Top Gear Gaming Show Launches On Facebook | Screen Rant
A new BBC show has launched on Facebook, combining a passion for cars and a need for speed with video games to create the Top Gear Gaming Show. Top Gear is one of the longest-running shows on British television, but the cars that it's focused on have traditionally been real (even if somewhat still farcical) until now.
Games have been transcending their original purpose more and more in recent times. Gaming has quickly become a broader, more mainstream entertainment medium, with streamers and content creators sharing their virtual passion with viewers around the world. Two such content creators are presenters Julia Hardy and Mike Channell. Hardy frequently hosts gaming events for Xbox and the BAFTAs, and she has her own videogame inspired fitness channel on YouTube called Game to Train. Channell meanwhile is one of the founding three members of videogame YouTube channel Outside Xbox, whose videos deliver plenty of tongue-in-cheek gaming humor and let's plays of some of the most popular titles.
These two presenters not only share a love of games, however. They also share a love of cars, making them the ideal hosts to helm the first ever Top Gear Gaming Show on Facebook. The first episode of Top Gear Gaming Show sees Hardy and Channell and guests Gav Murphy, a fellow gaming content creator, Sean Crooks from Ubisoft Toronto, and Tom Huntley, a London cab driver try to make it from Buckingham Palace to Brixton in a taxi, which sounds easy enough. However, being a gaming show, the challenge had to be completed in the recently updated Watch Dogs: Legion - without the use of a satnav. Naturally, chaos ensued.
Click here to watch the first episode of Top Gear Gaming Show on Facebook.
After the fun and games finished, Hardy and Channell spoke more with Ubisoft Toronto’s senior producer Sean Crooks about Watch Dogs: Legion. Crooks shared that their team at Ubisoft chose London as the setting for the game as it is a “very diverse city” and allows for a “very diverse set of people to choose from,” when it comes to the game’s Play as Anyone mechanic. Crooks also commented on the iconic landmarks within the UK capital, saying that it was a “great place to explore.” The producer went on to reveal that trying to capture the “essence of a [real-world] city” in a video game is an "effort" to pull off but that the teams at Ubisoft have received some great feedback on the authenticity of Watch Dogs: Legion’s London.
The premier of Top Gear Gaming Show ends with a reel of what fans can expect to come in future episodes. It looks utterly lawless in the best way, with clips from the SEGA arcade classic Out Run and Grand Theft Auto V included in the teaser. As may well be expected, neither of these particular game's cars are shown to be still on their wheels.
This new show from the BBC is a fun premise. Videogames have become so much more mainstream over the years, and Top Gear Gaming Show is real testament to that. Thankfully, the carnage that each car has been subjected to is purely virtual (at least so far).
Source: Top Gear/Facebook