PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 3
XBOX 360
Genre: Racing
Difficulty: Hard
Players: 1-2 (Splitscreen); 2-8 (System Link); 2-8 (XBOX Live)
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft
Review by Ruined
SYNOPSIS
Project Gotham Racing® 3 creates the ultimate roster of the hottest supercars in existence, introduces them to the high-definition era, and drops them into a completely new gaming world, where style rules the road.
Define and create individually customized gameplay; race on or offline; and drive what you want, where you want. Drive with style and daring to earn Kudos in front of large crowds, and win badges to reward your skills in all areas of the game.
With a whole host of new racing modes, custom races, community support, and campaigns, PGR 3 takes advantage of the online advances Xbox 360™ has to offer.
So are you ready to hear about the latest Gotham? Here it is!
GRAPHICS: A
Score reflects graphics viewed at 1080i resolution
Project Gotham Racing 3 is the definitive title to demo your XBOX 360's next-gen capabilities with. With some of the best and most realistic graphics combined with next-gen special effects, anyone who happens to walk by your TV will have to pick their jaw up off the floor. That is not saying there isn't room for improvement; 4xAA would have looked better than the 2xAA on this title, and better anisotropic filtering would have made road textures a bit sharper in the distance... Not to mention that there is occasional slowdown in replays. But all of this is petty, as this game implements some of the most amazing graphics that have ever been seen in any game ever. The cockpit camera, though difficult to win with, is outstanding. Full dashboards are reproduced and the field of view moves very realistically. PGR3 also features a nifty blur effect as your speed increases - as you speed up you will see the scenery to your sides start to blur, just like real life! Some other nice graphical touches include the crowd jumping out of the way when you hit a wall and
SOUND: B+
Score reflects sound played back in 5.1 Surround
Sound effects and surround sound are outstanding, and PGR3 offers huge amounts of tweakability in this area. It even allows you to adjust all of the surround parameters and environmental effects so that you can alter the positional audio until it is exactly how you want it to be. Music, on the other hand, is a bit weak. Well, maybe not weak, but strange. PGR3 has an eclectic mix of all different types of music, and I found myself not liking many of the tracks. Since a game like this is perfect for your own soundtrack, though, you should probably just stream your MP3s off your computer with the XBOX 360 Guide button.
CONTROL: A
Gotham never felt better. The setup is the same as usual. Right trigger is accelerate, Left Trigger is brake, A is handbrake, Left Bumper is change camera. Controls are spot on, and again Gotham translates the controller to real life driving like no other game.
SINGLE PLAYER GAMEPLAY: A-
While I wish I could say this is the best Gotham ever for single player gameplay, I really can't because I'm still not sure if that is the case yet. PGR3 is, in fact, significantly different than previous iterations in the series when it comes to the single player game.
PGR3 is the same as its predecessors in its core single player career mode. All of the same challenges are back, but now they have been tweaked just a bit. If you haven't played a PGR game yet, the challenges generally consist of racing other cars, sliding your car all around the track without crashing for style points, or a combination of both. Five skill levels are made available so that every player has a chance of getting cash. Kudos seem easier to earn in PGR3 - you are not penalized as harshly for crashing, as it appears that some of the Kudos you earn in a string are retained even if that string ends with a big crash into the wall. And we all know how important Kudos are in PGR, right? Or do we?
What differentiates this game from its predecessors is that PGR3 makes it much easier to unlock the best cars by changing the method by which they are unlocked. Much, much easier. So much easier that my first car was an NSX, my second car was a Lamborghini Gallardo, and my third car was a Ferrari Enzo. Many consider the Enzo to be one of the best cars in the game due to its excellent control and fast speeds; 90% of the top players I've seen on "Gotham TV" use the Enzo (I'll get to Gotham TV later). So there I was, two hours into the game with one of the best cars sitting in my garage. Twenty minutes later I also had a Diablo GT and a Countach 25th Anniversary Edition parked next to my other cars.
How was it so easy, you ask? Because Kudos (style points), the gameplay mechanic that has driven the PGR series in the past, play a significantly smaller role than they did in previous games. PGR3 now introduces cash; instead of unlocking cars with Kudos, you get cash to buy what you want anywhere throughout the spectrum of cars. After winning races and championships you get huge amounts of cash instead of a smaller amount of Kudos as in previous games. Kudos still come into play as there are several cars that cannot be bought until you reach certain Kudos benchmarks, however Kudos are no longer the make-or-break factor that they were in previous games. Instead, the total count of Kudos you build up during your career seemingly primarily serve to be bonus points that can be used to unlock bonus cars to buy in the shop - and also to increase your career rank, an indicator of your progress through the game.
