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Project Gotham Racing was one of the XBOX's high-profile launch titles, and as launch titles go, PGR is an excellent game. As expected, beautiful cities and incredibly detailed cars (complete the crash damage) make PGR one of the sweetest looking racing games. The kudos system adds a completely unique and challenging experience for people who tire of racing constantly (like me!).

For some, though, the lack of cars (29 in PGR, 150 in GT3) and the difficulty of the game in later levels my easily put people off.

Graphics

A big plus for me was the cities you could drive in. Ever since I moved back from Tokyo, I've missed it and PGR is as close as I can get! The maps are amazingly well detailed and I could easily recognize all the streets and even some of the shops. Each city has a distinct feel to it, New York has very small streets with huge, towering skyscapers all about, San Francisco has its hills and huge jumps etc.

The eye-candy is very well done on the whole. The reflections on the car look amazing and make replays look nothing short of photo-realistic. Night-time driving is also very impressive, since the headlights dynamically light their surroundings. I wasn't too impressed with the rain effect though, since it looks very artificial. The "wet" look also doesn't get near GT3's beautiful effect.

The crash damage is an excellent addition. Graze another car and you'll see a paint scratch. Smack into a barrier and your wing mirror will buckle. Hit another car in the rear and you'll see his taillight smash. This is all eye-candy though, since it doesn't effect your car's performance, nor is it all that realistic. Fly at 90mph down a straight only to career head-first into a barrier, only to receive a slightly dented bumper? Still, PGR is the first game that allows you to smash up real, licensed cars like the Ferrari F50, Porsche GT2 or an Aston Martin!

Gameplay

The kudos system works incredibly well and really forces you to drive well while maintaining excellent lap times. Different game modes require different approaches, though. For example, the kudos challenge section of the game is (obviously) all about kudos. The challenges are split into many different categories such as style (go around a track lined with cones, gaining maximum kudos), fastest speed, number of overtakes, one-on-one and many others. The great thing about the kudos challenge is that you can increase the difficulty to gain more bonus kudos (therefore a better medal and perhaps a new car!). The arcade race involves the cone racing described before. These cone races can be excellent fun, although they'll get frustrating after a while. I feel that some of the gold medal targets have been set too high. One erroneous move in an entire 3-lap race and you may as well start again - this is a bit harsh on the player.

The quick race involves racing against other computer controlled cars. The computer picks cars that roughly match your car's ablities, although it is pretty easy to figure out what cars rule the pack. A nice surprise for me was that a new game mode was unlocked after I've played for a certain amount of time (medal pursuit). This definitely keeps me playing PGR, since I'm not too sure what bonus items I'm going to get (as in, it isn't just limited to new cars). Indeed, you only get new cars once in a while. It took me several days of work to unlock the Camaro SS and Skyline GTR, but it gives the player slightly more satisfaction. It will be a long time before I'll be able to use the F50 though - I'll need 200,000 kudos points and I've only just hit 30,000 after a good 10 days of play.

Overall, the gameplay in PGR is excellent. Hard, but excellent nonetheless.

Artificial Intelligence

The incredibly frustrating thing is that cars tend to spin out quite easily in PGR. I'm sure this is relatively realistic, but when the AI is so aggressive, the developers should have tweaked the behaviour a bit. The following scene is only too familiar in PGR: the race starts with the player at the back of the pack, all cars accelerate until they reach the corner, mayhem ensues since each car is bumper-to-bumper and vying to move into position, 3-4 cars spin out taking the player (still at the rear) with them, the front two cars streak off making it impossible to catch up.

What I have noticed is that the PGR AI made an active attempt to overtake slower cars. It is fun to watch the AI controlled cars swerve back and forth trying to overtake you as you repeated cut them off! This aside, there is little to admire from the AI - they are too aggressive at times and too passive at others (slow down too much before jumps).

The strange thing is that all of this can lead to very intense racing. You know where to be careful of "incoming cars", where you can overtake the pack quicker and where to let them pass you. Pick a interesting track like the San Francisco circuits and you can still have some crazy races that end with a great sense of satisfaction if you win! This might be why the developers left the AI as it is (or because PGR was a launch title and they didn't have time!) - either way, while the AI is far from perfect, once you get used to its quirks, you can adapt your style and enjoy the single-player experience greatly.

Conclusion

	8.5
	Platform: XBOX Liked: Beautiful graphics, original kudos system, game types, number of tracks. Disliked: AI, cars spin out too easily, may be too tough for some. .: Buy at Amazon.com :. .: Buy at Amazon.co.uk :.