Editor’s note: Review preformed on a Sony 60” SXRD 1080p TV, ISF calibrated by me. Your mileage may vary.
Polished. Deep. Refined. Exciting. Live.
Project Gotham 3 fits the X360 like a pair of supple leather racing gloves. It has become the game you expect to show up for any new Xbox launch. Pouring on to your screen in glorious 720p, the crisp and insanely detailed environments surround the mega poly and highly reflective super cars. Whether you are trading paint on the streets of Tokyo or banging gears on Nurburgring’s Nordschleife circuit, PGR3 delivers high-speed racing at its best. Some will tell you the game is closer to sim than arcade but I feel it is pretty much a 50/50 split of those two sub genres. Car Physics seem fairly accurate but when you hit a wall at 140 mph and your car just stops and only has a few scratches on the front bumper you kind of get the idea that realism has taken a back seat. The game definitely strikes a balance and I feel succeeds admirably. Many games that try to please both crowds end up pleasing neither.
The ‘Kudos system’, which the game makers implemented back on Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast has undergone various tweaking thought the series and has yet again been refined here. Kudos are earned by not only winning races but by pulling off all sorts of tricky moves like power sliding around corners, drafting other drivers and basically looking really bitchin on the track all the while winning races. You can string together multiple kudos earning maneuvers to create combos and multipliers but do not hit a wall or they will be taken away.
Drivers Ed.
While the ‘Career Mode’ is similar to the previous games, it is more accessible to novice players and not as grueling and drawn out. Kudos this time around are easier to earn, as are credits, which are gained from winning races and used to purchase new cars. You are able to earn and spend your credits faster, so right out of the gate you can get behind the wheel of some of today’s hottest super cars. There are twenty-three different championships to race that cover eleven different event types of events. They are quite diverse and range from straight up Racing, Cone or Overtake Challenges, Time vs. Kudos and Eliminator. There are five different difficulty settings ranging from Novice to Hardcore with Medium as the default.
Once again, Xbox Live is seamlessly interwoven into your racing experience, as after each challenge you will be instantly ranked with all the other racers in the world. At fist glance, you may say wow, 15th place is not bad, until you realize it says 15 place in League 8. Doh! To keep the place setting down in the triple digits they have implemented Leagues. The Leaderboard of that event are also on display showing you the top 10 divers. Now let’s say you are having trouble and want to know how the top dogs do it? Well they got you covered with the ‘Ghost Options’. Pressing ‘Y’ opens that option, and you are able to race with or just watch the ghost of the worlds best or of your own ghost if you have it already saved from before. I am telling ya, for a one-way ticket to humble town, this is it. Just pop one of those top racers ghosts up on your screen and try to keep up.
Drivers Ed. Live
Taking your Career online is a quite similar to offline with the major difference that you are racing against human player rather than AI bots. Now this can be a double edge sword as it nearly always more enjoyable to compete against real flesh and blood but whom you race against is beyond of your control, so your mileage will vary greatly. You start out ‘Newcomer’ and are pitted against others of similar experience. You can move up the ladder as an ‘Amateur’, ‘Novice’, ‘Rookie’, ‘Contender’ all the way to ‘Expert, ‘Master’ and dare I say, ‘Gotham Hero’.
My experience while playing the ‘Online Career Mode’ was mixed, as I had to deal with many dillweeds whose sole purpose in life was to bash you into the rails. Truth is I mostly only game with friends on Live. My friends list is nearly full, so I always have someone to hook up with. With racing games, it can be very frustrating when you are trying to dive the line and take turns properly just to have some goober smack you into the railing, causing you to loose precious time from which you can never recover.
After a race, you are presented with a screen list all the other racers and the ability to view their ‘Gamer Card’ and pressing ‘Y’ allows you to submit a Player Review. If you give someone negative feedback, the system will not pair you up again with the offender. Another new addition, something that has been asked for my many racing game fans such as myself is the ability to save an online replay. This is huge folks, it really is. There have been many times when racing with friends, having the time of your lives and no way to preserve that moment, well there is now.
I have put many hours into playing on Live and the game has preformed near flawlessly. You do encounter a little weirdness (i.e. teleporting) with lag, but that is unavoidable with any online game as you have no control over others internet connections. In fact while playing with friends I never encountered a problem once, only when playing with strangers. Communication worked great but one feature that is sorely missing is the ability to see who is talking while in a race. This feature is only available in the lobby. It is really needed when racing with strangers, so if someone is being a jerk you know who it is. Microsoft really needs to implement basic Live standards for ALL Live games.
