5punk

PGR4 - XBox 360



Introduction
Project Gotham Racing is the successor to Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast, which was one of the first games to introduce showing off to get more points, long before Ned for Speed went "underground". This new version is shiny and stylish and features bikes racing alongside cars in various weather conditions on street and racetrack locations.

Gameplay
The showing-off element is more pronounced than the previous release, but there is still something for everyone. Lots of game modes including crashing into cones (but much easier than Crazy Taxi) and overtaking 2CVs mean there's always something to do.

Riding bikes is a lot more fun that I thought it would be, while it's quite easy to fall off - particularly with aggressive car drivers around - the penalty isn't that great and your acceleration makes up for it. I had to use the third-person view for bikes though, as I was getting severe neck-ache.

Since you can test drive or split-screen race any vehicle without unlocking them, it's a fun one to take to friend's houses. Multiplayer over the internet I've avoided as it's rarely a fun experience with driving games.

Sights and Sounds
Nice title music from the Prodigy, plus some surprising variation in the other tunes, from some distinctive classical titles to hideous genero-rock. Good car sounds, particularly on the quirky vehicles that make odd noises.

Graphically all rather nice, with very detailed in-car views, windscreen wipers and everything if that's your thing (I favour the clean view of the camera stuck on the front bumper).

There is an okay selection of cars, but nowhere near as many as the other major titles - the same is true of the tracks, but the different weather conditions add quite a bit of variation. A lot of the tracks and cars will be very familiar, but fortunately seem very consistent with their appearances in other games.

Stuff that sucks
It's not as "pure" as Forza, and the races which revolve around showboating can get a little tedious, but it's easy enough to find something else to do. Superbikes, in the snow on a grand-prix track - it can get pretty silly - even sillier is the fact that the above-mentioned combination is not actually that challenging.

Conclusion
A fun driving title, not so realistic, but a good blast. A decent halfway point between the more serious and more frivolous racing games.

Score : 8/10

FatherJack wrote: Project Gotham Racing

Does it have batmobiles?

Baliame wrote:Does it have batmobiles?

Sadly no - I remember the Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray '67 from GT1 looked rather Batmobile-ish.

Not sure why it's called Project Gotham to be honest, unless it's referring to the Old English meaning of "Town of fools".

Three wise men of Gotham,
Went to sea in a bowl,
And if the bowl had been stronger,
My song would have been longer.

The Internet says:

Project Gotham was the code name for what was actually a sequel to the Dreamcast game Metropolis Street Racer, but they couldn't use the name as it belonged to Sega. They liked it so much the name stuck. Why "Gotham" is something to do with what FatherJack said and Gotham is suggestive of a big city, were the tracks are set and was the nickname for New York.

Bored now?

Ah, I played a Japanese import of Metropolis Street Racer on the DC. I thought PGR was the name for the non-Japanese version.

FatherJack wrote:I favour the clean view of the camera stuck on the front bumper

Really? I find this view is quite restrictive and I make far more mistakes, plus it makes me feel quite ill watching from that angle.

HereComesPete wrote:
Really? I find this view is quite restrictive and I make far more mistakes, plus it makes me feel quite ill watching from that angle.

That. Driving games should be third person.

The bumper view would be good if you could also look to the sides, with some kind of wrap-around display, but with just a single monitor/TV in front of me, I just can't deal with the lack of peripheral vision. So much of driving depends on it that it's unplayable for me without it, and the only way you can kinda get it is in the third-person car view.

Baliame wrote: That. Driving games should be third person.

Third person does give you an advantage of being able to see more ahead but I feel it breaks the immersion somewhat.

I've tried all views in racing games and just can't get on with any other than the front bumper view, as that is to me most similar to what I'm looking at when driving a real car.

You could argue the cockpit view would be more realistic, but I find that just wastes half the screen, and in real cars you don't focus on the interior at all unless checking the dials, even windscreen wipers and rain on the glass become invisible as you look "through" them. Games don't simulate your depth of field - because they don't know what your eyes are doing - so to me, cockpit view is like there's a huge cardboard cutout of the cockpit floating in the area down the road where you're focussing and third-person is like driving a remote controlled-car.

I grew up always playing the chase-cam third-person view because I found it easiest (more time to react) and we used to call the front cam the "super scary view", but I found switching to it (and at first forcing myself to use it) improved my reactions and success massively.

It does depend massively on the game though, which is why I'm quite finickety about the feel, which is critical in first-person. Arcade racers like Mario Kart and Wipeout don't work first-person and even the first DiRT I felt was lacking, particularly in comparision to the earlier Colin McRae games and its sequel.

Not being able to see where the other cars are can be a problem, which some games remedy by having floating "mirrors" at the edge of the view, but in the really good games you can use your other senses to feel where the other cars are. A good example is an F1 game, where a truly realistic representation has you unable to see anything other than what's in front of you - you can't turn your head more than a few inches and your mirrors are virtually useless.