Project Gotham Racing 3 Updated Hands-On
Newsflash: Project Gotham Racing 3 is a good-looking game. OK, so that's not anything you don't know and haven't heard us say before. However, after spending our first substantial amount of hands-on time with the game, now that a final build of the game has made it our way, we're still amazed by how impressive the third game in Bizarre Creations' racing series looks on the Xbox 360. In preparation for our full review coming very soon, we thought we'd give you a brief look at some of the things that caught our eye as we zipped around the third incarnation of PGR.
When you first boot up the PGR 3 and skip past the opening cutscene (who wants to see that, when there's races to be run?), you're taken to the Gotham TV logo, complete with a big "K" logo right in the middle. To be sure, Gotham TV, as the Bizarre team has dubbed it, plays a big role in the 360 version of the game--it gives you a chance to not only view your saved replays, but also watch some of the best racers in the world show their stuff on PGR 3's cosmopolitan lineup of courses.
If you haven't already done so, you'll want to create a profile first and foremost, as doing so will let you save your online records, keep track of your career-mode progress, and collect the many achievement badges that PGR 3 will offer. After you're all squared away there, you're taken to the main menu, which includes a number of different options right off the bat: Gotham career, playtime, Gotham TV, achievements, and "more." Career mode is obvious, and we'll get into more detail about it in a bit; playtime lets you get straight to the action on the track in quick fashion; Gotham TV is used for replays and watching other players online; achievements are a dynamic record of your progress in the game, and "more" includes the game's many options you can adjust.
We love spinning our wheels on individual races, but we know that the heart of PGR 3's single-player game is the career mode; because of this, we jumped right into Gotham career mode straight away. Your first job after entering this mode? Buy a car, naturally. You'll have a number of high-powered choices to start off with, and therein lies the beauty of PGR 3--there's not a weak whip in the entire lineup of available cars, which is composed of makes such as Ferrari, McLaren, RUF, TVR, and Shelby, among many others. A nice feature is the organization of these rides. Depending on the menu choice you make, you can organize the car lineup by price bracket, view only the cars you can afford, or window shop among everything that's available in the game. Among the models that were available to us right from the get-go were an NSX GT2, a Jaguar XKR, and a Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II Nьr (say that last one three times fast). Once you've chosen your model and color, you'll be able to place the car in any slot in your currently empty garage. As your collection grows, you'll upgrade your garage space to accommodate your growing family of fuel-injected monstrosities.
Your first car bought, it's time to jump right in to the race series of your choosing. Straight out of the gate, you'll have a number of them to pick from. Race series are composed of two or more events that can vary from simple street races to "style" events such as cone slaloms, speed trap (in which you want to reach a certain speed before you reach the finish line), and various time-trial races. Just as in previous Project Gotham games, there are a number of different difficulty levels to choose from--from novice up to the most difficult level, hardcore. Depending on which level you choose, you'll have different requirements to pass a particular test, and a sliding scale of rewards to boot--the more difficult the challenge, the more credits you earn.
It wasn't long before we were racking up achievements in PGR 3. We got special achievement notations for our first win, our first medal, our first series trophy win, and many others. As nice as the achievements were, the money was even better, and it didn't take us long before we were buying new cars left and right, including a bright blue RUF and a cherry red Lamborghini Countach, which brought back great memories of the original Cannonball Run. The level of detail in these car models is unparalleled, especially in the game's fantastic first-person, in-car viewpoint. When driving at high speeds, the sense of weight, both of the car and the rider inside the car, is palpable. The screen shakes with the undulations in the road; the front windshield builds up dust and grit as the race progresses; and the massive amount of lighting variety on the courses is simply a wonder to behold. Other details stand out too, such as the differing shifting mechanisms in different cars--the F1-style paddles on the Enzo Ferrari, as opposed to the traditional stick on the RUF. If this isn't the best-looking Xbox 360 game there is, it's darn close.
In one-off races, you're able to stock the field with drivers of any particular skill you like, from scrub-level competition to a field full of hardcore maniacs that will leave you in their collective dust when the light goes green. Special mention should also go out to the courses in PGR 3--the variety we saw in our limited time of the game was astonishing. From the long shoots over the Brooklyn Bridge in the New York courses to some tight and twisty underground sections in Tokyo's Shinjuku tracks, you'll never be at a loss for interesting places to drive your car in PGR 3. Finally, the game's crown jewel of tracks--the 13-mile-long Nьrburgring, looks even more imposing and impressive on the Xbox 360 than it did on the original Xbox, when it debuted on the original Project Gotham 2. And it's just as much of a bear to drive, which is just as it should be.
There are so many other things to talk about in PGR 3--the extensive online play, the course editor, and much more. Rest assured, we'll be taking a look at all of these features in preparation for our upcoming review. Until then, go round up your racing gloves and put a down payment on that HD monitor. We'll see you on the track very soon.
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