Does Project Gotham Racing stand up to Playstation 2 racing giant, Gran Turismo 3? Answers lie ahead in our full review.

The question that has been ringing through everyone's mind about Project Gotham Racing is whether or not the game can compete with Gran Turismo 3 for the Playstation 2. After bearing witness of the awesome power of the Xbox, we can safely say that PGR stands up to Sony's giant and comes damn close to toppling it. Bizarre Creations went above and beyond the call of duty and completely rectified their image after a slight mishap with Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast. With a very nicely put together kudos reward system, and a solid scheme to keep the game moving along as quickly as possible, Project Gotham Racing is a worthy addition to the stellar Xbox launch.

We usually don't travel at 150 miles per hour down the streets of New York, or go peeling out on the metropolitan areas of downtown Tokyo, so when Microsoft announced PGR for the Xbox launch, many gamers (including several here at GamerWeb) were already lined up waiting for it.

The first thing that must be addressed is are the visuals. The game looks stupendous. The mere fact that Bizarre Creations even thought of having the driver turn the wheel at the appropriate times is amazing in itself. Throw in the addition of watching his/her hand go down to shift the car into the correct gear and you've got yourself a stunning amount of detail. The car's reflections and lighting are also something to marvel. As you go scorching down the streets of your selected city, whether it be London, New York City, Japan, or San Francisco you'll be able to pick out trees… on your cars hood. Everything in this game comes off as a very clean reflection and really shows how hard the development team worked to fine tune the game's visual splendor.

Another testament to the level of detail is the streets of each city. Bizarre Creations actually went out and modeled the in game cities exactly like their true-life counterparts. (At one point during the game I slammed on the breaks and just said, "Holy hell I've been in that store.")

However despite the games visuals there are a few drawbacks. Anti-aliasing wasn't implemented due to the fact that upon putting the feature into the game, the frame rate dropped to about 15 fps. Due to that small infidelity some of the game's scenes come off as looking a bit rough and jagged. But who has time to mock when they go zooming by at 150+ mph? Another small quarrel that I have with this game's visuals is in regard to the environments. They tend to come off a bit drab and lifeless. The lack of color on some locations is a bit disturbing and the flatness of some of the buildings is disappointing.

Despite those small problems, the game still runs by at an awesome 60 frames per second, and looks very very nice throughout every race. Overall, Bizarre Creations made this game look as good as possible considering the first generation nature.

The controls featured in the game are also very well done. Bizarre went out of their way to give you the option of using the triggers for breaking and acceleration or using the analog stick. From there on in the standard buttons apply: Y looks behind you to take a glimpse at your competition as you leave them in your dust, X and B down shift and up shift respectively, A is the hand brake, white and black are used to manipulate the camera either forward or backward respectively. All in all, the game handles quite nicely.

As with that other racer developed by Bizarre Creations, the Kudos reward system is the basis for the progression in the game. Whether it's attaining a certain number of Kudos in a certain race or accumulating them over time, if you want to play through Project Gotham Racing, then Kudos is the only way to do it.

For those rookies out there (feel free to raise your hands), Kudos are style points that you obtain by performing certain maneuvers. Power slides are the obvious choice as they are both tactically sound, and provide you with tons of Kudos if performed correctly. You can also catch air, go onto two wheels, and perform other extravagant stunts to attain some sizable Kudos (going through the finish line backwards being my personal favorite).

The game is largely based around its Kudos system, as all play modes are centered around attaining them. Quick Race, Arcade Race, Time Attack, Kudos Challenge, Multiplayer and your standard set of options round out the starting menu. The meat of the game is found in the kudos challenge. You'll be able to play in one-on-one, hot lap, single race, overtake, and a few other modes all within the Kudos Challenge.

Quite possibly the most impressive aspect of the game is its audio. The features that this game brings to the table are amazing. The pack-in audio that you can elect to listen to is quite amusing. You'll hear radio DJ's giving away concert tickets on actual radio stations from each city. That's all well and good, but the truly amazing aspect of Gotham is the ability to select a few of your own tunes for use on the Xbox. Being able to play your tunes would be impressive enough, but actually hearing radio DJ's spouting off some chatter in between each song is absolutely scary.

Gamer X
Yeah, kinda like Racer X, only without the upstart little brother.

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