Project Gotham Racing 3 Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 22 November, 2005

Click. Click. Click-click-click. Aaah.

Version tested: Xbox 360

I used to live down a road that curved left, banana-like round to my house at the end. To get onto it you had to do a 90-degree right turn. What I used to do when I drove in was lock the steering hard right to enter, and then see how far I could get up the road as the steering wheel unravelled itself before the indicator registered the straightening and clicked off. Until it did that, it sounded like Kudos-clicking. That's about as close as I've ever come to PGR in real life.

(I'm going to die alone, aren't I?)

Anyway, PGR was always a brilliant idea. When it comes to that warning about not using these driving techniques in real-life that devs whack on the front of racing games these days, it lurks somewhere in the gap between Ridge Racer's "because you will die" allusions and GT's "because nobody's this good". When you clamp the accelerator and fishtail the back of the car and then wrestle it straight, it isn't just forgiving, it actually awards you points. Applying this to exiting tight turns and using a model that rewards sharp braking and traction loss was inspired.

It was inspired in Metropolis Street Racer, it was inspired in the first PGR. It's still inspired. It's not a realistic game - you bump and scrape when you should be deflating like a turbo-accordion, and the collisions between cars on the track and the AI drivers' apparent lack of concern about them and the way you're all bashing past each other is wrong, but that's easily overlooked because the core skill that it asks you to develop is so satisfying. And that clicking of the Kudos meter, which tots up points for drifting, drafting, riding the curb tightly, and comboing it all together and suchlike, tickles your ears with the promise of points to go with your podium positions.

'Project Gotham Racing 3' Screenshot jal

The closest you can get to Japan in a game without flying JAL wearing Connect 4 as a hat.

PGR3 arrives on Xbox 360 with surprisingly little to add to the mechanics and structures that underpinned PGR2. Career mode allows you to pick one of five difficulty settings before tackling each challenge - and your daring or confidence in your ability informs the choice, because if you don't live up to the goal you've set you won't bank any points. Challenges range from racing and time trial affairs that are about speed to more technical cone and drift challenges that are about stringing Kudos-heavy moves together, and each adopts a different route through one of the game's city areas - London, Vegas, Tokyo, New York and Nurburgring (Ok so Nurburgring's not a city, but it might as well be for the distance and range it offers). On top of that, every single task synchs ever so elegantly with global leaderboards, so even the highest-ranked will have something more to push for.

Its principle divergence is in the way it separates these tasks from car classes. Now you simply go to a shop and buy yourself a car with credits earned by completing challenges - the idea being that you can use your favourite car throughout if you like. Along with the five grades of difficulty, this gives the game a level of accessibility that would've been alien in MSR or PGR, and even PGR2. You can make easier progress and move off tougher tasks by brushing them aside on lower difficulties, and the balance is such that even an accomplished racer will need to work for those Hard (gold) medals, which lurk tantalisingly just out of reach when you first attempt them, and their credit benefits, and Hardcore achievements are just that. Collecting cars as you go rather than having them prescribed will please everybody who ever whinged about the truck class in PGR2.

But you know what? I hate those bastards who whinged about the truck class, given what's happened. The concessions have bred profligacy by design. You gain enough credits by smashing through the relatively easy silver-medal band of races that you can amass a garage of Enzos, DBR9s, TVRs and other high-end machinery within a few short hours. The central Kudos mechanic of having to put your own imagined potential where your BHP is by selecting a target score before a race remains good - although personally I preferred the way you played with your shades of ambition by more closely defining your goals in the older games, half-second by half-second - but this is now more of a personal quest than a predefined one. It lacks incentives beyond the colours of medals, the ranks on Live and the badges you can earn that celebrate 360 spins and tasks completed in one combo. These are good incentives admittedly, but they're not as good as cars and new tracks were in the olden days.

'Project Gotham Racing 3' Screenshot incar

The in-car view models everything, but being able to glance at the rear-view isn't much more useful than holding a button to look behind.

PGR3 also plays with the separation of offline and online, and does this to better effect. Live's integration in single-player is limited to leaderboards and downloadable ghosts in Career mode (two of the best things ever done with Live, frankly), but now there's a distinct Online Career, with its own Live-specific Kudos-accumulation. There's a range of events to join in with at any given time. You can also set up your own Live races of course, in the game's Playtime area, and the way the game matches your connection speed and skill level to random opponents seems to work even at this early stage in the console's life.

The Route Creator, meanwhile, opens up a great many possibilities. It's simple to set up routes between start/finish and the waypoints available, and the results are easily distributable. But while the selection of cities is decent and the number of possibilities is barely conceivable (until a load screen somewhat comically suggests you "create over 100 million"), and nobody's questioning the devs' meticulousness in modelling each environment, the area covered is actually surprisingly small. Take London for example (since I live here) - the area covered is a fairly small section about ten minutes from my front door (by foot, mind you - not in a DBR9 or anything), and runs from Victoria Embankment through Trafalgar Square, loops round Piccadilly Circus without reaching upper Regent Street, and then circles back down to Pall Mall, St James's Park, and straight back to Big Ben. It's not that big. The Getaway's mapped area was many times the size and you could do the in-between bits. What is included works well - each city section features several memorable turns, straights and distinctive sections that combine to good effect, and to be fair Vegas and the winding sections of Tokyo feel more varied than London - but you have to wonder whether all that time wireframing buildings might have been better spent.

