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Project Gotham Racing 2
by Kyle Johnson
Saturday, November 8 2003
Sure it looks good, but how does it drive?
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Title:
Project Gotham Racing 2
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Platform:
Xbox
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Publisher:
Microsoft Game Studios |
Developer:
Bizarre Creations |
#
of Players: 1 - 2 + Online Play |
Genre:
Racing
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Origin:
United States
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Expected
Release:
November 18, 2003 |
Grapevine:
The original Project Gotham Racing was a multi-platinum hit. |
History: When the first Project Gotham Racing was released along side the Xbox on November 15, 2001, Bizarre Creations took a completely different approach to the racing genre. They rewarded the player with points for amazing combos and slides, not to mention for over taking the other racers on the course with you. Now, in racing games, the main challenge presented to you is racing against the computer (or in a lot of cases your own friends), but in Project Gotham Racing, you didn’t do that. Most of the challenges presented to you were to get the most kudos (points given to the player). Project Gotham Racing became one of the fastest and best selling games on the Microsoft Xbox. But what could possibly be done to improve on the game and keep people coming back for more?
The Future: Microsoft and Bizarre Creations have gone to extreme lengths to make sure that Project Gotham Racing 2 is THE game to buy this holiday season. One way they did that was by expanding the cities that you can choose from. They went from San Francisco, London, Tokyo, and New York, to Florence (Italy), Chicago (USA), Washington D.C. (USA), Barcelona (Spain), Moscow (former USSR), Edinburgh (Scotland), Sydney (Australia), Hong Kong (China), and Yokohama (Japan). As you noticed, that’s more than double what was in the original game.
Just like during the development of Project Gotham Racing, Bizarre Creations has taken their time on research and development of each and every city that will be in Project Gotham Racing 2, so to give the game as much accuracy as possible. They have gone through, literally, thousands of photographs of the cities so they can accurately know what each city looks like, and which streets the races will go on. Bizarre Creations is jumping through hoops to make sure that PGR2 is the game to buy this holiday season. They have spent millions of dollars in the development of the game, and a lot of money has gone into the new graphics engine. This allows the environments in PGR2 to look considerably better than those in the original PGR.
If you’re one of the many who thought that Project Gotham Racing had a lot of cars to choose from, you’ll have in for a big surprise when you play Project Gotham Racing 2. Bizarre Creations has been granted the licenses for cars that most people can only dream of driving. They’ve even been granted to be the first developer to include Ferrari’s brand new Enzo in a video game. The biggest addition in the car area is that SUVs and classic cars will be added to the very extensive lineup of cars. We’ve already seen some of these classics such as the Mercedes Gullwing and American muscle cars, the GTO and trans-am. In fact, some of the challenges of Project Gotham Racing 2 will limit the entry car to these specific classes of vehicles. It should be interesting to feel the handling characteristics of these beasts versus the best sports cars of today. Not only will you be able to unlock cars, but now you’ll be able to purchase cars with the kudos points that you have earned throughout your career. Bizarre Creations has created an all new 3D show room that will showcase the different cars that can be purchased, that you will be able to browse around, and even test drive the different cars.
The kudos system has been reworked and modified and now features 12 different ways to earn them (overtakes, nice slides, 2 wheels etc). Bizarre has also seen fit to take some frustration out of the previous system. Now, when you misjudge a corner, and bump against a wall, you may only lose a portion of the acquired kudos. The game will now calculate in real time, the severity of the penalty for collisions based on speed and angle of impact. Long gone are the days of the insane, lap long combo, only to have all of that kudos disappears at the slightest nudge of a guardrail. Along with the graphics and gameplay, you can bet the audio aspect has been improved as well. Microsoft has seen fit to add roughly 150 licensed music tracks to the games soundtrack, on top of the ability to rip your own custom soundtrack from the hard drive. Each city will once again have their own individual radio personalities, and will play music appropriate for each different part of the world.
The feature that will undoubtedly be the biggest addition to the Project Gotham Racing series, is the addition of Xbox Live. The Xbox Live component of the game is integrated deeply into the game's modes. If you're connected to the service during any single-player race mode, PGR2 will show a leaderboard and where your performance would place you in real time. You'll also be able to download ghosts of top-ranked players on the leaderboard. If you manage to beat their records, the leaderboard will upload a ghost of your race for other players to try to beat. If you manage to improve on your time while racing a top-ranked ghost, the game will show your ghost on the track as well, offering an even greater challenge. Traditional multiplayer games over Xbox Live will support up to eight players. In addition, Microsoft and Bizarre are in the process of sorting out downloadable content for the game--currently the intention is to make cars, tracks, and possibly even cities available. Project Gotham Racing 2 is set to ship to retailers on November 18 at an MSRB of $49.99 and is rated Everyone by the ESRB.
--- Kyle Johnson
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