Look Mom, I am on TV
PGR 1 & 2 and Metropolis Street Racer before that all share the same basic components, with each new version undergoing further refinement and tweaking. With PGR 2 Bizarre Creations ushered in a completely new era in the form of LIVE gameplay. Back in its day, PGR 2 was the cat’s pajamas when it came to online interface and over all AAA performance. Bizarre Creations not satisfied with merely adding a few tweaks have added an entire new concept and function known as Gotham TV to PGR3. So what is GTV? In a nutshell is the ‘Speed Channel’ of racing videogames. There are two channels, ‘Heroes’ and ‘Friends’. Both of these channels allow you to tune into any number of races happening Live.
So let’s take a closer look. Once you choose Gotham TV, you are presented with ‘Heroes Channel’ and ‘Friends Channel’ along with ‘Your Saved Replays’ and ‘Your Saved Photos’. The latter two are where you come to view any Replays or Photos you have saved. When you enter the ‘Heroes Channel’, you will see a list of the Heroes on the left and the races they are in on the right along with their competitors. It also tells you if the race has started and the current grid placement. Highlight the ‘Heroes’ and press ‘A’ on and off you go to watch them in action. At the bottom of the screen is a news ticker tape, which is constantly being updated in real-time with new records, being claimed every minute. For example, ‘Warren Avery has claimed rank 3 on The OUTSKIRTS…..’
While watching the race ‘Left Bumper’ will switch between the eight different camera angles (including the awesome in-car view) just like you get when watching your own replays. Remember the ‘Right Stick’ can be used to pan the camera around on some of the camera angles. ‘X’ will let you switch between the cars and do not forget your ‘D-pad’ lets you skip the in-game songs. Now here is the cool part, pressing ‘Y’ open up the watched ‘Heroes Gamer Card’ and allows you to check out their ‘Gamer Profile’. Not to surprising to see these guys only playing one game, PGR3!! Compare your games to theirs or leave them voice message. You could invite them to a private chat but I doubt they will take it.
Now the ‘Friends Channel’ works pretty much the same way but you need to have friends. You have friends don’t you? Well you need a friend to be online playing PGR3 in order to watch them. Selecting the ‘Friends Channel’ opens up your ‘Friends List’ and if anyone there is playing PGR3 you can watch them the same as the ‘Heroes Channel’.
Gotham TV really is a hardcore racers dream. I hope this is only the beginning and we see other games like FPS do this very thing. Holding tournaments and allowing thousands to watch live is a beautiful thing. Very cool.
Bizarre and Microsoft have enlisted some help from AT&T; to help pull the whole Gotham TV thing off, and allow 30,000 plus gamers to tune in and watch a race all at the same time, LIVE. For more info click HERE.
Follow your own Path
New to this edition; the game has a ‘Route Creator’. Over a 100 million different routes can be created using one of four different cities as your backdrop. You use an overhead map and start by choosing a Starting Line from a number of pre-defined points. You then select your first waypoint and build from there. You can make a circuit or a point-to-point route. Tapping ‘Y’ puts you right into your newly crated route for testing. Pop back into the editor and refine your creation. The routes you create are devoid of any crowds and have translucent yellow arrow banners to help you see the up coming turns. In addition, a ‘Create Random Route’ function will cycle through a different random route with the tap of the ‘Left Bumper’. Saving and naming your new route is easy as pie. Feel free to return and edit or rename your route. Finally, you are able take your ‘Custom Route’ onto live and share it with all that dare. You can defiantly have the home court advantage with knowing your own track/route. Keep in mind too, when everyone is reading up it my take a little while because everyone is downloading the Route from you X360
Photorealistic
The cityscapes and trackside details are near photorealistic and thankfully do not show the overuse of bump and normal mapping causing everything to have that shiny plastic look. In this game, it is used sparingly and appropriately like when the sun glints off the street, or when you come out of a dark overpass and the sunlight blooms momentarily as your eyes adjust. In past incarnations, PGR was criticized for having sterile environments with no sign of life, as if a neutron bomb was dropped over each city. PGR3 for the first time introduces spectators that not only look great but also react to your driving like jumping back when you scrape paint against the barriers they stand behind. Flash bulbs pop with such veracity you feel like you are walking the red carpet but they do not ever seem to get in the way. To appreciate the insane detail Bizarre Creations has put into the graphics and textures you need to visit ‘Photo Mode’. When flying down the tracks at 150 mph you just cannot take it all in.
The fact that each super car has been crafted from a bazillion or so polygons, both inside and out has made gaming headlines of late and is truly impressive. The cockpit especially is striking, showing off such detail as smudged window to stitching on the fabric. The best part is you can drive from inside the cockpit. This is all new to PGR3 and a welcomed addition. It defiantly takes some practice to drive from this vantage point but well worth your time. You can use the right stick to look around the interior and check all your mirrors. Gauges work, hands are seen turning the steering wheel and shifting gears. One sore point is that the damage modeling has been turned down to an almost ‘off’ position. Windows may show some damage along with some paint scrapes and like all the past versions, the cars suffer no mechanical damage what so ever.
Surrounded by Sound
The sound design in this game is second to none and really brings the player that much closer to feeling like they are there, on the track, or in the streets. Just taking a walk through all the ‘Audio Options’ is enough to make your head spin. Some of the adjustments in here are unique, and I felt they deserved a little attention, so let us take a look.
Under the ‘Sound Options’ tab, there are three sub-sections, ‘Basic Options’, ‘Advanced Options’ and ‘Speaker Setup’.
‘Basic Options’ is where you can adjust the volume of the SFX, Music, Opponent Balance, Environment Balance and Road Noise Balance.
‘Advanced Options’ has three sub-sections: ‘Music Mode’, which gives you three choices on how you want to distribute the in-game music. Stereo, Quad and Home Theater. Quad is somewhat cool, it sends the music to both your front and rear channels with the rears a bit quieter in volume. Oddly, I could not detect any difference between Home Theater and Stereo. I was expecting some music to be played form all speakers in Home Theater. Next is ‘Headphone on/off’, then ‘Output Mode’, which gives you three selections: TV, Hi Fi and Home Theater.
The last sub-section, ‘Speaker Setup’ is the most interesting by far. In here, you are presented with a diagram of a basic 5 channel Home Theater setup with the 5 speakers laid out along a large circle. You are able to grab and move the front and rear pair independently and along the circle creating a larger or narrower sound field. By default, the fronts are set at -30 and +30 degrees apart from the center with the rears at -110 and +110 degrees. There is a second option, ‘Room Size’ that is set to Medium by default and gives you, Small, Large and Auditorium selections.
Last is ‘Music’ where you can select from nine different music genres and prioritize them into six different slots. You can then play through them in the order you placed them or shuffle through them randomly. During gameplay tapping, the D-pad will cycle through the songs. The nine genres are quite diverse and include, Dark Electronica, Electronica, Alternative Rock, Bhangra, Classical, Rock, Hip Hop, Japanese Pop and Industrial. Still don’t find anything tickles your fancy? No worries there as all X360 games can stream music from you HD or compatible MP3 players.
Overall, the sound design is the game is top notch. The way the engine and road noise change depending on the camera angle you select really adds to the immersion factor. I usually play in chase view close the car and when I would fishtail the tire screeching would seamlessly sway from the center speaker to either the left or right then back again as my car straightens out for its high speed run down the straightway. All the cars sound spot on, or what I would image they should sound like if I ever had the privlage to see/hear a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR SuperSport for example. The sound designers really out did themselves this time with all the audio adjustments they offer to suit anyone’s particular system or taste.
Take my Picture
PGR3 has one of the most robust ‘Photo Modes’ I have ever seen in a racing game. During any offline racing event, you pause the game and choose ‘Photo Mode’. This brings up ‘Framing Mode’, which has a large window showing your car on the track, just how you left it in the race. On the right side is a menu showing you what buttons perform the various adjustments such as Rotate, Spin, Zoom, Focus and Height. Taping ‘Y’ opens up ‘Effects Mode’, which you can use to fine-tune your photo after you, have it framed. Here you have control of Shutter Speed. Focus, Aperture (effects depth of field), Exposure, Contrast, Color, Brightness and Sepia.
Wow, now back to ‘Frame Mode’. You can keep the smaller window up or press ‘Start’ and go Full Screen where you have a clean HUD and can use the right stick to fly around the entire track and take a picture of anything you can see. I spent quite a lot of time just messing around creating some killer shots. Here are a few tips, back off from your car and zoom in on a long lens. Tilt the camera a little (Dutch angle) you generally leave a little more space in front of the car than behind. Now decreases the Shutter Speed (you actually increase the meter) to blur the sidelines / spectators, this adds the sense of speed. You can also reduce the Aperture (again you increase the meter) to blur the background a little more to make the car the focal point. Experiment and have fun. Press ‘A’ to take the picture and then give it a name. Later take a trip over to Gotham TV and there you can view your pics in full screen and even make a slide show.
Last Lap
As you can see, the boys and girls at Bizarre Creations have been very busy over these last few years. They have created the best looking racing game to date. Nothing comes close. The menu system, over all polish and attention to detail is near perfect. Gameplay remains close to its predecessors with the online component growing ever steadily. If you are not able to race on Live then you are definitely missing out on a major part of the game but I feel there is enough single player fun to be had. Load times can seem to be quit long at times but that is really a minor gripe. Truth is I find very little negative to say about the game. Kudos to Bizarre Creations for crafting one of the finest racers to ever grace a console.
Author: Eric Pfoutz