Which leads us inexorably to the question of how the game looks. This is undoubtedly the main thing people know about PGR3 at this point: the cars are enormously detailed, the environments are thoroughly mapped and modelled, and the visuals are presented in resolutions hitherto unseen on console hardware. And yeah, you've picked up on the tone - this is the point in the review where I say I don't think it makes as big a difference to the play experience as everyone's been so breathlessly declaring elsewhere.

'Project Gotham Racing 3' Screenshot bulb

This is a beautiful screenshot. When it races past your head at 150mph, though, it's harder to take in the shape of the bulbs within the headlight.

Someone asked me a whole bunch of questions about PGR3's graphics yesterday. If it was true that the tarmac was virtually photo-realistic, if it was true all the pedestrians were 3d models, if it was true that you could stop and read the hoardings on the buildings, and see the light bouncing off windows and so on. Frankly I don't really know. My recollection of the tarmac is that it passes under me like a blurry grey conveyor belt, because I'm moving so damn fast. The spectators I only see when I stop, and that's only when I've screwed up, and when that's the case they're hardly my priority. The things you notice are the big things - the sun creeping over the skyscrapers in Shinjuku, the incredibly pronounced and sometimes blinding effect when you emerge from tunnels, the trees lining a road, the wealth of scenery. In terms of providing a world around the track, PGR3 goes the furthest so far, and yes, everything's presented in ways that other consoles can't present it, in a game that even PC owners who can reach these visual heights haven't much to compare directly to.

But you're only really going to notice where most of the grunt went in replays. Or on Gotham TV. The latter is a nice idea, but kind of ignores the unspoken truth about replay modes: they are boring. Watching the best of the best do their stuff is interesting, but watching eight mediocre players bashing into each other is not. Being one of as many as 30,000 people doing so simultaneously is a technical accomplishment, not an extra point on the score. Then if you look around, you're forced to admit that the spectators are automatons, and the trees aren't moving. It's quite a sterile environment, for all its definition and the wealth of objects outside the track boundaries.

But let's say you view it as a spectacular whole - even at this, for the most part the enormous amounts of incidental detail presuppose that you aren't actually racing. When you are, the key things are being able to see the next corner, or the next cone gate distinctly, and here the game is no better than any other. You'll notice far more impressive effects and depth of background material than you ever have before, and when you fiddle with that Photo viewer mode and actually marvel at the vehicle exteriors, you'll be hard pressed to think of another car model that includes as much. It's like watching those GT videos before Polyphony actually had to run them through the ancient PS2 graphics tech.

'Project Gotham Racing 3' Screenshot ferrari

But we do still truly love the clicking of the Ferrari.

Hop into the cockpit view, which many are eulogising, and you'll certainly feel more immersed than you have elsewhere, owing thanks to the terrific engine sounds and enormous amount of in-car detail. But it's also kind of peculiar, because when you're in a car you don't find that half of your view is taken up by steering wheel, dashboard and the frame of the car; you focus on what's outside of the windscreen. The windscreen filter here is lovely, but unless you really divorce yourself from the interior modelling it feels more like you're leaning forward from the backseat, and the viewing window is quite restrictive. In the end I preferred the bumper cam, as I often do, not least because it's much easier to get a handle on the precise demands of the Kudos challenges and see what's coming when the track ahead fills the whole screen.

Let's give it its dues: when played from this perspective, PGR3 is an excellent, well-refined racing game. Cone Challenges, Drift Challenges, Street Races, Hot Laps, Eliminators, Time vs Kudos (where you stop the ticking down of the clock by playing up to the Kudos system - an excellent idea) - all are good, most are ridiculously compulsive thanks to the superb balancing of the medal targets, so much so that you'll happily pause and restart them every time you spin off and the chap ahead quickly builds up an unassailable lead. And while the range of challenges will probably feel a bit narrow to people who have stuck with the series since its birth on the Dreamcast, the temptation to try and scale those greater heights will appeal to the arcade mentality that still lurks within a lot of players.

But, as I keep saying, too much of what's changed since PGR2 is superficial once the initial novelty value of the graphics, Gotham TV, etc. wears off. PGR3's is a slightly flawed but overwhelmingly engaging framework for an already excellent skew on the driving models we're traditionally used to, and there's little else I'm going to turn to on Xbox Live for a significant time to come. But when I answered my friend's questions yesterday I simply said that it's like playing PGR2 on a system that can do it justice - and that comes close to summing it up. I will always love the thought of turning into my drive listening to the clicker, and PGR3 is still that feeling in game form - unfortunately, I'm starting to feel like I got home a long time ago.

8 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (184) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Retroid #1 6 years ago

    /Wishes he was getting a 360 this Xmas ;_;

  • bivith #2 6 years ago

    "The Getaway's mapped area was many times the size and you could do the in-between bits. "

    Yes but it was the only city in the Getaway! Hardly an apt comparison.

  • squaylor #3 6 years ago

    The Routecreator sounds interesting. I think this is one of those games that don't force you to buy a console - but if you buy the console you feel you have to get it. If you see what I mean.

  • Shinji #4 6 years ago

    Yeah - it's not a reason to spend 300 quid on a new console, but if you're spending it anyway, you'd clearly be mad not to buy this.

  • bivith #5 6 years ago

    This review puzzles me. Is the reviewer seriously suggesting that next gen racing games should not be graphically more impressive, just ... because???

  • jack_klugman #6 6 years ago

    THIS or Burnout Revenge on PS2 anyone please.

    The one not costing me £300 please.

  • Shinji #7 6 years ago

    bivith, I don't get that from the article at all. I think that what he's saying is that actually, the graphical upgrades are not as amazing a step forward for the game or the genre as you might think - so what you're left with is another great PGR game with better graphics, rather than any kind of major leap forward. Which, based on what I've played, is very fair comment.

    I guess - totally my personal opinion here - part of the problem is that the stuff which the next-gen does well and which developers can do now isn't best shown off in a racing game - it's really good at very detailed lighting and animation and character models and so on, but it doesn't do so much for buildings flying past in a 180mph blur.

  • octo #8 6 years ago

    No - I think the reviewer is suggesting that the game is graphically impressive when you stop to look around. i think the point about "life" within the game is also well made - as the next gen develops the little details will draw you out of the game more completely. Other than that it's a sexier PGR2. Which will please everyone who bought that game.
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 14:21

  • saysomething #9 6 years ago

    8/10, it's funny because it's true!

  • caligari #10 6 years ago

    The X-Box zealots have gone a little quiet.

    I sense them rounding up for a major "I haven't just wasted £300+" retaliation.

  • HarryOla #11 6 years ago

    Xbox zealot: A prettier PGR2. Bonzer.

  • Celeborn #12 6 years ago

    "This review puzzles me. Is the reviewer seriously suggesting that next gen racing games should not be graphically more impressive, just ... because???"

    The review is suggesting that the next gen racing games should not be ONLY be more graphically impressive. So what if everything looks shinier, newer and smoother? If it doesnt effect gameplay AT ALL, then this whole "next gen" stuff is pointless. My overall message from this review, was that it was PGR2 but better looking. Aside from graphic whores, is that any reason to buy an expensive new console and rebuy that game?

  • Artemus #13 6 years ago

    /looks at reader scores. See's 2 and 3's. Sighs.

  • Furbs #14 6 years ago

    lol@saysomething

  • #15 6 years ago

    ha ha ha ha ha!

    i say nothing!

  • Shinji #16 6 years ago

    I think you're being a bit unfair there - I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who's a bigger fan of the MSR/PGR series than Tom. The fact that he can scream blue murder about red shells on occasion surely doesn't entirely remove his ability to talk about what is, effectively, a more realistic but nonetheless arcade-style racing sim?

  • Artemus #17 6 years ago

    And already you can see fanboy votings on the scores. A 2 and a 10? I'm willing to bet the voters haven't played the game, too.

    Of course they haven't. That's why this new reader review rating thing is crap. So obvious this would happen.

  • Carlo #18 6 years ago

    Well.... 8/10 is about what I expected it to get.

    This could well be the 'game to have' on the 360 for the people who (in their own wisdom and for whatever reasons) decided to PRE-ORDER a console without a single independant review for launch day.

    At least there is /something/ to play on it... Just hope you all like car-games

  • gamingdave #19 6 years ago

    "Live's integration in single-player is limited to leaderboards and downloadable ghosts in Career mode (two of the best things ever done with Live, frankly)"

    MSR had online leaderboards and some ghost downloads. It was supposed to have uploadable ghosts aswell, but time and money got in the way of that. There were lots of ideas for online features in MSR that were dropped due to either budget or technical limitations, many of them actually being realised now.

  • Shinji #20 6 years ago

    eurogamer simply isn't a credible site for reviews sadly, king kong better than PGR3?

    Neither of which you've actually played, I'll wager.

  • Zomoniac #21 6 years ago

    THIS or Burnout Revenge on PS2 anyone please.

    Well given that Burnout Revenge is a truly awful game, this. If it was between this or Burnout 3, then that would be harder. But probably this. Just.

  • Tonka #22 6 years ago

    I don't get why people compare EG's scores with other sites/magazines scores. Shouldn't we all be happy to read different opinions. There are no such things as absolute truths when it comes to videogame scores. (Or much else for that matter)

    EDIT for clarification.
    I can see the value of comparing different reviews. What I find completely pointless however is
    "A said 9 and B said 7 so someone must be wrong"
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 14:36

  • Eighthours #23 6 years ago

    Seems that Bizarre's decision to make the game more user-friendly hasn't gone down too well at EG Towers. The platinums are still rock-hard, by the way.

    This'll be one of those reviews where people will look back at the score in 6 months' time and wonder what game Tom was playing. In my opinion, of course!

    No mention of Geometry Wars? For shame!!

  • Carlo #24 6 years ago

    BTW... Want to stop all this 'fanboy' ratings getting out of hand?

    PUBLISH THE USERNAMES OF THE VOTERS WITH THEIR SCORES. Only allow registered users.

    Humiliation will force them to be honest.

  • ralphwolfenstein #25 6 years ago

    I think these 'how others have voted' graph shapes are going to get very familiar...

    I mean, which twats actually voted '2' and '3' ? (Likewise, the '9' and '10's)...

    Eurogamer - it's the new Amazon.co.uk...

  • UncleLou #26 6 years ago

    BTW... Want to stop all this 'fanboy' ratings getting out of hand?

    PUBLISH THE USERNAMES OF THE VOTERS WITH THEIR SCORES. Only allow registered users.

    Humiliation will force them to be honest.

    Excellent idea.

  • Furbs #27 6 years ago

    Oh look! Its arnie!

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #28 6 years ago

    "PUBLISH THE USERNAMES OF THE VOTERS WITH THEIR SCORES."

    We will - there will be measures in place to prevent vote rigging. We currently set it so you can't vote for games more than 2 weeks before they are released, but maybe we'll change that to release day... And we will be banning people who are repeatedly posting crap votes.

    "Only allow registered users."

    This is already the case

  • Pac #29 6 years ago

    @blizeH

    I think, even without playing it, the trusted reviews I have read would put it at 8 or 9.

    The 2s and 3s are clearly readers with an axe to grind.

    I don't know why people bother rating games if they are not going to give them a fair crack of the whip.

  • #30 6 years ago

    so PGR3 is as good as Fifa street?

  • Artemus #31 6 years ago

    Eurogamer - it's the new Amazon.co.uk...

    I was thinking GameFAQs. Christ.

    PUBLISH THE USERNAMES OF THE VOTERS WITH THEIR SCORES

    Do it EG. Then we can see exactly whos being a twat. You could even ban the idiots from voting.

  • ruckus #32 6 years ago

    Single player: Does this allow you to choose the number of ai and the cars they drive - like the arcade/quick race option in MSR?

  • MoFo #33 6 years ago

    Oh god users are rating this XBox 360 game below ten! Must vote ten now to stop it getting a low score!

    Can't we just ban people from voting 10 or anything below 7. Infact only let people vote for 8/10 and save all the hastle.

  • Furbs #34 6 years ago

    Wow, arnie is gone already. Nice work mods.

  • ralphwolfenstein #35 6 years ago

    8/10 is a good score on Eurogamer, and pretty much what I was expecting... I've actually been amazed at how high the scores for launch games have been on the US sites - 8's and 9's generously sprayed around...

    Surely no-one expected a series update to score higher on this site? Still hoping for a 9 for PDZ, but other than that I can't see why even the most avid 360 advocate (and I would consider myslef one) would expect anything more than a competent line up...

    So it might not be the greatest launch line-up ever as Allard claimed - that accolade arguably belongs to the original Xbox - but its looking like there are two or three good, solid titles worth picking up if you are an early adopter...

  • UncleLou #36 6 years ago

    Oh god users are rating this XBox 360 game below ten! Must vote ten now to stop it getting a low score!

    Can't we just ban people from voting 10 or anything below 7. Infact only let people vote for 8/10 and save all the hastle.

    You don't need to be a fanboy to be annoyed when people vote "2" and "3" for a game that isn't even out yet. It's simply childish, and annoying, as it sabotages the whole thing.

  • Artemus #37 6 years ago

    Don't understand where all the user reviews are coming from... not only is the game not out, the hardware you need to play it isn't either!

    Aye. It's bloody ridiculous. Voting from the actual release date should be applied as well.
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 14:55

  • thegamesthething #38 6 years ago

    "Surely no-one expected a series update to score higher on this site?"

    HL2?

  • Artemus #39 6 years ago

    /points and laughs at Artemus

    What's so funny? What I meant was you can only vote from the actual release date.

  • UncleLou #40 6 years ago

    "Surely no-one expected a series update to score higher on this site?"

    HL2?


    *sigh*

  • thegamesthething #41 6 years ago

    ah yeah, sorry - i meant

    HL2, twice

  • Carrybagma #42 6 years ago

    Do PGR games have damage on them, or is it one of those where you go around bends by bouncing off another car or by scraping along the armco?

    Strikes me as poseurware rather than a racing game.

  • lennon #43 6 years ago

    Sony games are screwed then when it comes to this rating system ;)

  • oneiros #44 6 years ago

    [The amount of in-car detail is] also kind of peculiar, because when you're in a car you don't find that half of your view is taken up by steering wheel, dashboard and the frame of the car; you focus on what's outside of the windscreen.

    EXACTLY! I've been trying to tell people this for years...

  • Artemus #45 6 years ago

    Artemus, I'm not sure, it's just the way you're getting so wound up over people giving the game a low score.

    Not at all. I'm getting wound up that the reader scores are being so blatantly abused. Especially when it hasn't even been released. I mean its painfully obvious that 99% of those votes are from people who haven't even played it. What's the point?

