Game reviews: Project Gotham Racing 4 – 67

It’s been two long, long years since Project Gotham Racing 3 gave petrol headonistic Xbox 360 owners their first hit of amazing graphics and compelling online gameplay. Now PGR4 is finally here and I’m pleased to report that you’ll be getting more vehicles, less sleep and lashings of online fun.

PGR4 maintains a careful balance between playable (but unrealistic) arcade racer and ultra-realistic (but impossible to enjoy) driving simulator, with a bias more on arcade than simulation. The available cars are a big improvement over PGR3, with everything from a Mini Cooper S through to F1 supercars now available. PGR4 also includes motorcycles, most of which are easy to drive, even though you can still get your butt knocked off your bike with relative ease. Kudos points (money earned from tricky driving) are also way easier to score with a bike, owing to wheelies and a whole bunch of other tricks being on tap. Unfortunately, PGR4′s damage model still remains fairly cosmetic, with real high-speed collisions resulting in some satisfying sound effects but leaving no impact on car handling.

Where weather was bit of an afterthought in PGR3, an awful lot of effort has gone into it with PGR4. Weather conditions can vary between fog, ice, snow, rain and, of course, sun. Different weather conditions affect the way vehicles handle, and visually the effects are also pretty tasty: raindrops run down your windshield and snow flies at your windscreen. Further complicating things, ice or water can also quickly make for nightmarish driving conditions. If the weather’s rough and you brake a bit early, get ready to partake in a spot of involuntary car surfing and/or collision play.

Gameplay remains relatively unchanged from PGR3. You can earn medals in arcade mode, run laps in time attack mode, and then there’s Gotham career, the single-player mode where you get to progress through increasingly challenging events. PGR4′s online game mode is addictive, too. Online games range from single-player tussles through to a tonne of team events and challenges. Nicer still is the new PGR On Demand service, where you can upload photos and replays for others to watch and rate. Using bog standard ADSL broadband, online gaming was pretty much lag free.

PGR4 is a great example of how game designers are increasingly taking full advantage of the Xbox 360′s graphics hardware. Slithering around an iced-up Embankment course in London in a very pricey Aston Martin, I was struck by just how incredibly accurate buildings, trees and spectators were rendered compared to the real thing. For Xbox 360-toting petrolheads wanting to give a near endless range of priceless automotive hardware a thorough snotting around the world’s racetracks and cities at insane speeds, PGR4 is definitely worth a look.

PAT PILCHER