By now we know what to expect from The Project Gotham series of racers and of all the launch titles for the Xbox 360, a racing game was top of my list. I was devistated that MotoGP wouldn?t be out in time for launch, I would also have loved to see a ?Forza 360' but alas my choice was between PGR3 and NFS Most Wanted. I hate the NFS series with a passion. It?s a poor excuse for a racer and with such lameness as ?AI Catchup? and the fact it?s an EA game (as was almost half the launch lineup!) it was never going to be in the bag I carried home from the 360 launch.
So PGR3 was the one. I have mixed feelings about the series. It always lives up to expectations on the graphical front, but always has a few niggles I don?t like and version 3 is no exception.
Let?s start with the good. There is no doubt that it looks the part. The cars are modelled fantastically and I have actually spent time walking around my garages just marvelling at the varied range of horny looking beasts I get to scratch the paint on during my racing! The paintwork looks delicious and the interiors are superbly recreated which is distracting at times as you race, glancing at your fine walnut dash whilst approaching a sharp right hander at 190mph isn?t a recipe for success!
Likewise the four cities you race around look fantastic. There is some really photo-reaslistic architecture all around you and the complexity of the props and the crowd is staggering. At last the age of realistic looking crowds is upon us and another beloved patriot in the armour of total immersion has been covered-up!
It?s well worth stopping replays and just spinning around in photo mode to admire what?s going on around you at a given time because you really don?t appreciate it with your tunnel-vision-racing-specs on!
Another long time desire of mine involves the replays. Typically games only give you the chance to save replays of offline races (i.e. single player and split screen races), but PGR3 allows you to save replays of your Online races and I absolutely love it. Offline replays are usually dull affairs due to the AI always being so subservient and docile. But to have one of those classic online battles all the way to the line and be able to record is fantastic! I have saved 4-5 races already and have watched them numerous times. If you get tired of those then there is also another fantastic passive pastime and that is Gotham TV.
Gotham TV shows live ?streams? of online races involving the top players online at the time. When a race you enter is being shown on TV you feel a little extra excitement and watching them can be very entertaining and educational!
Now onto the complaints. The first of which is the single player mode. It?s just too easy! I don?t consider myself to be any kind of racing god. If its any indication I am usually ranked in the 3000-5000 range on most Xbox Live racing games. But I went through the entire single player mode winning at least Gold in about 6 hours of play. I only had to retry a handful of those races. There just didn?t seem to be too much of a challenge and in part I think it was because the fastest cars were too accessible. I had the fastest car (Ferrari F50 GT) after about 45 minutes of play and from then every race was easy. The good side to that of course is that you can be competitive in online play quickly but I would really have expected some kind of effort to be required to reach the higher echelons! My second complaint about single player mode is the race types. There were just far too many Speed Camera, Drift Challenge, and other solo events that to be frank I find plain dull! I buy a racing game to RACE and probably only 50% of the events actually involve racing competitors. It?s down to personal preference of course. But it was particularly frustrating to find one ?Championship? consisting of 8 such events that are over in 20 seconds when it took twice as long to load the track!
Another element that contributes the easy tag is the tracks themselves. Overall I wasn?t impressed by the track designs. There are essentially only about 6 tracks that are just chopped up in different ways for each event. So different races didn?t feel very? different. One thing I have always disliked about PGR is the fact you feel like you are racing on rails. This is because almost every track is a street track with barriers down the either side. This means if you make a mistake? it doesnt matter as you will pretty much just bounce off the barrier in the right direction and lost at most .3 of a second. Live races suffer from this as kids just hurtle round using the barriers and whoever is unfortunate enough to be in front of them as both a method of steering and of braking! Sure they will go round slower than someone taking the effort to actually turn a corner with their steering wheel, but if they are taking out those players in the process then every race ends up being a Demolition Derby affair. And whilst we are on the subject of banging up F50?s at speeds of >200mph?. lets mention the fact there is no damage to vehicles. Sure there is some asthetic scratches down the paint work and a crumpled mirror? but really these titanium like car-bodies should be manufacture in real life if they exist and noone would ever die!
My final complaint is the Live mode?s method of creating races. It just plain sucks. Every race is a one-off event at the end of which everyone is dispersed and has to find a new game. This is appalling and really removes one of the best features of online play in any game. Normally you would create or join a room and hop around different rooms until you find a bunch of nice people of a similar skill level. You then know you are in for a nice session with good people, a bit of banter and a bit of rivalry. But there is no opportunity to develop a relationship with other players as they are gone again at the end of a race. It?s plain unforgivable and will reduce the longetivity of the game for anyone who likes to sit in a mini-championship with some good-natured folk. I?m sure the ADD kiddies will love it, but what a terrible understanding of all that makes online play great by the designers.
