Project Gotham Racing 2

"The Xbox Game of the Year? Perhaps."

Back in November of 2001, the Microsoft Xbox debuted, and people were frightened. How well would the games be? Is it really powerful enough to grow legs and slap you silly if you forgot to save a game? One of the games that busted out of the gate was Project Gotham Racing, a semi-sequel to Metropolis Street Racing on the ill-fated Dreamcast. With great graphics (though those trees sure are ugly) a large soundtrack of licensed tracks, a slick point system, and for once, real life cars that actually have damage done to them when you begin to air-bag the turns, PRG1 had it all. Two years have gone by, and Project Gotham Racing 2 has hit store shelves for people once again to power slide into victory. Everything that was great about the first was put in this game, and souped up extras for fans Easily one of the best Xbox games of the year, along with the best racing game this console generation, Project Gotham Racing 2 is a hit with gamers and car lovers as well.

Every single race in Project Gotham Racing 2 revolves around kudos, the point system used to get new cars. You can gain Kudos in every single race, by power sliding, riding on two wheels, getting air, and passing other vehicles. The more kudos you earn, the higher Kudos Rank you have. Each level you gain, the more kudos tokens you obtain. You use these tokens to get better and better rides. The better rides you have, the better you do in races. Ah, the large and winding circle of PRG2.

The main single player game is the Kudos World Series, which is comprised of many races through every single car class in the game. Many of them are simple, like a street race where you must get a certain rank, or a cone challenge where you need to get a certain amount of kudos. Each race itself has five different difficulties, so it will take you an extremely long time to try and complete every race. Even some of the worse drivers could beat every race on a steel medal level, but one gold and platinum races are next to impossible unless you learn how to adapt to what the computer drivers wants and how to keep kudos totals multiplying. The computer AI is incredibly stupid at the beginning levels, letting you run them in to walls and spin them out. But in hard difficulties, they are gunning just for you, and want to leave you choking on their carbon monoxide. Each race takes place in a real city, like Moscow, Russia or Florence, Italy. All of them use landmarks in the city for the racecourses. Along with the Kudos World Series, there are Arcade races, which I feel are generally harder than the KWS. Arcade mode is pure racing, with dozens of races to sink your teeth in to. The more races you play, the

Each series is based off a class of car, so you will not be able to race your Jaguar E-Type against a MINI Cooper in the Compact Sport series races. You begin with generally slower types, but work your way up to the freakishly fast cars. Though the feeling that you earned that Audi back in Sports Convertible Series can not be used in the Pacific Muscle Series makes you feel that you wasted large amounts of Kudos Points, trust me, you will get over it and begin to think why they separated them. With hours and hours just in the single player mode, the frenzied races in VS mode and with Xbox Live, you will love the time you spend with this game. But remember, if you want just a simple arcade game or a full simulation, you will not find it here. PGR2 is a mixture of both.

Absolutely stunning. That phrase has a new meaning when describing how good this game looks. The cities, though they have a racecourse through them, look almost identical to the real life counterparts, down to the little pharmacies with the green signs that are scattered throughout Western Europe. Each building is bump mapped and looks better than almost every game out right now. Everything is drop-dead gorgeous, with the water giving off the reflections of cars if you move close enough to any. Real time shadows show during night courses where street lamps are, giving your car and surroundings an eerie aura when driving. While the backgrounds are breathtaking, and cars themselves are not slouches. Each one is beautifully rendered to look exactly like the one you saw driving down the road, from the brake lights to the inside dashboard. And when you ram into a nice brick wall at around 80 MPH, that same dash will crumple into a nice cube. Though the car destruction physics are a little bit lacking compared to a game like Burnout 2: Point of Impact, the ability for once to actually see a game with licensed cars show the damage that you do to them is truly gratifying. Parts of your car hurtle in every direction, slowly falling onto the road, where they will stay for the rest of the race. Oodles of hard work and love were poured into making this game the most visually stunning game out in 2003.

The first Project Gotham Racing has around 100 full songs in the game, along with radio announcements. Well, the sequel just about doubles the song count. From hard rock to rap to techno-pop, all genres are covered, except for perhaps bluegrass, which is startlingly absent. However, to get your bluegrass craving covered, PGR2 supports all the songs you could fit on your hard drive. Acts range from bands that could barely sell out a bar to bands that sell out stadiums. For each race, you have the option of listening to a Radio station of the town, or putting in a CD. The radio would be almost impossible to tell apart from one that was an actual station. If you race in Yokohama, then Japanese will be coming out, followed by a techno J-pop song. Though the licensed tracks are pretty nice, even the menu music has a nice beat to it.

The squeal of slick tires, the hum of a finely tuned engine, malleable metal crushing into scrap, all of it is heard crystal clear in PGR2. The more you want out of your car, the more you hear it whine in persistence to the top speeds. Everything is realistic, and it sounds just magical.

Along with the single player missions, you can race people on VS. Mode and online through Xbox Live. Trying to beat your friends in a race to the finish is great, and watching them fail miserably is even better. Car ghosts can even be downloaded to figure how to take that hairpin turn, giving a new meaning to game help. You also have the Garage, where you can look at each car that you bought in it’s stunning brilliance, or and showroom, where you can test drive every car. After racing begins to get boring, you always have Geometry Wars, an unbelievable game that is hidden in the dingy corner, but shines with intensity. Based of the shooters of arcade’s past, it mixes Asteroids and the original Robotron into something that makes you keep playing.

The more you play or Project Gotham Racing 2, the better it becomes. This is seriously a must buy for the Xbox.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/23/03