Project Gotham Racing 3 ^{(Xbox 360)}

Genre: Racing Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Bizarre Creations Players: 1-8

By Keith B (22nd Mar 2007)

Still as frantic and fun as the original, albeit polished up all over and with a host of new online features

Dedicated Xbox players will have a long association with the Project Gotham Racing series. The original instalment was launched with the Xbox console as a flagship title (along with Halo) and it quickly made friends with the gaming community for its superb visuals and combination of speed and style as the two factors for success.

Moving along almost six years and the game has come full circle, it's third instalment being a flagship for Microsoft's Xbox 360, boasting the most power of any console at the time of its launch and the ability to transform gaming, both locally and online.

I'm happy to say that the game is still as frantic and fun as the original, albeit polished up all over and with a host of new online features. The core of the game remains the same - complete a series of challenges offline to earn money and kudos, and take your extended garage online to race against your friends and other keen racers with your online profile.

Offline

If you know the series, then it's hard to point out new items, so we'll take it as if you haven't played it.

In each offline race, you have objectives to reach in order to achieve victory. While there is an array of race types, they're pretty standard fare. Checkpoint runs, time trials, speed camera tests (where you pass a camera at a target speed), style challenges (earn maximum kudos for things like drifting, overtaking at hight speeds, etc), cone challenges (race a circuit and try to remain within the pairs of cones every 50 yards or so), and so forth.

Each of the different challenges can be approached on one of five difficulty levels, from beginner through bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. While it's certainly easier to coast through the game on the easier settings, the desire to buy as many cars as you can buy will have to grinding your skills against the harder setting for the additional financial gains to be had. I think I had about 45 cars bought and was into my fifth or sixth garage by the time I wrote this.

Visually the game is, again, superb. The cars are well presented and the real-world skidmarks left around bends are still there (also providing a guide to racing lines, by the way). There is a certain amount of �pop-up' with the buildings that occurs when at high speeds which is pretty shoddy, but when you're racing along at 210mph you'll hardly notice.

Each of the vehicles has a unique engine sound and generally, the sounds is fine, There is an interesting soundtrack but I find that after a few hours driving I have to turn it off because it gets repetitious, and if you're playing online you'll want it off so you can hear the other guys, which brings me to the next phase of the review.

Online

As I've outlined, there is a lot of fun to be had from playing Project Gotham Racing 3 offline, and bulking up your garage is the biggest draw. But the real ace up the sleeve for Project Gotham Racing 3 is the online community. Here, everyone is a racer, and everyone from the noob to the expert can have some fun.

Project Gotham Racing 3 has been streamlined to make the most of Xbox Live, and it shows. The top 10 racers feature on Gotham TV, a sort of online sports channel where you can go and watch them race if they're online, and also people who are up-and-coming. Managing to get featured on Xbox TV is something that's also worth remembering, and the game does so by granting an achievement for your profile for doing it.

One look at the multiplayer lobby will show you that this is a serious online racing game. There are a wide range of options to review to help find a particular style of race to suit anyone.

It's also great to see Cat and Mouse become an official race mode. Formed online with Project Gotham Racing 2, Cat and Mouse sees teams take to the track, with each team having one Class E car and the rest of the team with Class A. The aim for each team is to get their �mouse' over the finish line first, by pushing it from behind with their more powerful cars, and smashing the opponent's mouse into the wall or off the road.

With a headset, Project Gotham Racing 3 is one of the few games on Xbox Live that allows almost free discussion with other players, so there is traditionally a lot of banter in the race.

Surely there's a scratch somewhere?

There are a few problems with this game, but they're certainly not major. First off is the lack of a detailed damage system, which by instalment three I would have expected by now. Yes, this version sees damage come into the game, but only so far as crooked rear view mirrors and the boot of the car bouncing open. Which essentially means that people are not held accountable for their actions - even though I may be finishing the race in first after some touch racing, someone can just smash into me on the last corner and take my place. I'm not saying we need a Burnout level of destruction, but something which adds to the tactics of a race

But other than that, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a superb game that anyone who enjoys racing should own. As it also provides a great online experience, it's worth owning if you enjoy being part of the community. And, best of all, this is a real �group' game, where you can pass the controller around between a group of mates and watch each other race, online or offline. Scoring points in three avenues like that is rare for a game, and considering this will be a Platinum title soon, there's plenty of reason to add this to your collection if it's not already there.