Project Gotham Racing

Review

 

 

The return of the GOD of racing games!

MSR returns! With significant bells and whistles!

OK, quick history lesson - click here for the MSR review if you haven’t seen it, if you want.
Some of you may think this is just MSR with better graphics but it isn’t. It’s MSR with SIGNIFICANT bells and whistles! As well as the complimentary graphics and frame-rate update for the Xbox there is also new gameplay modes as well as a whole new city (New York) to race around. Another thing you will notice different if you’ve played MSR before is the difficulty level - this is much harder than MSR.
Apparently Bizarre Creations used 95% new code on PGR, so by using a mathematical process called “deduction” I’ve worked out that 5% of this game would be MSR!
There are new cars, a new city and a new challenge – this is PGR. I’d say it’s less complex than MSR in some ways, but it’s much tougher. Let me explain throughout the review.

Like my VERY shiny new motor? I drove around London at 80mph in it!

Yes, I know I did very similar headings in my MSR review, but what you gonna do? Sue me?

As you can tell from the screenshots the game looks lovely, subtle reflections on wet roads, real reflections of the surrounding atmosphere on the cars, super-accurate cities and car models, and brilliant lighting effects. It’s nice to know that this first-generation Xbox game puts GT3 to shame! We (should) all know how lovely the graphics in MSR were, but these graphics are just something else! This time the cars have REAL reflections! You can see anything from the roadside reflected on the cars bodywork and windows but seeing things like when you drive by a neon sign, for example, you’ll see light cast from it move over the curves on the bodywork of the cars at a silky smooth 60fps is just jaw-dropping! Not only do the cars reflect things, but also the wet roads! Driving down a wet street in Shibuya at night with loads of neon ads reflecting on the road shows just why Xbox is the most powerful console on the planet! Watch how you drive though, because if you crash into a wall at 100mph you’ll smash your lights, crumble your cars bodywork and this real car damage looks fantastic, and guess what! The reflections also change when they move over the damage just like they would in real life! The daytime races are brilliant looking, this time there is a sun in the sky and wait till you see it reflecting over the small bumps in the road (this is bump-mapping supreme!)! The cities look better than before with better graphical effects and small details being added over the DC versions. Bumps on the roads, leaves off the trees on the track being kicked up by the cars flying past, birds flying around, more detail on the buildings, animated turning signs, updated road signs, better lighting and better looking textures. After a certain amount of hours a special race mode will open up allowing you to win extra paint jobs for each car and these range for really shiny metallic colours to highly detailed rally paint jobs and special paint jobs.

You scratched my car!! A cool feature to this game that doesn’t appear in any other of the “best” racing games (*cough* GT3 *cough*) is the car damage! Now this is a really cool addition and makes the game much more realistic and gets to show of the brilliant rendering the Xbox is capable of! If you hit a wall fast enough you’ll dent your car or smash your headlights, if you reverse and hit a wall you’ll smash your brake-lights, drive too fast into the back of another car and you’ll smash out their brake-lights. The rendering for the reflections to move over the dents in the car so realistically is astounding. Smash out both of your headlights during a night-time race and you could get in trouble because you wont have as much light to see ahead of your car! Scrape along a barrier for long enough and you’ll have big long scratches along your car where the paintwork has been scraped off and this looks cool too and if another car causes any of these damages to your car then you’ll feel like getting revenge because they SCRATCHED YOUR SHINY CAR!!! And that’ll happen a lot since all the CPU cars are so aggressive!

The Mitsubishi Evo. VII in Trafalgar.

The Subaru Impreza in London.

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This is my favourite radio station! And my favourite band is on it right now!
Just like in MSR, PGR also has radio stations, but this time the radio stations are real local stations from the 4 cities in the game. Here’s a low-down on the 3 radio stations from each city (from the manual):

London:
Capital FM – The best mix of pop music with Simon “Schoolboy” Phillips.
XFM – Crank up an electric mix of music with Paul Anderson as your guide.
Digital FM – London’s best electronic music keeps you moving.

Tokyo:
InterFM – Tokyo’s #1 music station plays hits from around the world.
Volcano FM – Loud rock that’ll keep your foot glued to the floor, with Akifumi Endo.
Fresh FM – The latest hip-hop cuts brought to you by Maya Hoshino and Takami Fujita.

San Francisco:
Live 105 – Alternative rock to keep you racing with Jared as your host.
Bump FM – Chuy Gomez & Julie Pilat keep the hip-hop and R&B poppin’.
Damage Radio – Hard rock with Jim Keller. Wimps need not apply.

New York:
Gotham Radio – NYC’s hottest alternative music station, with Bill Ried and Chris Booker.
Hot 97 – With blazing hip-hop and R&B, Angie Martinez keeps you in the mix.
E-Radio – The latest in electronic music with Brian Beck.
As well as the real radio stations for each city there is also real artists such as The Chemical Brothers and L.A. Symphony among others, but if you don’t like what you hear then you could just rip your favourite CD’s onto the Xbox Hard Drive then listen to them in-game! They can be listened to in game through the user-radio or the in-car CD player. Your favourite songs will be played as special “requests” on the radio. The cars also have lovely engine sound effects with the souped-up cars sounding really powerful from the resting purr to the roar of the engine when you floor it. Lovely ambient sounds are also apparent like rain in some races.

