Project Gotham Racing 3 / Games / Web Wombat

I picked up the game, it was Project Gotham Racing 3, and it looked sweet showing off the Ferrari F430 on the box. But I had no Xbox360 with which to operate the game, so I had to head to JB HiFi and ask really nicely if I could use their in-store system.

The manager said no, and that mentally retarded people should have minders, but I threatened the clearly insecure man with violence after a TV mysteriously landed on my clenched fist.

Anyway, I finally got to playing the game after one of the cashiers bandaged up my fist, all the while fending off annoyingly vocal young children who had come to the specialist audio/visual store for that sole reason. After a few punches to the neck, a snapped tibia and one spectacular judo-chop to the wind pipe (that shut him up quick-smart!), the kids wisely kept their distance and, lo' and behold, I now have this review for you.

The game starts off like any other racing game: car after expensive car zooms by, cool music plays, brain melting camera angles assault the eyes and the odd splash of "Gotham" appears. After the relatively ho-hum intro I was instantly familiar with the setup. If you've played any of the bygone Gotham games, you'll be right as rain here.

The thing I wasn't expecting however, were the amazing graphics. Granted, I was playing the game on a lovely plasma widescreen TV in high definition mode, but I really was taken aback not only by the attention to detail and quality texture mapping, but also the fluidity of the game and blitzing framerate at which it moves. Gran Turdismo watch out!

The cars are lovingly detailed - right down to the cockpits - and combine with the amazing physics engine to great effect. This combo of graphics and physics is best witnessed in the replay mode: it's awesome watching as a car's suspension tracks over bumps and ripple strips, or when the car performs a smoking powerslide through the apex of a tight corner as everything behaves as if it has mass, and it just has a very realistic vibe to it. And it must be said that the trackside detail is amazing too.

Racing through a city such as New York is simply stupendous, and like the previous two Gotham games (and Metropolis Street Racer), the cities are accurately recreated. With the extra processing power that the Xbox360 affords, this is arguably the best looking driving game ever created. Every time you turn a corner the graphics around the screens periphery blur slightly, and it's little touches like this that help elevate the game to a very special level.

Another area of the graphics that are quite remarkable are the lighting effects, which help give the game a suitably realistic look. From the incredibly cool in-car view (new to PGR3), complete with accurate cockpits of all the cars in the game (which is a bloody impressive feat in itself), PGR3 is simply awesome to watch when the white-glare decimates your view momentarily as your vehicle emerges from a dark tunnel and into the sunshine of a crisp autumn in London.

Graphically, PGR3 is a killer. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. But what's it like to play?

Having read some reports that the Xbox360 is not the quantum leap console it should have been, I was expecting Project Gotham 2.5 rather than a true trilogy-making blockbuster. But what I experienced was nothing short of brilliant. This is one sweet game folks, and I was more than happy to endure the taunts of supreme court retribution from the shocked parents of the unconscious and slightly/completely battered and bruised children littering the ground around me in order to play the game. As I explained, I did warn them. "Back off you little shit machine" I said to one particularly snotty so and so. To which the response was "My daddy's a lawyer and he's gonna put you in prison." Been there, done that, I responded knowingly, while putting the Noble M40 into a gutsy power slide that would have made Valentino Rossi choke on his bolognese.

And that's the thing about Project Gotham Racing 3. It's not how fast you race, it's how you race fast. For those who have had the misfortune to never play a Gotham game, allow me to explain one of the central themes: you are always rewarded for performing cool driving moves while competing, so long as you don't crash into a wall. For instance, you could do a dirty great big powerslide, or hit a ripple strip and bang up on two wheels for a second and you'll get points depending on how technical the move was, and even drafting or slip-streaming is worth extra Kudos points, and all these points contribute to earning credits that can be spent on new cars between events. It's a brilliant game engine that rewards you for being stylish, as well as fast.

Better yet, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a far more diverse driving game than your average racer, as there are literally millions of game modes. Well, that's a lie, there's actually 11 different modes, and before you ask your local break-dancing king pin about such modes, allow me:

Timed Events
Hot Lap	As the name suggests, you get one shot, one lap to complete within the designated time.
Timed Run	Another "hence the name" event, where you must simply complete the race before the timer runs to zero.
Breakthrough	This is like a checkpoint race. You may start with 20 seconds, and each checkpoint you 'breakthrough' you get a bit more time.
Time vs Kudos	This mode is new the Project Gotham franchise, and is one of the coolest modes, where you must complete a lap before the timer runs out. The thing is, you start with much less time than is needed to finish the race, but performing cool powerslides and other Kudos increasing moves with stop the clock depending on the difficulty of the trick. Race fast, and race stylishly - this one's a ripper!

Racing Events
Street Race	This event involves otters and decommissioned refridgerators. Oh wait, my bad. This one is actually your traditional race, where there may be four laps where you race against multiple opponents. An oldy, but a goody.
One on One	One of my all time favourites, the mano-e-mano races pit you against one other car in a test of mental strength. Always enjoyable.
Eliminator	Ripped off from the Burnout games, this mode is very cool. You may start the race with four opponents, but the last car to complete each is instantly removed from the race, with the victor the last car rolling. Another very challenging and rewarding event.

