Project Gotham Racing 3 review / Modded Xbox 360

Randy came over and we played Madden NFL 06, Winning Eleven 8, ESPN Football 2k5, Forza Motorsport, Project Gotham 3, Perfect Dark Zero, Dead or Alive 4, and the new game I bought at Shop Ko, Kameo Elements of Power. He says I have a crazy game collection and that I should develop games being artist or something. I said okay Randy, I'll think about it.

I got to eat with him at Mc Donalds and we talked about the future of Microsoft and why Suse Linux 10 isn’t popular. I said, it’s free because every programmer volunteers and no one gets paid under the GPL license. He wants to go fishing with me in the woods, but I just said no. Best fun I had all week. He said it's more fun than working as manager for Mars Inc everyday when his cell phone interrupts us 15 times.

A modded Xbox 360 costing $650, but the first time I seen it done to a gaming console. Found it off Ebay.



PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 3 REVIEW

Bizarre Creations is the developer of the first two and they made this game look better than Full Auto (Sega), Ridge Racer 6 (Namco), and Need for Speed Most Wanted (EA).

The cars are high resolution. There is 6 modes, inside, hood, bumper, 3rd person view close, 3rd person view far. I like the 2nd prospective of 3rd person view myself. You can see the curves better like in a lot of racing videogames. The 1st person view it is harder to see a curb and you hit it and your speed automatically goes to 15 MPH on these exotic GT and sport cars. I picked the white GT car from a auto manufacturer I haven’t heard of. The PS3 version of Gran Turismo Vision and MotoCross looks better, but this game is clearly the next best thing. PS3 is just going to have better GFX, and there is nothing MS can do, but have the developers take advantage of the 3 3.0 GHz cores the best to their ability and make games look better than PGR3 in two years. It makes me wanna save up for PS3 now. I am unsure if gamers this generation will be as true to their system (the PS2) as last generation since the PS2 had a huge following and the worst gfx (if you don’t count DC), but still had those 10/10 in GFX ratings like Resident Evil 4, God of War, Metal Gear Solid 3, Tekken 5, and Gran Turismo 4. X360 must have a single game that has a perfect graphics score before the system dies. In 2005 only 4 games managed to get a 9/10 in graphics (Dead or Alive 4, Call of Duty 2, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Kameo). The rest got 8/10 in graphics in reviews.

You’ll go into tunnels, see high resolution textures on buildings and stuff and the draw rate is impressive right now. There is nothing better in arcade or home console on the market. That Outrun 2 arcade game using Xbox hardware and F-Zero AX using Triforce hardware is no longer top of the line graphics, although still above average in arcades which is okay, because it implies that the law of dimensioning returns is true. Don’t blame Xbox 360 generation. Blame advance technology or complain technology is too advance for videogames. If that is your problem than you’re one of those retro gamers that play old consoles today and find it fun. That’s the main difference between us and them!

The Kutos

The Kutos existed in Metropolis Street Racer for DC also developed by Bizzare Creations. Kutos are trick points and are spent between drifting, winning points, # of cone driven through in a role exactly like Project Gotham 1 and 2. In this game like other games before it, it is important to pull of drifting tricks while staying in 1st place. Not playing it on "very easy" nor "very hard", but instead at the medium/average/normal level.

The Music.

The music is in Dolby Digital Live 5.1 Surround using 64 channels of the X360s sound hardware. The music genres include electronica, hiphop, dark electronica, Alternative Rock, and classical, Japanese pop. You can choose to shuffle all tracks, play one genre or listen to your own music off the USB port. The Intro FMV soundtrack is some kind of trance too. There has got to be 12 songs in each genre making it 75 songs in all!

The engine sounds are all great and realistic. Better than anything I hear in the real world. The crowd cheers me on with those semi horns in the background crystal clear

The Gameplay

You have speeds above 160 MPH on street tracks in tropical locations, London, and New York, New York. The cars responds quickly to the Xbox 360 controller which drift like rally cars. Making this on the boarder line of Xbox and Xbox 360. It’s using mostly current Xbox generation game play mechanics, but it’s a launch title and a pretty damn good one. If you think Xbox launch was better because it had Halo, it is true. However, X360 does have Halo 3 coming out. The right analog stick is not used at all because it is a racing game (unless some 3rd party comes with an analog pad with controls on the opposite side, but it’s not true yet) You start the game with an incredibly thick wad of cash and are allowed to choose from some of the "lower end" cars that the game has to offer. In my case, I had to suffer through the purchase of a Class B "street illegal" GTR as a low end car.

Conclusion (not on average)

9.2 out of 10.