Project Gotham Racing 3

"Not the BEST racing game ever made..."

But hey, its still a decent one never the less. PGR 3 isn't quite the 360s answer to the PS2s Gran Turismo 4. BUT what we have here is a fairly decent game. When we got PGR3 with the 360, we thought it was going to be MASSIVE. Bigger then GT4, most probably not, but damn big though. Was it? Nope, its quite small compared to GT4 actually. But thats not really the point, lets imagine GT4 never existed. OK, PGR3 is one of the best racing games on the 360. Why though?

Oh, how nice, it says "Hello Exodist, enjoy the game!" when I load it up! Wow, no other game has ever, EVER done that to me (some other 360 games might though). Its pretty cool really, im ready to play this game. So then, you get your play time mode, which is generally single player racing on any track, OR with another friend. The main part of the game though is the career, which I got straight into. PGR 3 has a fairly simple career. You start out with some money (I can't remember the exact amount though). You HAVE to buy a car, otherwise the game would be pretty pointless, there are just over 70 cars in the game. They are divided into some price sections, cars you can afford or cars over 250,000 credits and the like. In these groups you will find masses of cars, all with their own unique stats, like Drift and Speed. So yeah, you buy a car, then you can race.

Once you have your car, you will have a lot of events to race in. The events are all over the world, Tokyo, Las Vegas, New York, London and Nurburgring. Each event has at least 1 race in it, called a street race. These are simple, you hold down RT, and your car accelerates, you brake with LT, steer with the left analog stick. Your objective? Finish first! Although don't worry, it gets more better then this. Nope, you don't have license tests, instead, you get other events. For example, the Cone challenge requires you to aqquire a certain amount of Kudos (look down for info on that, next paragraph). Across the track are cones you can head through, gaining Kudos, although to gain enough, you will need to do more then that. You also get 1 on 1 races, laps, and some other, interesting and never before seen in a racing game events, all over the world. Thats the main part of the Career, finish EVERY event. On Hardcore difficulty. The difficulty settings on PRG3 either make your opponent faster, or make the amount of kudos you need to VERY high numbers, where its literally impossible to gain that much and 1 mistake is all that needs to happen for you to dodge up! Of course, the harder the difficulty, the more cash you get, and then you can get more, better cars. Oh, you can also test drive the car before you buy it, that is a really cool feature!

So you can get Kudos then? Basically, drifting around a corner really good, and long, will get you a certain amount of Kudos. Crashing and the like will lower it a little bit. Kudos is a good thing to have. The more you get, the better. Eventually, once you have enough, you can start to buy Concept cars. For example, you might see a car which you need to get 250,000 Kudos before you can buy, of course, you have to pay for it too. You need a lot of Kudos, and you can only get it on Career mode, it does bugger all in Playtime mode. Career mode is all about Kudos as well, mainly in all events that aren't street race. The cone challenge was a perfect example. If your playing on HardCore mode, even if you get through every cone set, the chances are, you won't be any where NEAR having enough Kudos to win the challenge, so thats where your moves come to play. Drifting, drafting (staying right behind a certain car, tailing it basically) or even getting 2 or all 4 wheels off the ground will get you Kudos, as long as you don't crash it. This makes you race for more, you may be winning after that crash, but you might restart the whole race, just so you can get more Kudos. Personally I just race the event again.

So what about Playtime? Well, you can basically do all the events that feature in career, by your self, or race against your friends. You can also, well, "make your own tracks" which is going a bit too far. Really, your given a giant map and you can choose a route to head through, its not entirely making your very own track. But hey, it is a pretty good feauture. Also, you can race against others online, although you WILL find some cheaters or the such. I have NOT played this game online though, as it requires a Broadband connection (and I don't have Xbox Live gold, obviously). Thats about it with Playtime, although I think the online part may be career mode, AND playtime. Still, if you just want a quick race, Playtime is the place to go.

Then you get your classic 360 achievements. These seem to be in every 360 game, PGR3 is no different. You can get your achievements by buying all the cars by the same make for example, or by collecting every Platinum medal (basically playing it on Hardcore difficulty). You can also collect medals and badges for in game, not for achievements. There aren't many achievements, and some of them require online play, so if you don't have Broadband/Xbox Live Gold, then you won't be able to get all the achievements, which seems a tad little unfair in my opinion. But still. Oh, you can also walk around your garage and play a demo of Xbox Live Arcade game, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.

Graphically, I didn't really find PGR3 to have completely mind blowingly great graphics. OK, so they're pretty decent, but not THAT good, if you know what I mean? I have seen better on the 360 (namely Dead Rising and Oblivion). PGR3 does have good graphics for the cars though. Every single car looks different, great, and real (OK, not quite real but they look good). There are good shadows in the levels too, and special effects like when you crash your car. The environment doesn't look all that too good though. It may blur when you go fast, but it doesn't look THAT good still either. The buildings don't look up to scratch, but then again, you ARE meant to be moving fast, so the developers can get away with it slightly.

Musically, PGR3 is OK. With me though, it seemed to put on loads of classical music, and I wasn't listening to my own (that would be rock music), and I had all music selected to play. The music is the recent, decent music of that time, and is pretty good, I guess. It all suits the game well, and isn't boring. So all of them music is real. The sound effects? Decent enough, the cars sound good enough, the crashes are OK I guess. Still, decent Audio help this game.

PROS:

The Career mode lasts a decent amount of time.
Playtime is good.
Multiplayer is decent.

CONS:

Not as massive as you would expect.
Not THAT much content, I think there is less then PGR2 actually.
The graphics aren't as good I would of expected.

THE RATINGS:
Graphics: 8.5/10
Audio: 7.9/10
Game Play: 8.0/10
Story: N/A
Life Span: 7.8/10
Difficulty: 7.6/10
Multiplayer: 8.0/10
Overall: 8.3/10

My Two Pence

This is a great game in its own right, but not as good as you would think it is. Still, its a fairly decent game, and fun to play, the multiplayer is quite good too. The game will last a while, and it isn't too hard, it just depends on what difficulty you select. PGR3 is a great racing game, most probably the best on the 360. If you see it cheap, its worth it. Please note this review was written whilst playing PGR3 with an Xbox 360 Core system, on a HD TV.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/06