So as you can see - some good, some bad. PGR3 is a well polished game with everything you could ask for in terms of cars and graphics. When you do get a good race with good drivers it can be exhilarating. The problem is so many fundemental design flaws battle to ruin it and I don?t think I will be able to overlook them for too long (I imagine my patience will run out on day 9 of the 10 day returns policy!)
So PGR3 was the one. I have mixed feelings about the series. It always lives up to expectations on the graphical front, but always has a few niggles I don?t like and version 3 is no exception.
Let?s start with the good. There is no doubt that it looks the part. The cars are modelled fantastically and I have actually spent time walking around my garages just marvelling at the varied range of horny looking beasts I get to scratch the paint on during my racing! The paintwork looks delicious and the interiors are superbly recreated which is distracting at times as you race, glancing at your fine walnut dash whilst approaching a sharp right hander at 190mph isn?t a recipe for success!
Likewise the four cities you race around look fantastic. There is some really photo-reaslistic architecture all around you and the complexity of the props and the crowd is staggering. At last the age of realistic looking crowds is upon us and another beloved patriot in the armour of total immersion has been covered-up!
It?s well worth stopping replays and just spinning around in photo mode to admire what?s going on around you at a given time because you really don?t appreciate it with your tunnel-vision-racing-specs on!
Another long time desire of mine involves the replays. Typically games only give you the chance to save replays of offline races (i.e. single player and split screen races), but PGR3 allows you to save replays of your Online races and I absolutely love it. Offline replays are usually dull affairs due to the AI always being so subservient and docile. But to have one of those classic online battles all the way to the line and be able to record is fantastic! I have saved 4-5 races already and have watched them numerous times. If you get tired of those then there is also another fantastic passive pastime and that is Gotham TV.
Gotham TV shows live ?streams? of online races involving the top players online at the time. When a race you enter is being shown on TV you feel a little extra excitement and watching them can be very entertaining and educational!
Now onto the complaints. The first of which is the single player mode. It?s just too easy! I don?t consider myself to be any kind of racing god. If its any indication I am usually ranked in the 3000-5000 range on most Xbox Live racing games. But I went through the entire single player mode winning at least Gold in about 6 hours of play. I only had to retry a handful of those races. There just didn?t seem to be too much of a challenge and in part I think it was because the fastest cars were too accessible. I had the fastest car (Ferrari F50 GT) after about 45 minutes of play and from then every race was easy. The good side to that of course is that you can be competitive in online play quickly but I would really have expected some kind of effort to be required to reach the higher echelons! My second complaint about single player mode is the race types. There were just far too many Speed Camera, Drift Challenge, and other solo events that to be frank I find plain dull! I buy a racing game to RACE and probably only 50% of the events actually involve racing competitors. It?s down to personal preference of course. But it was particularly frustrating to find one ?Championship? consisting of 8 such events that are over in 20 seconds when it took twice as long to load the track!
Another element that contributes the easy tag is the tracks themselves. Overall I wasn?t impressed by the track designs. There are essentially only about 6 tracks that are just chopped up in different ways for each event. So different races didn?t feel very? different. One thing I have always disliked about PGR is the fact you feel like you are racing on rails. This is because almost every track is a street track with barriers down the either side. This means if you make a mistake? it doesnt matter as you will pretty much just bounce off the barrier in the right direction and lost at most .3 of a second. Live races suffer from this as kids just hurtle round using the barriers and whoever is unfortunate enough to be in front of them as both a method of steering and of braking! Sure they will go round slower than someone taking the effort to actually turn a corner with their steering wheel, but if they are taking out those players in the process then every race ends up being a Demolition Derby affair. And whilst we are on the subject of banging up F50?s at speeds of >200mph?. lets mention the fact there is no damage to vehicles. Sure there is some asthetic scratches down the paint work and a crumpled mirror? but really these titanium like car-bodies should be manufacture in real life if they exist and noone would ever die!
My final complaint is the Live mode?s method of creating races. It just plain sucks. Every race is a one-off event at the end of which everyone is dispersed and has to find a new game. This is appalling and really removes one of the best features of online play in any game. Normally you would create or join a room and hop around different rooms until you find a bunch of nice people of a similar skill level. You then know you are in for a nice session with good people, a bit of banter and a bit of rivalry. But there is no opportunity to develop a relationship with other players as they are gone again at the end of a race. It?s plain unforgivable and will reduce the longetivity of the game for anyone who likes to sit in a mini-championship with some good-natured folk. I?m sure the ADD kiddies will love it, but what a terrible understanding of all that makes online play great by the designers.
So as you can see - some good, some bad. PGR3 is a well polished game with everything you could ask for in terms of cars and graphics. When you do get a good race with good drivers it can be exhilarating. The problem is so many fundemental design flaws battle to ruin it and I don?t think I will be able to overlook them for too long (I imagine my patience will run out on day 9 of the 10 day returns policy!)
