimBin unleashed the latest images of Race Pro today, bringing with them the first appearance of Brands Hatch in a console game for some time. Check out the shots, featuring WTCC and Caterham below: