If The Xbox Were A Kingdom, This Would Be Its Ruler

The original Project Gotham Racing game was a solid, if not spectacular racing game, filling out the Xbox launch competently, but still had problems that came from its early days as Metropolis Street Racer. Depth was minimal, car selection was rather small, the Kudos system was still flawed, and it was too easy to exploit little tricks to advance through the game – and when you couldn’t, the game became frustratingly hard. At its release it was the best racer on the new Xbox, but not long after, it became just another racer on a system cluttered with them. Which is why it’s amazing to see the progress in Project Gotham Racing 2. Undoubtedly, PGR 2 is the best racer on the console, as Bizarre Creations fixed every single possible problem with the original, and then some. More cars? Check. More cities? Check. Awesome Xbox Live implementation? Darn right. Ridiculous depth? Ridiculous isn’t the word. 6 months after PGR 2 came out, it still gets heavy rotation on my Xbox, earning platinum medals and improving overall times, if only by a second or two. Quite honestly, when it comes to the Xbox, Project Gotham Racing 2 is the king of racers, and perhaps the greatest racing game of this generation, give or take a Gran Turismo game or 2.

Whether playing offline or online, PGR 2 will enable much use of Xbox Live. Like previous racing game Moto GP 2 (and…uh, one small thing I hate; people praise PGR 2 for all this, but THQ’s racer did it first, so let’s give some credit where it’s due, eh?), Gotham 2 lets Live users log in right away, and will keep track of offline scores on a Live leaderboard for the world to see. Even then, Live times and Kudos are separate from the offline mode (in the form of offline Kudos and Xbox Live Kudos), so you can’t dominate the leaderboard merely playing offline (in Moto GP 2 you could lead the world yet never once join a game online). It’s already been outclassed in this department by RalliSport Challenge 2 (which uses some XBL 3.0 features and XSN), but still, Live players will find ridiculous amounts of things to do with their account. And of course, downloadable content is around, with the recently released booster pack with a handful of new cars (including the Magnum P.I. Ferrari, for you cheesy 1980’s TV fans) and a whole new city, Paris. For $5 more, you can extend the life of this great game, though it’s at its best if playing online, as you can only do basic time attacks offline with the cars in single player. Best part, there’s a new DLC expansion due this summer, a ‘west coast’ city and some new cars (please be either Vegas or Phoenix)

The single player mode is split into 3 distinct categories: Kudos World Series, Arcade Racing, and Time Attack. The Time Attack is a basic way to see tracks and cars, and just a tune-up for more important races. You can only use cars and tracks you’ve unlocked in the KWS, however. Arcade Racing is basic, jump in and go racing, with standard races, cone challenges (from PGR), and timed runs. They function just like KWS races, with different medals for different difficulties. Kudos World Series is still the meat to this game…and it’s quite a beefy mode of play. Dozens of different race types and classes, from racing SUV’s to overpriced gas guzzling trash (not that you couldn’t perhaps combine both SUV’s and overpriced gas guzzling trash or anything), on tracks in numerous cities, like Chicago, Washington DC, Barcelona, Florence, and Moscow to name a few…oddly in a game named Project Gotham Racing, New York isn’t around this time, though rumors persist that the original cities from PGR 1 will be downloadable sometime.

As always with this franchise, Kudos are the main goal here, though they aren’t quite as important as before. Instead of being the barometer to pass races and other tests of skill that the series is known for, instead they go to earn ‘tickets’ to unlock different cars. Depending on the difficulty level of the race, you earn bonus kudos…but unlike MSR or the first PGR, you don’t have a Kudos requirement to actually beat a race…just complete the objective at hand. One good thing is, you don’t lose Kudos if you fail to beat your previous high (something in MSR that could be really frustrating and tended to take away from the ‘racing’ part of the game), so there’s no risk to getting better at the game. And there shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, the idea of the Joker to double your Kudos is absent, though perhaps with good reason, due to how the process works now.

Even on the track, the Kudos system is more refined, to be more player friendly. I still don’t like that you lose your combo (and clean race reward) if an opposing driver slams you into a wall…it’s not your fault, why punish the player? Still, PGR 2 rewards those who live up to their ‘it’s not how fast you drive, it’s how you drive fast’ mantra, as you’re rewarded for following the right racing line, drafting behind an opponent and then blowing him away, flying through the air, and of course, powersliding like crazy around bends and tight corners. One of the changes to the system is the enhanced combo system – if you’re working on a combo and mess up somewhere, you don’t lose the Kudos; just the extra ‘combo’ points you’d have made otherwise. It’s still a harsh punishment (especially if you’re working on the platinum medal in cone challenge and combo every possible area over 2 laps, then hit a cone on the last turn and lose 90% of your Kudos), but at least you earn something for your efforts if you make a mistake.

What really makes Gotham 2 an amazing racing game, online and off, however, is the load of cars and how well they handle. With well over 100 cars from all sorts of eras, from many exotic car makers (taking up for the lack of them in Need for Speed games these days, I guess), there’s never a loss for vehicles to race. They manage to skirt the arcade/sim line, as you always feel in control though there’s a certain ‘uncontrollable’ feel to the real hot rods of the game (the first time you try the Enzo Ferrari, it’s a surprise). At first, this hurts the game, as the early races are slow, what with racing more ‘normal’ cars, and SUV’s, which are more for the challenge of handling them at high speeds. The cars just control too well at first and too slow as well, but once you hit the faster rides, the game becomes a white-knuckle racing extravaganza.

