Project Gotham Racing

"The fewer cars on the track, the better PGR becomes"

Despite what its name suggests, Project Gotham Racing (PGR) isn't really a game for fans of racing against other cars. As one of the earliest Xbox releases, it doesn't feature support for Microsoft's online play service Live, so the only option is to compete against computer-controlled cars.

Unfortunately, the AI of these cars is atrocious, or rather non-existent: your opponents simply follow their preset driving lines with no regard for what is happening on the track. They are unaware of the player's location, and will simply plow mindlessly into your car if you happen to get in the way of their line.

Combine this with the fact that the tracks feature more than their fair share of narrow sections, sharp turns, and impassable barriers, and racing against 5 other cars quickly becomes a frustrating exercise in trial-and-error and praying that you don't get rammed on the last lap. It's true that if you can punch through the crush at the start line (you always start from last), it's possible to avoid the chaos by driving a flawless race, but in practice this means that the game rarely lets you experience the thrills of gradually working your way through the pack or enjoying a back-and-forth battle with a worthy nemesis.

Fortunately, the game doesn't focus too much on this weak link, but instead provides plenty of other play modes that are better suited to the track design and the loose handling. The funnest and most distinctive of these modes is the cone challenge, in which you try to drive through as many cone gates as possible while making you way around the twisty tracks. Driving cleanly through gates and performing reckless maneuvers such as powerslides and 360s lets you rack up PGR's version of points, Kudos. If you're quick and agile enough, you can link your moves together for huge Kudos bonuses -- but be careful not to touch any cones or barriers, as doing so makes you lose all the Kudos that you've been building up during your combo. It's a brutally unforgiving mechanic, but it's so satisfying to finally get that forced power slide just right and nail the combo that you'll be trying to improve your score long after you've gotten the gold medal.

The other modes PGR offers are more familiar to fans of racing games, but that doesn't mean they aren't fun. To progress through the career mode, you'll have to set fast laps in Hot Lap challenges, pass a set number of cars in Overtake trials, and try to win the pink slips of powerful cars in One-on-One mode. There are a couple of other modes as well, but they all boil down to slight variations on time trial runs -- a much better fit for the tight, narrow tracks than pack racing. The Kudos mechanic plays a big part in these modes as well: to earn the medals that'll allow you to progress, you'll have to meet Kudos goals, and to help you meet those goals, you can increase any level's Kudos bonus by upping the default difficulty (think you've got the racing line down pat? change the target time on a Hot Lap challenge from 1:25:00 to 1:15:00 and watch your potential Kudos bonus grow. but if you don't meet the stricter target time, you'll have to retry even if you would otherwise have had enough Kudos to qualify for a medal).

The graphics don't impress any more, but they do the job, as do the several radio stations with real DJs playing licensed songs. The game will also let you create a custom soundtrack so you can listen to any combination of your own and the game's music.

At $3, this game is still worth a purchase even though two sequels have been released. Progression was designed better than in the sequels, and the brutal purity of the Kudos system had not yet been compromised

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/07