Now that you have lots of cash to buy cars with, the game changes its focus to collecting these cars you spent your money on. You get to collect cars in your various garages, which you can take a 3D walk around to survey your hot rods. It was pretty neat to have a garage full of Lamborghinis and a Ferrari Enzo. That being said, I felt a bit cheated being able to drive one of the hottest cars in the game mere hours after I started playing it. I remember in the first PGR I had to work days and days to unlock the Ferrari F50. In PGR3 its just a matter of hours, and instead of playing to unlock the best cars you play to unlock collections of cars - because you can unlock the best cars fairly quickly.
I awarded PGR3 an A- because the core gameplay is still as excellent as it was in previous games, however I could not rank it higher as I would have because I'm not sure I'm quite as fond of the new unlock system. While it does offer lots more freedom, it seems to reduce the joy of obtaining faster and faster rides as you can cherry pick the fastest rides not too long after you begin the game. That's not to say the game will be any easier with the fastest car, though, because like previous PGR games the challenges are normalized based on how good the car your driving is. For instance, I found some challenges easier to beat with my slower Lamborghini Gallardo than my faster Ferrari Enzo simply because the track either fit the Gallardo better or the window of error the game allowed with the Gallardo was greater than the window allowed with the Enzo.
So do not fear that you will be able to beat the game with ease once you get the Enzo or equivalent car. It is still just as hard. The key is that you must change your focus of past Gothams of "unlocking the best and fastest car" to "unlocking and collecting all the hot rods I like the best."
On top of what you've come to expect in the PGR games there is also now a Route Creator. Essentially you can point and push to quickly and easily make your own custom tracks through the cities featured in the game. It works very well and I was able to churn out 4 tracks in less than 20 minutes. You can even play your custom tracks over Live with friends.
All-in-all the single player game is excellent, albeit different from prior games in the PGR series. I don't doubt many will appreciate this change as it makes getting cooler cars much easier. But hardcore PGR players, be warned of the difference! Also watch out for the load times as they can be a bit long sometimes!
MULTIPLAYER GAMEPLAY & XBOX LIVE FEATURES: A
Difficulty to earn XBOX Live Achievement Points: Medium
In addition to the offline career mode, there is also an online career mode. This is interesting, as the game essentially gives you online challenges that you must conquer versus Human AI, meaning players on XBOX Live. If you get bored or stuck racing against the Computer AI, you can head onto XBOX Live to further your career aspirations. Do not fear that you will get your butt kicked in the online career mode, as PGR3 will match you against someone else equal to you in skill. In addition to the online career, Gotham also features standard head-to-head XBOX Live racing, split screen racing, and system link racing. Online play is as smooth as glass.
PGR3 also features Gotham TV. Select this from the menu and you can watch the top Project Gotham Racing 3 players racing live on XBOX Live. That is, you can actually enter select top ranked players' games as a spectator and watch them race other players live with any camera angle you want. Get good enough at PGR3 and you could be featured on Gotham TV, earning you fame and XBOX Live achievement points. Gotham TV is a truly innovative feature that makes PGR3 all the more fun, as you can see what the best race with and how to take that turn you keep screwing up on.
The XBOX Live achievements in PGR3 are fairly well spaced out, though it will take you some time to earn all of them - and most people will never be able to earn all of them. The one I like the best is the "Lamborghini Owners Club" achievement - buy all the Lamborghinis in the game to get it! Don't worry, there is one for Ferrari fans, too.
OVERALL: A
Project Gotham Racing 3 is the third and last game that I will award a straight-up "A" rating to out of all the XBOX 360 launch titles. While many of the remaining titles are great (COD2 and Condemned come to mind), they are simply not full-packaged excellence like Project Gotham Racing 3, Kameo, and Perfect Dark Zero. PDZ is your next-gen FPS fix, Kameo is your next-gen action/adventure/platforming fix, and PGR3 is your next-gen racing fix. If you are trying to choose a racer out of the three that are available for XBOX 360 currently, hands down PGR3 is the easy choice. The PGR series (even with its new, cash-based, easier car unlock system) remains at the top of the hill in gameplay for racers. PGR3 also sits at the top of the hill for graphics for the XBOX 360. It's also tops in terms of integrating XBOX Live online multiplayer into the core game. Whether you want a killer racer, a great online experience, or the undisputed next-gen graphical showpiece, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a game you need to have in your XBOX 360 library.