For those who are into single player racing, PGR 2 dominates merely because of the variety. While normal street races are extremely common, they’re broken up consistently by numerous other modes. Familiar modes like Hot Lap, Cone Challenge (where you stay between orange cones and powerslide around to earn Kudos), Overtake (passing so many cars within a specific period of time), and Timed Run return, along with the crazy-addictive Speed Camera mode. Here, you have to reach a certain speed when the camera shoots you racing by…at first, this is easy, but earning higher-level medals is a test of your ability to take turns as fast as possible and make few driving errors as you race to the mark. You could spend hours shaving tenths of a second off your time just to get a second or so closer to the Platinum requirement. It’s very impressive how PGR 2 can offer so much in every single mode of play, for a ridiculous amount of playtime just to complete it.

It’s the accessibility that makes offline PGR 2 great, however, in addition to the great control. While getting all Platinum medals (for beating the hardest difficulty setting) will net you great rewards, the reality is not everyone will be able to. PGR 2 instead makes it possible to at least play through the entire game on lower difficulties and give a lesser-skilled player a shot at seeing the best races way up the ladder. There’s 5 different levels, each gets progressively tougher, and doesn’t really start bringing any challenge until you reach Silver medals. Once you reach Gold, however, all bets are off, as the AI is practically kamikaze on the highest levels…they’ll do anything, anything at all to hurt your position, as they suffer from the ‘no reorganization of others on the track’ gift that means you mean nothing and they just run their patterns and ignore you. On harder levels, that ignorance can sometimes mean being t-boned into a pillar or spun around into a 360 and dropped into last place…a position you’ll never move up from afterwards. It makes the Platinum medal chase (for street races) nearly impossible at times, and extremely frustrating when you get wiped out because of the suicidal AI. It’s doable (I’ve pulled it off), but you can clear everything on Platinum and get some great rewards for it. But at the same time, anyone can jump right in on their level of skill and see everything the game has to offer offline. And of course, the fact that Live Aware lets you tally your Kudos score online even without playing an actual Live game means the competitive nature of the game exists even when playing alone. It’s ridiculously addictive to beat your last score merely to move up a few slots in the rankings.

Only Gran Turismo 3 has offered more depth and gameplay than Project Gotham Racing 2 (and that’s a stretch). Whether you play online or off, PGR 2 will last a good, long while. It’s one of those games, also, that you can play to death, get bored, then not play it a month…then pick it up again and it’s as fresh as it was the day you took the wrap off and popped it into your Xbox. It’ll take at least 20 hours or so just to clear the main Kudos World Series on one difficulty level (and probably about 100 or so for everything else, my clock is well over 100 clearing everything on Platinum and whatever XBL racing I’ve done), so this one is very lengthy. It’s another testament of Microsoft’s intention of making sure most Live games are full of depth offline as well, to compensate those disinterested (or unable to) in playing over XBL. Either way, PGR 2 will last a long time, making this a great value game with great gameplay to match (especially now that it’s only $30).

Project Gotham Racing 2 is rounded out well by some great graphics. While the game only runs at 30 FPS, it’s a hugely detailed game with great design and realistic representations of the cities. Cars look great, and as they suffer from damage, will get busted up and destroyed with bad driving, in real-time. Tracks are easily recognizable by landmarks, like racing by the Sears Tower or the Miracle Mile in Chicago, Capitol Hill in DC (the track known as Capital Thrill is awesome), and in the new city of Paris, landmarks known in that city are represented perfectly (without me butchering their names). There’s even a load of weather effects, like challenging night racing (where if you blow out your headlights…hope you know the track really well, skippy) and the insanity of tight cornering and powersliding in a rainstorm. The only thing missing would have been snowy racing in Moscow or even Chicago, barreling around at 150 MPH on a sheet of ice. Perhaps that will come around in PGR 3. The only disappointment is the Paris city doesn’t allow for the weather effects and instead is just sunny all the time (odd, since Europe is cloudy a lot). One strange thing that remains is the lack of life in each city – there’s no people at all on the sidewalks, be it watching or whatever, meaning Chicago can seem like a ghost town, when it’s nowhere near that way in reality. Mostly though, Gotham 2 shines visually, despite the whole 30 FPS thing and ghost town feel.

Gotham 2 has a large licensed soundtrack (much of which was actually released on CD), but actually…I never listened to it, since the custom soundtrack option instantly ends any chance of listening to many licensed soundtracks on Xbox. Otherwise, there’s a great set of sound effects like engine noises, and whatnot. Since the city is so barren, however, there’s no outside effects other than maybe hearing the sound of opposing cars nearing or getting further from you. Honestly, the custom soundtrack (and music in general) saves this one from being a bit drab in the audio department, as mere engine effects can’t carry a game too far. The custom soundtrack makes up for it, making the game a more personal experience, like any game with custom soundtrack options offers.

The Bottom Line

Depth, accessibility, and beauty, Project Gotham Racing 2 offers all of it. While the Xbox is definitely oversaturated with (great) racers, Gotham 2 rises to the top, and is such a vast improvement over the original game, that it almost may just as well not be a sequel. Thanks to Live, it’s a great online game. Thanks to Kudos World Series, it’s a deep, accessible offline game that anyone can enjoy. Combined, it’s the best racer on the Xbox, and probably will be until the eventual Gotham 3 comes out (though a great game like Rallisport Challenge 2 really tempts that position). For racing fans, it’s a no brainer, and for everyone else remotely interested, it’s one of the top reasons why the Xbox is worth putting in your collection of game consoles, whether you play online or offline.