  • lennon #46 6 years ago

    @Artemus - Did you seriously expect anything different from the users of this site?

  • SirScratchalot #47 6 years ago

    A level-headed assesment, you won´t find a more truthful review on the web...
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 15:28

  • Artemus #48 6 years ago

    @Artemus - Did you seriously expect anything different from the users of this site?

    I suppose there was some vague hope there.

  • Aretak #49 6 years ago

    What I find interesting is that people don't applaud reviews such as this one, which don't go overboard about a game simply because it's on a new console.

    If you go and have a trawl through the archives of most gaming websites, you'll see system launch games with massively inflated scores. People tend to get caught up in the euphoria of having a shiny new console to play with, and shiny new graphics to ogle, and as such give games better scores than they deserve.

    To me, PGR3 sounds like PGR2 with shinier graphics. I haven't played it myself, but that seems to be a pretty popular analysis. As such, I don't see why it should be getting 9 or 10 out of 10. This isn't the next generation -- this is just a tarted-up copy of what we already have. The 'real' next-gen games always come later, not at launch.

  • InfiniteFury #50 6 years ago

    @ Artemus

    I'd go as far as to say user ratings should be opened a week after the game's been released.

  • Tricky #51 6 years ago

    I won't bore you with why I think that is... but I bet its still the benchmark for 360 racing games a year from now!

    Actually, I think you'll be eating your words there once Test Drive Unlimited comes out next year. Everything I've read about that game tells me that it's the first driving game coming out for next-gen where the developer has actually tried to introduce some next-gen concepts; rather than just doing a better looking update of an existing title.

  • reflux #52 6 years ago

    -LOOK PRETTIER, STUPID GAME!

  • JonFE #53 6 years ago

    Does PGR3 feature a split-screen mode ??? A simple 'Yes' will do, thank you very much...

    (OK, I guess a 'No' is also possible, but here's to hoping :)

  • HarryOla #54 6 years ago

    2 player split screen mode.

    Also there is no guest play on Live unfortunately.

  • Pac #55 6 years ago

    @blizeH
    "You don't seem to realise that for every person giving the game a low score for the sake of it, there's going to be ten others giving the game a high score just for the sake of it. For example, ten people rating this game a ten when none of them have probably played it is a joke, the likelihood of this game justifying a perfect ten is very slim too. "

    Yes, but assuming EG is right and the game deserves an 8. Then in order to re-address the balance of people voting for 1 and 2 you would need to give it a score of 14 or 15 - clearly impossible.

    EG - I applaud you efforts in trying to get this reader review thing going - but it is going to need some policing.
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 15:25

  • JonFE #56 6 years ago

    @teamster: Thanks (although I hoped the answer would be different)...

    *edited after reading on*
    Apparently HarryOla & SirScratchalot beg to differ... Thanks a lot...
    I really hope that they are right (my 6yr old will be thrilled :)
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 16:27

  • Tricky #57 6 years ago

    ManicMinerUK - yeah, that's the one thing that's been picked up on in the previews that have been presented so far; the handling. Still, they've got a fair few months to get it right.

    As for whether people will accept something different, that's a very valid point but personally, the whole "living island" concept tied in with Live sounds like a bloody great idea.

  • Dire #58 6 years ago

    I love how users are giving this game a 10/10 without even playing it!

    gotta love the xbox fanboys..

  • groovychainsaw #59 6 years ago

    With the voting though, statistically speaking, you should get an even proportion of idiots at either end and reasonable people voting around the middle, so the average score should still stand (given a big enough sample size). Of course, the fact people are voting already,given that it doesnt come out for 10 days or so here suggest that there is probably a higher proportion of idiots to non-idiots already...
    /sigh

  • thegamesthething #60 6 years ago

    "I love how users are giving this game a 10/10 without even playing it!

    gotta love the xbox fanboys.. "

    jesus dude, the 10s are from xbox fanboys so the 1s 2s and 3s are from .....

    come on, you can do it, come on .......

  • BillGaitas #61 6 years ago

    "The review is suggesting that the next gen racing games should not be ONLY be more graphically impressive" Celeborn

    I havent played it so ill have to trust review, but i have to ask how people that some time ago were discussing wich next gen is more powerfull somehow stoped worying about graphics? I know graphics arent what nextgen is all about but they are still an important part of it, right?

    So I guess I'm against underestimating the power of better graphics(Because on that scenario allmost every next gen game will be an disapointment), but Im in favor of bashing games that dont do anything else. The problem is that this should have started along time ago.

    Example:
    when gt3 got out everyone loved it, including me; but after some time the game just seems to be a shinier gt2. Gt4 had some new features, but remained very very similiar.
    I love GT and I love new shiny graphics, but every time a gt its released i wonder if improving the graphics is all poliphony digital does. I'm expecting the next gt(Vision or whatever) to be graphicaly perfect, and that will be enough to buy it, but if i have to play a new gt that, besides graphics, does not improve anything else, thats because the reviewers didnt started to be more demanding earlier.