Link to buy: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=200119
XBOX 360
Genre: Racing
Difficulty: Hard
Players: 1-2 (Splitscreen); 2-8 (System Link); 2-8 (XBOX Live)
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft
Review by Ruined
SYNOPSIS
Project Gotham Racing® 3 creates the ultimate roster of the hottest supercars in existence, introduces them to the high-definition era, and drops them into a completely new gaming world, where style rules the road.
Define and create individually customized gameplay; race on or offline; and drive what you want, where you want. Drive with style and daring to earn Kudos in front of large crowds, and win badges to reward your skills in all areas of the game.
With a whole host of new racing modes, custom races, community support, and campaigns, PGR 3 takes advantage of the online advances Xbox 360™ has to offer.
So are you ready to hear about the latest Gotham? Here it is!
GRAPHICS: A
Score reflects graphics viewed at 1080i resolution
Project Gotham Racing 3 is the definitive title to demo your XBOX 360's next-gen capabilities with. With some of the best and most realistic graphics combined with next-gen special effects, anyone who happens to walk by your TV will have to pick their jaw up off the floor. That is not saying there isn't room for improvement; 4xAA would have looked better than the 2xAA on this title, and better anisotropic filtering would have made road textures a bit sharper in the distance... Not to mention that there is occasional slowdown in replays. But all of this is petty, as this game implements some of the most amazing graphics that have ever been seen in any game ever. The cockpit camera, though difficult to win with, is outstanding. Full dashboards are reproduced and the field of view moves very realistically. PGR3 also features a nifty blur effect as your speed increases - as you speed up you will see the scenery to your sides start to blur, just like real life! Some other nice graphical touches include the crowd jumping out of the way when you hit a wall and
SOUND: B+
Score reflects sound played back in 5.1 Surround
Sound effects and surround sound are outstanding, and PGR3 offers huge amounts of tweakability in this area. It even allows you to adjust all of the surround parameters and environmental effects so that you can alter the positional audio until it is exactly how you want it to be. Music, on the other hand, is a bit weak. Well, maybe not weak, but strange. PGR3 has an eclectic mix of all different types of music, and I found myself not liking many of the tracks. Since a game like this is perfect for your own soundtrack, though, you should probably just stream your MP3s off your computer with the XBOX 360 Guide button.
CONTROL: A
Gotham never felt better. The setup is the same as usual. Right trigger is accelerate, Left Trigger is brake, A is handbrake, Left Bumper is change camera. Controls are spot on, and again Gotham translates the controller to real life driving like no other game.
SINGLE PLAYER GAMEPLAY: A-
While I wish I could say this is the best Gotham ever for single player gameplay, I really can't because I'm still not sure if that is the case yet. PGR3 is, in fact, significantly different than previous iterations in the series when it comes to the single player game.
PGR3 is the same as its predecessors in its core single player career mode. All of the same challenges are back, but now they have been tweaked just a bit. If you haven't played a PGR game yet, the challenges generally consist of racing other cars, sliding your car all around the track without crashing for style points, or a combination of both. Five skill levels are made available so that every player has a chance of getting cash. Kudos seem easier to earn in PGR3 - you are not penalized as harshly for crashing, as it appears that some of the Kudos you earn in a string are retained even if that string ends with a big crash into the wall. And we all know how important Kudos are in PGR, right? Or do we?
What differentiates this game from its predecessors is that PGR3 makes it much easier to unlock the best cars by changing the method by which they are unlocked. Much, much easier. So much easier that my first car was an NSX, my second car was a Lamborghini Gallardo, and my third car was a Ferrari Enzo. Many consider the Enzo to be one of the best cars in the game due to its excellent control and fast speeds; 90% of the top players I've seen on "Gotham TV" use the Enzo (I'll get to Gotham TV later). So there I was, two hours into the game with one of the best cars sitting in my garage. Twenty minutes later I also had a Diablo GT and a Countach 25th Anniversary Edition parked next to my other cars.
How was it so easy, you ask? Because Kudos (style points), the gameplay mechanic that has driven the PGR series in the past, play a significantly smaller role than they did in previous games. PGR3 now introduces cash; instead of unlocking cars with Kudos, you get cash to buy what you want anywhere throughout the spectrum of cars. After winning races and championships you get huge amounts of cash instead of a smaller amount of Kudos as in previous games. Kudos still come into play as there are several cars that cannot be bought until you reach certain Kudos benchmarks, however Kudos are no longer the make-or-break factor that they were in previous games. Instead, the total count of Kudos you build up during your career seemingly primarily serve to be bonus points that can be used to unlock bonus cars to buy in the shop - and also to increase your career rank, an indicator of your progress through the game.
