Project Gotham Racing 2

"Unbelievable racing game, must be tried at least once."

Bizarre Creations is a developer that mostly makes racing games, very good racing games. A quick look at their previous games which include the very first Formula One(Playstation) game, Metropolis Street Racer(Dreamcast) and the Project Gotham series on Xbox and 360 just proves that they try and innovate in this genre. After they released PGR1(which wasn't that great to be honest with you) at launch for Xbox in 2000, they quickly began work on the sequel which made a lot of heads roll and paid attention to Bizarre as a great developer. What did they do to make all these heads roll you ask? Let me tell you.

The whole concept of the Project Gotham Racing series(and MSR) was to drive stylishly in fantastic looking cars and earn points called Kudos. After each race you accumulate Kudos to earn and unlock more cars , tracks and more stages. PGR2 doesn't just consist of normal 8 car races but many other scenarios such as One on One's, Cone Challenges, Hot Laps, Time Trials and Overtaking Challenges. Now all of the above is from the Career mode, we still have the Arcade mode to mention. The Arcade mode consists of many many races in many different circumstances such races in the rain, racing much faster cars in a slow car assigned to you. There's a lot of fun here to be had and many many hours of gameplay if your interested in playing on Platinum mode. One good thing about PGR is that it allows you to change the difficulty of each challenge which is more suited to your style. Admittedly, playing PGR2 on the easier levels is quick and not much fun but have the game on the Platinum level and you'll be having a laugh.

So hows the driving like you say? PGR2 has taken an overhaul in terms of driving mechanics in the series. Its completely different to the first game in the series. A huge improvement in this department makes it easy for beginners to drive and for more hardcore gamers its still challenging enough. Its a lot of fun. Of course its not just fun because of the cars in the game, Bizarre Creations seem to have a knack for creating fast easy tracks to drive on. Its actually quite surprising with the amount Cities(including Edinburgh,Stockholm,Moscow and Yokohama) included in the game that they have chosen some of the best tracks ever created in videogames. Much credit to them for the effort that has gone into creating these cities and tracks.

The graphics in the series seems to have taken a huge overhaul too. It certainly looks as if the developers have taken their time with this unlike the hugely rushed first game. Even now in 2006 as I write this, the graphics still stand up to games like Forza Mototrsport and Gran Turismo 4 which were released two years later. The car models are very impressive even with the lack of major damage to the cars but the environment details look amazing. The sound in the game is pretty descent, the noise of the cars seem fine and even the in-game and menu music are pretty good. Luckily enough for us, we can rip are own music while we drive form the Xbox Harddrive.

The real reason why PGR2 is so different to the previous game is the inclusion of Xbox Live features and leaderboards. This is the very first Xbox Live game that has truly taken advantage of the technology available to them. We can now drive against 7 other players from around the world. Although these new online functions are very basic, it gives the game a new lease of life after the single player is completed. There are literally 1000's of leaderboards in the game to race against, where you can upload your ghost or download somebody elses ghost of a certain lap. Unbelievable feature to have in the game. I've had endless days of fun playing online.

Overall, I think Project Gotham Racing 2 is a huge leap for the series and also the racing genre in general too. Many other developers should and will be taking lessons from Bizarre Creations on this game. Having a fun single player game and a great online multiplayer makes this a classic game and will for many people, make them go back to this game time and time again. This game was released in 2003 and Im still playing it now in 2006. What does that tell you? Highly recommended game for anybody interested in something different in the racing genre.

Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/06