Project Gotham Racing 3

By Robert Kuus

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Over the past few years the Project Gotham Racing series has pushed itself to the front of the ‘racing simulator pack’ by offering a unique and genuinely fun approach to point scoring, coupled with forgiving controls and a well-polished appearance. It comes as no surprise, then, that PGR will soon be driven to the next generation on the wheels of the Xbox 360, to once again burn up the track with the unambiguously titled Project Gotham Racing 3.

Following closely in the tracks of the two previous PGRs, Project Gotham 3 will be putting us behind the steering wheel of around 80 real-life cars from big name manufacturers like Ferrari, Mercedes, Astin Martin and Lamborghini. Fans of the series will be quick to point out, though, that 80 cars is in fact less than PGR 2 - something that would ordinarily seem a step in the wrong direction. However, Bizarre Creations have assured us that this is not so, and that they have enforced the vehicular limit with good reason. It would seem that Project Gotham Racing 3 has eliminated all but the very best cars from its line up, meaning that automotive legends like the infamous Nissan Skyline will be available right from the starting line. Beyond this, having fewer cars has allowed the modelling team to really focus on the minutest details of each car, something that I am more than willing to vouch for after our tantalising hands-on demonstration.

Though we didn’t get to play every track, we did see quite a few, including the fantastic Brooklyn Bridge in the New York Region and the psychedelic Shinjuku track in Tokyo. There are four different cities in total (the other two being London and Las Vegas), each containing 12 preset tracks for a total of 48 ways to earn the 23 trophies on offer and accrue enough cars to full your numerous garages. Generously, outside of the already ample 48 tracks is a completely new feature that will allow you to be the architect of your own custom asphalt nightmares. By simply playing ‘connect the dots’ on an overhead view of the four cities, Project Gotham Racing 3 will allow you to plot your own route through the existing map and subsequently fuel inject more longevity into PGR 3 than you could shake a gearstick at.

Project Gotham’s long-term appeal doesn’t end there - once again a superb online facet has been added to make sure that the game leaves an equally lasting impression on the online community as well. Interestingly, in PGR 3 the online mode will remain distinctly separate from the offline, with only the cars you amass in the single player career making the transition. Your online rank will be decided using the new ‘true skill’ system, which will rate you not only on your finishing position but also on your driving skill. Your rank ( Newcomer, Rookie, Novice, Expert, Master, Gotham Hero or Gotham Star) is then compared to other people across the globe in an attempt to find equally skilled competitors with agreeable connections to assure challenging, lag-free online fun.

However, if screaming around the treacherous twists and turns of the 13 mile Nürburgring with seven other competitors hot on your heels sounds a little too stressful for your liking, then the new ‘Gotham TV’ is probably going to be your nitrous substitute. Offline, this new mode will basically give you the tools to view your replays as well as take photos, which can then be manipulated with a surprisingly large number of options that will allow you to change things like the exposure of the photo to affect brightness, or shutter speed to create effects like motion blur. The gold nugget, however, is the online version, as this new mode will allow you and another 29,999 people to view current online games including special channels that will take you directly to the top ranked players as well as your friends. Bizarre creations have also let slip that the 30,000 cap could also be increased by simply opening more servers if ‘Gotham TV’ proved popular enough.

As one might expect, the real ’10-second car’ of what we saw was unequivocally the fresh coat of shiny paint that details every facet of PGR 3. Put modestly, the graphical quality present is truly next generation in its scope and it certainly does put the 360 through its paces as it creates the most believable environments ever seen on a console. So much so, in fact, that after Microsoft released a couple of in game shots, a few non-believers claimed that the pictures were nothing more than doctored photos - you just can’t buy publicity like that!
Gorgeous as the environments are, they are nonetheless only a backdrop when compared to the roaring combustion that is the star of the show. Sitting at an astonishing 40,000 polygons per vehicle, PGR 3 boasts to have the most accurately detailed high performance cars ever seen. Equally impressive are the lighting effects we saw, which seem to be able to cast reflections on absolutely everything from the mags on our Ferrari F430 to the visor on our driver’s helmet.

Amazingly, though, another 40,000 polygons awaited our teary eyes as Bizarre Creations revealed to NZGamer the splendour that is the in-car view. Rather than the car’s insides austerely being an automotive HUD for your viewpoint, they are instead a true reflection of what it would be like to have 800 brake horsepower sitting cosily under your right foot. Each of the 80 cars available will have a different and accurately realistic interior that will include all the nuances of the real thing; you will even be able to look down at your feet as they push the peddle to the metal in one of the most breathtaking changes in Project Gotham 3. In a brilliant touch, the in-car realism doesn’t stop at simple static beauty, as your own point of view will actually rattle around inside the car as you swing through the corners, or accelerate from 0 to 60 in less than 3 seconds. Your windscreen will also gradually dust up with grit and grime, adding to the sense that you’re really ‘in’ some of the most expensive cars ever made.

Project Gotham Racing 3 is going to be a launch title for the Xbox 360 and I can scarcely think of a better word than ‘launch’ for the effect this top racer will have on the consoles début. While it’s true that PGR 3 doesn’t really alter the series’ formula in any overly noticeable way, it equally doesn’t need to; Project Gotham Racing was -and is- a great concept proudly carried in its latest iteration.

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