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My new car handles like a dream!
Just like in MSR, the cars handle wonderfully! The powerslides are brilliant still and the games seems to have a more arcadey feel since you can pick any car instead of limited to 6 that were the maximum you could have in MSR this is an advantage in some ways, for example, in a style challenge you’ll need a car with better handling rather than a faster car so you can swerve around and through the cone gates better and have better hold over the car when you powerslide. A faster car would be better for races and top-speed challenges.
The controls are basically identical to MSR, R trigger is accelerate, L trigger is brake, A is handbrake, X is reverse, Y is look behind you and the left thumbstick is steering. There are a few differences such as D-pad can be used as steering so the change view buttons have been moved to the far right of the pad on the white and black buttons. And since the Xbox pad has an extra thumbstick, the right thumbstick can be used as accelerate and brake.
The double-vibration in the pads is brilliant and gives a cool extra dimension to the game, when the right of your car is bumped the right will vibrate, and the same for the left. The whole pad will shake when driving over bumps in the road and when your car lands after getting some “air” (more on “air” later). Another lovely feature of the game.

Close up of the real reflections on a car.

Yeehaw! Get some big air in San Fran!

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 Kudos to Bizarre Creations!

The Kudos system from MSR has been changed, this time kudos you are earning can be banked if you don’t crash into a wall for 3 seconds after making them, this time you can make kudos combos where you can link kudos gained together to get a bonus and the higher the kudos you make in the combo, the higher the bonus and these could run into hundreds of kudos in some challenges, just make sure you keep control of your car and don’t hit a wall. If you hit a wall before the kudos are banked then you will lose them, this means you better watch out when you have a big combo going!
This time you don’t just get kudos for stylish and speedy driving but for also getting “air”, “two wheels”, “overtake”, “360s”, “clean section” and “combo bonus”(I’ve already explained) as well as the “nice slide” which is powersliding. Here’s what each means:

Air: Have all 4 tires leave the ground simultaneously, you can get some really big air in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights area, re-create those Steve McQueen “Bullit” fantasies!
Two wheels: Clip a kerb and you could get a small kudos award for driving on two wheels momentarily.
Overtake: Self-explanatory this one, pass an opposing car for an extra 10 kudos.
360s: Pull off a sliding 360 without hitting a wall for a small bonus, mmm, doughnuts!
Clean section: Get from one checkpoint to another without hitting a wall.
Combo bonus: Bonus kudos for linking kudos scoring moves together.
Nice Slide: Powerslide round a corner while keeping control of your car for a stylish bonus.

As well as new ways of kudos scoring there is new kudos modes as well as “Kudos Challenge” there is “Arcade Race”, “Quick Race” plus a special mode that’ll open up after a few hours of play. Each of these challenges have different skill levels, Kudos Challenge is the main part of the game and has 12 levels plus a special bonus one to unlock. Arcade Race and Quick Race have 4 difficulty levels ranging from Easy to Very Hard and completing certain levels and gaining certain medals will open up new cars and secrets.
Another new kudos feature is the medals that are rewarded after scoring a certain amount of kudos and are needed to pass certain levels and unlock new cars and secrets. There are Bronze, Silver and Gold medals to achieve; if you ever achieve all gold you get another special reward…

Very shiney V12 Vanquish at The Mall in London.

Here it is again a bit further down the road.

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Race with up to 3 friends!

MSR had a brilliant 8-player (two at a time) multiplayer game with many different modes, but PGR doesn’t. It’s more basic this time; choose car, choose track then race, but this time you can have 4 players at one time if you have 3 extra pads and friends. The time of day and weather conditions can be changed by going into the options screen and selecting what time of day and weather condition you would like to race in, you can also select whether the race is one by time or kudos, which kind of adds an extra dimension and is fun in 4 player mode even though it slows down a bit when 4 players are racing. It’s good to win a race without having to come first so style is more important. 2 player races run smoothly at the full 60fps without any loss of speed. A good multiplayer game, but Halo’s multiplayer is better.

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Bigger than MSR? Yes and no. The game has less cars and tracks but there is an entire new city to drive around as well as more features and secrets. The games is less complex than MSR in some ways, you can choose any car in PGR and it was in real-time, and more complex in others, new kudos modes and scoring. There may be less cars, 29 instead of 40+, but most of the popular cars from the first are still around and there are new better cars like the Ferraris but there are no special comedy cars like the lawnmower, which is a shame. The game is a lot harder and will last you a lot longer and the challenge to gain all gold medals will keep you playing for months ‘til you have them all and are “The king of kudos!” Worth buying even if you had MSR on the DC.

The Mark!

Barry the SuperScot

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Relevant Links! xbox.com || Project Gotham Racing

Pictures from xbox.com and Bizarrecrations.com

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