    ALSO, THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THIS FORUM RATING THIS GAME, I WONDER HOW MANY ACTUALLY PLAYED IT. PROBLABLY JUST $ONY FANBOYS(LOOK AT ME IM GONNA GIVE IT AN 1) AND M$OFT FANBOYS(I HAVENT PLAYED IT BUT I THINK IT DESERVES AN 10)

  • SirScratchalot #62 6 years ago

    There is splitscreen! It ate up a lot of my time playing it against game-mag staff a couple of weeks ago.... Ands that was supposedly 80% complete code...

  • smelly #63 6 years ago

    ALSO, THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THIS FORUM RATING THIS GAME


    i noticed that.. 8 fanboys have given it 10/10 despite almost definately not even playing it!

  • Gurgeh #64 6 years ago

    Guess no-one paid attention when developers said that the only difference in the next gen of consoles would be prettier graphics - except possibly a few Revolution games making use of it's controller.

  • Feanor #65 6 years ago

    17 votes, but how many are from people who own a 360 and the game? None or perhaps one, I'd guess.

    "8/10 is a good score on Eurogamer, and pretty much what I was expecting... I've actually been amazed at how high the scores for launch games have been on the US sites - 8's and 9's generously sprayed around..."

    I'vee seen plenty of launch games getting poor scores. Mind telling us which games and which sites have bothered you?

    "So it might not be the greatest launch line-up ever as Allard claimed - that accolade arguably belongs to the original Xbox - but its looking like there are two or three good, solid titles worth picking up if you are an early adopter... "

    You've got to be kidding. The Xbox launch had far fewer games are less very good games.

  • Eighthours #66 6 years ago

    There is splitscreen! It ate up a lot of my time playing it against game-mag staff a couple of weeks ago.... Ands that was supposedly 80% complete code...

    There is offline splitscreen, but not online splitscreen, sadly. My girlf threatened to take the 360 back based on that! :)
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 15:42

  • Carrybagma #67 6 years ago

    ManicMinerUK - I wrote "strikes me as poseurware" - based on the review: "this is the point in the review where I say I don't think it makes as big a difference to the play experience as everyone's been so breathlessly declaring elsewhere" A poseur is a show-off. So yes it sounds like PGR2+shininess.

    You think I should buy it before forming an opinion?

    Anyway - is this another 'bounce around the armcos' game then, or a whole lot better? I've not played PGR before so I'm asking you straight.

  • Bezzy #68 6 years ago

    "No mention of Geometry Wars? For shame!! "

    I expect it expects its own review.

  • Mirkan #69 6 years ago

    Well, gamerankings reveal 9s and 10s from the lot except EG, so I guess this is just another Halo.

  • smelly #70 6 years ago

    so I guess this is just another Halo.

    You mean it's shit?

  • [maven] #71 6 years ago

    Bezzy:
    From what I gather the Geometry Wars Evolved game in PGR3 is a 4 minute time-limited version. For the full game, you are supposed to shell out some money in the Xbox Live Arcade!
    Shouldn't stop EG from reviewing XBL titles, though... :)

  • djchump #72 6 years ago

    meh.


    just... meh.

  • Tricky #73 6 years ago

    It's only a four minute demo of Geometry Wars that comes with PGR3, according to this month's Edge. To get the full version you have to buy it from Live Arcade.

    Edit - doh! Beaten by [maven]
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 16:02

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #74 6 years ago

    Mirkan: That's just wrong. It reveals 9's and 10's from some, but also 8's from others:

    GamePro 8/10
    GameDaily 8/10
    Eurogamer 8/10
    G4 8/10
    GamerFeed 8/10

  • LOLLERS #75 6 years ago

    What did you expect them to do exactly, put a DBR9 in the box or something? They've taken a really really good racing game and made it look stunning, I played PGR2 again recently and it looked pretty ropey so i'm looking forward to this a lot. Replays make a big difference to me, after i've just had a really good race I want to see what it looked like from the outside, and when it actually looks shit from the outside that makes a big difference to my enjoyment of the game.

    Also, no mention of the live stuff, are you going to review the live part of the game again when more people have it and you can play it properly?

    I hope to see Eurogamer mark all EA's next gen games down for just being hi-res with nothing new to offer too.

    Not saying it should have a higher score, just didn't like all the talk of 'well it's pretty much the same so it must be a bit rubbish' Voted 8.0

  • Mirkan #76 6 years ago

    Er, those have decimals man. If you were to use a plain 1-10 scale, those would become 9s unless you're using some system not resembling logic.

  • Wrobel #77 6 years ago

    Don't know what you guys are complaining about. 8 is still a great score for the game.

  • Eighthours #78 6 years ago

    Also, no mention of the live stuff, are you going to review the live part of the game again when more people have it and you can play it properly?

    EG did go into it as much as they could. But "real world" performance isn't yet really accessible, nor is the impact of Gotham TV. The latter could mean bugger-all as the review suspects, or it could be more important than EG gave it credit for. Nobody yet knows, though Gotham TV is definitely the one really "next gen" feature in the game.

    I'll be giving it a good going-over in the Press Start review, due round about the 5th, which will concentrate on the online stuff.