Style Events
Cone Challenge	No, it's got nothing to do with narcotics, but rather an intriguing and sometimes awesome, sometimes frustrating event where you must navigate a number of cone gates or checkpoints while trying to build massive Kudos combos.
Drift Challenge	This curious event is inspired by the growing popularity of drift racing, and while it has merit, it can cheated in many ways by simply sitting still and doing 360 burnouts in the 20-odd seconds you get to complete the challenge. You are supposed to drift around corners and reach a certain Kudos score.
Overtake Challenge	Probably the most annoying mode in PGR3, where you are tasked with overtaking a certain number of cars in a given time.
Speed Challenge	Ever been busted by a speed camera? If so, you'll love this antisocial mode, where you have to be snapped by the police cameras while achieving a target speed.

The gameplay is superb. Granted, I like Forza on the Xbox, I dig Gran Turismo on the PS2, but this is the next level of gaming, and it rocks. The physics, for a start, are brilliant. The difference between a super heavy, but powerful 4WD Lamborghini Murcielago with its mid-mounted engine, and a super-light TVR Cerbera with its front mounted engine and rear wheel drive transmission is clearly felt. One oversteers with a penchant (the TVR) while the other is more neutral in the way it tips into corners (the Lambo).

Losing control of your ride can happen frequently when you're trying hard to catch up to others, and it's quite enlightening to later watch the reply and see exactly how it happened; which wheel lost traction; whether you were nudged by an opponent; or got a bit of air over a crest which upset your line upon landing. It's brilliant stuff, and with the focus on realism it's the kind of game that, even once finished, will still provide plenty of replayability.

The graphical detail is simply stunning,
but aren't all Audi's, including the tough
RS 4, electronicaly limited to 250km/h?

Yanking up the handbrake to initiate a colossal powerslide is easy enough during a race but being able to counter-steer through it and keep the rear wheels alight for big points - smoke pouring across the track the whole time - is no easy feat, and like Texas Hold 'Em Poker, it's easy to learn, but difficult to master.

The controls are very good, and there's not a lot to it. Gas, brake, honk. Well, there's no honk, truth be told, but once you can steer left and right you'll be ready to race. The controls are really quite precise in fact, and the only hurdle you'll face while racing will be the physics of drag, inertia, friction and heaps more stuff that my feeble brain can't comprehend.

In addition to the plethora of racing modes, of which the majority are highly enjoyable, there are the cars. So many cars, and not a shit-bomb in sight. More than 75 vehicles are on offer in PGR3, and get this - the deciding criteria for entry into the game by the Bizarre Creations team was that a car must have a top speed no lower than 170mph. For the metric brigade, that's about 274km/h. That's means no Mini Coopers, no Seat Cordoba's and no Golf R32s. But there are a few heavily tuned Skylines in there, hidden away among the Ferrari Challenge Stardale's and Lamborghini Diablo SVs. All told, there's more than 41,000 horsepower with all the cars combined, with an average top speed of 196mph, or about 315km/h. Wham-bam, thankyou ma'am - that's some serious mumbo.

In addition to the solo career mode, which could have been a little longer in Harm Assists opinion, and which takes you through the game's various locations - comprised of New York, London, Tokyo, Las Vegas and the legendary Nurburgring in Germany - there's also an online career where you can compare your times and scores with the rest of world, which is pretty cool. There's a number of other modes too, such as playtime, which is a freeform area that allows you to race against the clock, create races (street race, eliminator, capture the track) and join online or system linked games. There's even a route creator facility whereby you choose one of the capital cities and create your own route through them, which is a nice touch, and adds even more shelf life to PGR3.

Playing online via Xbox Live is the icing on the cake for those who have a broadband connection, and there's extra game modes such as dueling, urban rally and dusk til dawn races, plus heaps more useless stuff you can do, such as watch Gotham TV and even apply filters to it so that you're only informed of exciting races featuring your mates, or even the mighty Gotham Heroes, the best players, the cream of the crop if you will.

Racing online is arguably the best way to play this game. Sure, the career mode is a lot of fun, but racing human opponents who rarely screw up is another challenge altogether, and I found that I had to improve my game just to keep up. It's immensely satisfying though, and highly recommended.

The only problem I had with the game were the woeful load times. Even when you hit "retry" during a race, where you'd think the track would have been loaded in to the system's cache, meaning a super-quick load, it takes it's sweet time. Sure, you can flip channels and watch Big Brother or that splendid Ellen DeGeneres show, but hot-dang I want quick load times with my aerodynamic next gen console.

If you've got an Xbox360, or are thinking getting one, and have even a passing interest in motor vehicles, you'd be wise to check out Project Gotham Racing 3. With new game modes, nothing but sexy supercars to drive, superlative physics and dazzling graphics that have changed my opinion about the Xbox360, this game is very, very sharp, and quite possibly the best driving game ever made. And well worth gently fending off smarmy kids for.

Game: Project Gotham Racing 3
System: Xbox360
Players: 1-8
Online: Yes
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Distributor: Microsoft

Rating: 85%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

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