Now that you have lots of cash to buy cars with, the game changes its focus to collecting these cars you spent your money on. You get to collect cars in your various garages, which you can take a 3D walk around to survey your hot rods. It was pretty neat to have a garage full of Lamborghinis and a Ferrari Enzo. That being said, I felt a bit cheated being able to drive one of the hottest cars in the game mere hours after I started playing it. I remember in the first PGR I had to work days and days to unlock the Ferrari F50. In PGR3 its just a matter of hours, and instead of playing to unlock the best cars you play to unlock collections of cars - because you can unlock the best cars fairly quickly.
I awarded PGR3 an A- because the core gameplay is still as excellent as it was in previous games, however I could not rank it higher as I would have because I'm not sure I'm quite as fond of the new unlock system. While it does offer lots more freedom, it seems to reduce the joy of obtaining faster and faster rides as you can cherry pick the fastest rides not too long after you begin the game. That's not to say the game will be any easier with the fastest car, though, because like previous PGR games the challenges are normalized based on how good the car your driving is. For instance, I found some challenges easier to beat with my slower Lamborghini Gallardo than my faster Ferrari Enzo simply because the track either fit the Gallardo better or the window of error the game allowed with the Gallardo was greater than the window allowed with the Enzo.
So do not fear that you will be able to beat the game with ease once you get the Enzo or equivalent car. It is still just as hard. The key is that you must change your focus of past Gothams of "unlocking the best and fastest car" to "unlocking and collecting all the hot rods I like the best."
On top of what you've come to expect in the PGR games there is also now a Route Creator. Essentially you can point and push to quickly and easily make your own custom tracks through the cities featured in the game. It works very well and I was able to churn out 4 tracks in less than 20 minutes. You can even play your custom tracks over Live with friends.
All-in-all the single player game is excellent, albeit different from prior games in the PGR series. I don't doubt many will appreciate this change as it makes getting cooler cars much easier. But hardcore PGR players, be warned of the difference! Also watch out for the load times as they can be a bit long sometimes!
MULTIPLAYER GAMEPLAY & XBOX LIVE FEATURES: A
Difficulty to earn XBOX Live Achievement Points: Medium
In addition to the offline career mode, there is also an online career mode. This is interesting, as the game essentially gives you online challenges that you must conquer versus Human AI, meaning players on XBOX Live. If you get bored or stuck racing against the Computer AI, you can head onto XBOX Live to further your career aspirations. Do not fear that you will get your butt kicked in the online career mode, as PGR3 will match you against someone else equal to you in skill. In addition to the online career, Gotham also features standard head-to-head XBOX Live racing, split screen racing, and system link racing. Online play is as smooth as glass.
PGR3 also features Gotham TV. Select this from the menu and you can watch the top Project Gotham Racing 3 players racing live on XBOX Live. That is, you can actually enter select top ranked players' games as a spectator and watch them race other players live with any camera angle you want. Get good enough at PGR3 and you could be featured on Gotham TV, earning you fame and XBOX Live achievement points. Gotham TV is a truly innovative feature that makes PGR3 all the more fun, as you can see what the best race with and how to take that turn you keep screwing up on.
The XBOX Live achievements in PGR3 are fairly well spaced out, though it will take you some time to earn all of them - and most people will never be able to earn all of them. The one I like the best is the "Lamborghini Owners Club" achievement - buy all the Lamborghinis in the game to get it! Don't worry, there is one for Ferrari fans, too.
OVERALL: A
Project Gotham Racing 3 is the third and last game that I will award a straight-up "A" rating to out of all the XBOX 360 launch titles. While many of the remaining titles are great (COD2 and Condemned come to mind), they are simply not full-packaged excellence like Project Gotham Racing 3, Kameo, and Perfect Dark Zero. PDZ is your next-gen FPS fix, Kameo is your next-gen action/adventure/platforming fix, and PGR3 is your next-gen racing fix. If you are trying to choose a racer out of the three that are available for XBOX 360 currently, hands down PGR3 is the easy choice. The PGR series (even with its new, cash-based, easier car unlock system) remains at the top of the hill in gameplay for racers. PGR3 also sits at the top of the hill for graphics for the XBOX 360. It's also tops in terms of integrating XBOX Live online multiplayer into the core game. Whether you want a killer racer, a great online experience, or the undisputed next-gen graphical showpiece, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a game you need to have in your XBOX 360 library.
Link to buy: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=200119