  • Carrybagma #79 6 years ago

    MMUK - Lose points for hitting other cars too? Sounds like a very clever way of punishing bad driving without having to have damage modelling.

    Don't you think an 8 is reasonable if the only significant is graphics? Some people are raving about MK:DS, but that's 'only' an 8 +1 for introducing on-line.

  • BillGaitas #80 6 years ago

    Since there are people in this forum rating this game I wonder if Dead or Alive 4 will apear on the "Reader Reviews" before its released : )

    This forum must have a lot of important persons ; )

  • ave #81 6 years ago

    awesome, both this and kameo already have 30~ reader ratings, and both have only been playable to the public in the USA for a short while.

  • bivith #82 6 years ago

    Count me in as a Replay supporter. I like to watch the replays of a good race to see where I can improve, and to take the time to enjoy the visuals. Also to watch the top scorers on Live, and see just how they got their fantastic scores etc.

  • Mirkan #83 6 years ago

    Yeah, I didn't notice the Kameo review until now. Christ, this site is becoming an irrelevant joke.

    Edit: I should note that this PGR3 review isn't that terrible, but the kameo one is absolutely outrageous. :)
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 16:18

  • Tiger_Walts #84 6 years ago

    ...why are readers voting on this?

    Do they have it; have they spent the necessary time to sample at least all the tracks?


    I think the reader scores should be reset on the 2nd of December.

  • ralphwolfenstein #85 6 years ago

    @Feanor

    "8/10 is a good score on Eurogamer, and pretty much what I was expecting... I've actually been amazed at how high the scores for launch games have been on the US sites - 8's and 9's generously sprayed around..."

    I'vee seen plenty of launch games getting poor scores. Mind telling us which games and which sites have bothered you?

    None of them have bothered me. I've been pleasantly surprised. I suspect the US sites and UK 360 mags are going to be slightly over generous just out of general excitability - but PGR3 seems to be settling between 8 and 9, COD 2 between 8 and 9, and PDZ there or there-abouts too. Nothing like a Mario 64 or a Halo, but good, solid scores for the leading titles. I had no expectations for Kameo or the EA roster, so I'm overall quite impressed with the line-up

    "So it might not be the greatest launch line-up ever as Allard claimed - that accolade arguably belongs to the original Xbox - but its looking like there are two or three good, solid titles worth picking up if you are an early adopter... "

    You've got to be kidding. The Xbox launch had far fewer games are less very good games.

    At launch I got Halo, Dead or Alive 3, PGR and Jet Set Radio Future - respectively one of my favourite games of all time and a worthy Edge 10 (IMO), a great fighting game, a great racing game and a fantastic slice of Sega magic (if not quite as good as the DC version). I could have had Amped too. That, for me, makes it the best launch line-up ever.

  • Pac #86 6 years ago

    Depressingly, despite the fact that probably few (or none) of the reader reviews are from people who have actually played the game, the average score is pretty much the same as EGs.

    /Come on guys I thought you were supposed to be M$ haters

  • Strawp #87 6 years ago

    Who on earth is voting in the reader scores?

    If you've played this you're clearly a journo or MS QA tester and have no place voting, and if you haven't where the hell are you getting your score from?

  • statix101 #88 6 years ago

    Yawn....wake me up when the 360 is doing what Microsoft said it would be able to do....

    720p with 4xAA at a constant 60fps.....until then...fuck off

    So far no Launch game has managed to do both of these..so either MS lied about the consoles capability or the developers still dont know how to programme it yet....

    Not paying hundreds of pounds just to see XBox 1 games running at a higher res.

    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 16:25

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #89 6 years ago

    We're about to re-set the reader scores so you can't vote more than 2 days before a game is due out, and PGR/Kameo scores will be re-set

  • [maven] #90 6 years ago

    Tiger_Walts:
    While I agree with your sentiments, there may be Americans reading...

    ...who are just now waking up.

    May God help us! :p

  • davyuk #91 6 years ago

    I voted 8 ... for anticipation.

  • Mirkan #92 6 years ago

    Who's voting? Come on. Take one look at the comment threads on this site and there's your answer. It's shock full of retarded Sony fanboys who vote 1 and comparably retarded MS fanboys who vote 10.

    A reader rating is a good idea in theory since people so often totally disagree with the scores here, but in practice it prolly won't work. It's like the first week of voting on IMDB over and over, and it won't change the situation of people being pissed off by the scores. In fact, now they'll have two scores to piss them off.

  • Moz #93 6 years ago

    So if it's not about the graphics then what does a racer need to do to make it next gen?

    If you ask me racers have already peeked in all other area's and the graphics have also been damb good for a long time.

    The thing that I can think of that you can improve is how far down the road you can see which can only be achived with a higher res which both X360 and PS3 are offering.

    Other than that the next-gen X360 AND PS3 aren't going to offer anything else to the raceing genra, it's purely down to game design and peoples personal preference as to how realistic they want a racer to be.

  • Pac #94 6 years ago

    "There's a lot of fun to be had statistically if you are so inclined. "

    disc, you have done this before haven't you?

