I’ve been playing Project Gotham 4 on my Xbox 360 for a few months now. I first tried this particular franchise when PGR2 came out for the original Xbox. Of all the racing games I have tried that game was by far my favorite. It had a challenging career mode and the online mutliplayer game was spectacular.
This particular version of PGR is just as good, if not better, than PGR2. Graphically, it’s stunning at times. The AI of the other drivers in street race mode has been improved greatly. In PGR2 they would just run the ideal line, now they race you more than the track.
The tracks in PGR4 are just as challenging and creative as those found in PGR2. In fact they have stepped it up a notch. There are some very challenging and, more importantly, fun tracks to drive. The elevation changes in the city of Quebec are especially fun. The tracks are so well designed that it’s entertaining to drive them without any on-track competition for you to contend with. There are daily tournaments on Xbox Live and to be able to participate in the tournaments you have to qualify. In the qualifying round you are challenged by creative choices of vehicles, conditions and track reversals that bring a nice twist to the gaming experience.
The driving in the game is really what makes it work for me. This game smartly straddles the line between arcade and simulation. The driving is unrealistic, it says so right on the warning screen when you start the game, yet it feels like real driving. The game gives you a sensation of driving high performance cars at high speed. There is a great variety of cars to unlock. There are five different classes of cars. They range from normal street cars used for cat and mouse games to the top class of supercars that can go over 200 mph. Each car handles and drives differently. Depending on how you like to drive there is probably a car that fits your style. The fable is true, it’s not always the car that has the top speed that wins the race.
PGR2 had a mature and friendly online community and that has carried over to PGR4. If you enjoy shooters like I do and you play them online then you know those communities can be rude, crude, racist, loud and immature (Hello, Halo community). If that is something you wish to avoid but you crave online competition, you may want to give PGR4 a whirl. What I have find unique is the prevalence of players from Europe that play the PGR series. I have found English players to be, not only quite good, but very witty and chatty. My roommate, who plays PGR much more than I do, has made a few long distance friendships with some British players. They know him by his first name and they talk like old friends as they burn virtual rubber while trading paint in Tokyo.
I always have liked to have a driving game in my collection that allows me to take a nice break from the first person shooters that I tend to focus on and, because of it’s attention to detail, the PGR series has been my favorite for several years.
