Empire and Ford Team Up

Empire Interactive announced Friday that it has signed a licensing agreement with Ford Motor Company to develop a franchise of driving games called Ford Racing.

Ford Racing will feature 12 vehicles picked from Ford's inventory of US and European racing-car models, not to mention experimental models and concept cars.

The NASCAR-featured Taurus, Mustang, F-Series, Explorer, and GT90 will all be featured, as well as a real-world car physics model, ten racetracks, and multiplayer races.

Career mode will be featured as well. Players start out at rookie level and compete in amateur races until a sufficient reputation is built up to secure sponsorships and the like. Then the player can move on to bigger and better things. Five race classes are provided.

"The opportunity to work with a brand as globally recognizable as Ford is extremely exciting and clearly a major coup for this company," said Mark Scriven, general manager of Empire Interactive US. "The Ford Racing license combined with the games groundbreaking technology and graphics as good as guarantees success for this title."

Ford Racing is due out in the first quarter of 2000.