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     Barker |
http://www.talkxbox.com/review1168.html Project Gotham Racing 4 Added October 13th, 2007 by Justin McBride Project Gotham Racing 4 picks up pretty much where PGR 3 left off and, as any good sequel should, improves on just about everything while adding several new features of its own. It doesn’t stray from the traditional mixture of arcade and simulation handling types that has been a series staple since the first installment, but the new additions feel fresh and incredibly fun. Perhaps the most heralded of the new additions to the PGR series is the inclusion of motorcycles. For the first time you’ll be able to race in, and against, vehicles of a two-wheeled persuasion. Developer Bizarre Creations pulled no punches here, offering up an impressive selection of motorcycles, from the meager Buell RR 1200 to the race-bred Ducati 999R Xerox. Naturally, the motorbikes are quick to accelerate and handle easier than cars…once you get used to the controls. Motorcycle handling is far from realistic and is extremely touchy. Short, smooth movements of the analog stick are required to keep these bikes under control and as far away from the walls as possible. To balance the races between cars and motorcycles, it takes a great deal of punishment to knock someone off. This is a very good thing; otherwise, overzealous players could easily play dirty to gain the lead. The problem is, since motorcycles have such amazing acceleration and cornering abilities, they have a natural edge over cars in their same class. Because of this, you can blaze through many races on a motorcycle. The other much talked about new feature introduced in PGR 4 are the various weather effects. Races will no longer take place solely on bright, sunny days. Now, you will find yourself racing through dense fog, relying on the mini map in the lower left corner of the screen and your opponents’ taillights to navigate the twists and turns of the course. On other occasions, you’ll plow through a driving snowstorm, fighting against the slick road conditions. The elements play a huge part here and while a light rain or snow fall are tacked on, the more ferocious rain and snow storms produce puddles and ice patches, both affecting your handling if you drive on top of or through them and thus, unless you’re patient, you’ll be constantly fishtailing around the track. The decreased visibility in dense fog changes the way you approach turns, almost requiring a more methodical pace. Visually speaking, this isn’t quite a far cry from what you’ve seen in PGR 3, but its graphical superiority cannot be denied. Most of the improvements are subtle. What you’ll probably notice first is the impressive work done on the weather effects. Snow collects on your car as you drive through a snowstorm and rain slides backward off your windshield as you pick up speed in rainfall. The infamous Nurburgring, after a fresh snowfall, is quite a treat for the eyes. Returning to the more subtle improvements, many of these can be found in the fully detailed car interiors. Subtle texturing in the seats and leather wrapped steering wheels are impressive. The car models have been tweaked slightly, looking better than ever and the impeccable detail in the many locales you’ll be powersliding through really brings everything together. Couple that with a great sense of speed achieved through camera wobble and copious motion blur and you have what is definitely the best-looking racer available on the Xbox 360. The Kudos system of reward points, given for performing high-risk maneuvers such as insane jumps, powerslides and the like returns in full force here, with some minor tweaks. Kudos are, once again, worth their weight in gold. In races, these can be the deciding factor in retaining your spot on the event leaderboard, or falling to second place. Outside of the races themselves, Kudos are used as currency in the PGR shop which offers several vehicle and track packs for sale as well as new game modes and even a gamer picture for those who have racked up a substantial amount of Kudos. PGR 4 offers up a drastic change in its career mode structure, breaking from the established norm in the best way possible. In prior games in the series, the career mode consisted of a linear series of races, in which you competed for one of five medals, ranging in difficulty from steel (easiest) to platinum (hardest). In PGR 4, challenges are segmented into seasons. At any given time, you’ll have access to two or more events and allowed to choose one per season. Completion of these events earns you World Tour points, which vaults you upwards on the single player leaderboards and helps you grow in rank. As you progress through the ranks, ascending from an amateur to a Master, you unlock new garages in which you can display some of your favorite rides in prominence. These numerous challenges culminate into the Major tournaments. After the qualifying round, you compete for the top spot in a tournament style fashion, whittling down the list until it’s down to two, resulting in a heated one on one battle to the finish. These events are highly challenging and offer big rewards. On the subject of challenge, PGR 4’s difficulty curve seems to be all over the map. At times, some races are so easy; you could win with your hands tied behind your back and others are hellaciously difficult. The arcade mode brings the focus back to racing for medals, bringing about flashbacks to previous games in the series in that you compete for the same medals mentioned earlier. Each “chapter” contains several races and two medals can be earned per race, one for winning in a car and the other a motorcycle. These races provide a nice break from the rather limited career mode. Self-explanatory time attack and the custom race option, which allows you to race any car on any track against any vehicles you like, is nicely open-ended and should offer a fair bit of solo entertainment should the career or arcade modes not be enough. In the event you tire of the AI competition, PGR 4 offers a bevy of online options that should satisfy plenty. The eight-player limit hasn’t changed since PGR 3 and while this is still quite good, I would’ve liked to see more. Online races are still as fast and fun as they’ve always been, save for a few bits of lag that cause vehicles to sort of teleport around the map. Improving on PGR 3’s Gotham TV feature, PGR 4 offers easy access to replays and photos uploaded by users and has since been renamed PGR on Demand. In the process, several aspects have been tweaked, such as the photo mode, which is a bit more difficult to use now, but also more feature rich. Search options allow you to find pretty much any type of replay there is. Say, for example, you’d like to see a replay of a Maserati MC12 racing around the Nurburgring, in the snow, against several AI opponents. As long as such a replay exists on the server, the search engine makes it simple to find. Lamentably absent from PGR 4 is the Gotham TV spectator mode, which allowed you to watch live races. It’s also worth noting that Geometry Wars Waves, the pseudo-sequel to the Xbox Live Arcade classic Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved can be found in the career mode’s many garages and activated by walking up to its arcade cabinet. In this game, you are given only one life and no screen clearing bombs. Enemies come at you in waves, increasing in intensity as time rolls on. Things can become very chaotic within a matter of seconds. I wouldn’t venture as far as to call it a sequel, but it’s certainly an interesting new direction for the series, which began its life as an Easter egg in PGR 2. For what its worth, PGR 4 is the best game in the long running Project Gotham Racing series but sadly, this title isn’t sparkling with innovation and occasionally feels like more of the same. On the other hand, the core gameplay is good enough here that it doesn’t need significant changes. The inclusion of motorcycles and weather effects are great additions and give the series a much-needed kick in the pants. PGR 4 might not be amazingly innovative in the racing genre, but frankly, few games these days are. Its overall quality is something that few games can approach and not much needs to be changed. Achievement junkies should also be pleased to find out that PGR 4 has what is perhaps the most creative list of achievements to ever grace the Xbox 360. If you aren’t a fan of PGR games, this probably won’t convert you, but if you are, or you just love racing games, you owe it to yourself to give it a whirl. |