  • Eighthours #95 6 years ago

    ManicMinerUK: Spot on about PGR2 there. To be fair, no review could realistically have gauged its impact at the time. In fact, the EG one was the only one I saw which even played the online stuff to any great degree before delivering a verdict.

    I think what we'll find about PGR3 and many other 360 games, is that if you're playing on a standard TV and offline, there's really no point in buying the console.

    But if you're online, and even more so if you have an HDTV, the console and games like PGR3 will be utterly essential.

    I for one will be very, very surprised if we're not still playing PGR3 in a year's time and considering it a classic.

  • squeakyg #96 6 years ago

    Thank you!! A reviewer has actually spoken a truth that I never thought I'd see: Yes the graphics are great, but when you're busy racing you don't have time to notice. You even worded it brilliantly.
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 16:51

  • lennon #97 6 years ago

    It hardly needs a genius to work that out though does it?

  • bivith #98 6 years ago

    I notice.

  • chacha #99 6 years ago

    For all you rabid fanboys dissing the 360 games and stating that pgr3 is nothing but pgr2.5 - how have you people come to this conclusion, and is it such a bad thing.

    I was on the mario kart DS thread earlier on and people raving about how great it is and it deserves a 10/10 not 9/10.
    Well MaroKart DS is nothing more that SNES Mario kart with improved graphics and few new tracks (a ten year or so old game), yet the same people come on the PGR3 thread and state oh well the game hasn't moved on - the double standards.

    I for one will be enjoying this game come 02/12/05, while all you other bitter twisted people can post on the forum how the 360 is rubbish and not worthy of purchase.

    PS
    When GT4 came out without any iprovement in AI, no promised online mode where the hell were all you fanboys then - i cant remember hearing statements of oh this is just GT3.5. (plus sony screwed its loyal fans by asking them to part with £10 for a demo which they renamed prologue)

  • HocusPocus1 #100 6 years ago

    I think it's a great game. I don't know what people expect out of launch software, but hey whatever floats your boat.

  • l_p_4_7 #101 6 years ago

    I think personally if MS were aiming for quality (instead of quickness of release) they should have released PGR3 on Xbox 1 (with less fancy graphics) and then waited and created PGR4 for the 360 in order to ensure it offers a great deal more than the Xbox 1 versions.

  • Moz #102 6 years ago

    @teamster_jr:

    Could you clarify waht you mean by more? everyone keeps saying that expect more, with the quality of games out there today for XBox/PS2 you can't expect the game play in the next gen to blow you away! The next gen is going to be about crisper graphics and in certain genras more imersive settings. You can't expect revelations in game play unless someone invents a new genra.

  • bloodflowers #103 6 years ago

    Statix101: Agreed.

    Word has is COD2 achieves this. PGR3 has clearly been rushed to market. Anyone who says frame rate doesn't matter between 30 and 60 obviously hasn't played them side by side for some time. The sense of speed is completely changed.

  • Foxis #104 6 years ago

    Moz,

    So what you're saying is that the gameplay we have leaves no room for innovation or improvement? You don't think Bizarre could have spent some RD on the actual gameplay of PGR3 as opposed to only polishing it a bit?

    If MS and the devs wanted to, they could innovate gameplay as well. Sadly, this generation isn't about that as far as they're concerned. It's about convincing you that you need a new console and a new HDTV, only to be able to play slightly prettier versions of the games you already have.

    Roll on the Revolution!

  • Rusta #105 6 years ago

    It may get lower or higher x out of 10 in time, PGR2 got a bit samey in first player but on live its a completey different game, hope this is also.

    PGR2 best driving on line game I've played

  • Moz #106 6 years ago

    Foxis.

    How do you know they haven't put money into imrpoveing it, just because no one thought of anything amazingly better. It's a raceing game you drive around a course. You can tweak the physics engine but at the end of the day you can't make that any better just different. Other than a few little querks what more can a racer or a sports game do, unless you want it to be less real.

    As has been the case for a long time the main differnce from one racer/sports game to the next is that it looks nice, the physics are more complex (which at this stage you unlikely to notice that the physics are better cos all they do is make it that little bit better)

    They main point of buying the latest racer/sports game is that you get to race in the latest cars, on new track layouts or in sports games play as the latest sporting hero.

    But if you can think of same way to make a raceing game 10 times better then anything else that is out then why don't you stop your wineing and go make the damb game yourself

  • gerald #107 6 years ago

    Prettified PGR2 - that's OK for me. Not a systemseller, though.

    Would buy it, if i would own a X360 in near future. But only, because I sold my xbox-stuff including PGR2 month ago.

    I do like PGR series' approach: arcade structure (kudos and stuff) combined with mildly-realistic-but-fun driving physics.


    p.s.: My first post on EG... hug the newcomer :-)

  • Scimarad #108 6 years ago

    " I played PGR2 again recently and it looked pretty ropey"

    Whaaaaat?? Since when?

    What is with all these idiots complaining that EG are being unfair by giving a game 8 out of 10? In what bizarre alternate universe is 8 out of 10 a bad score?
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 18:04

  • Nikanoru #109 6 years ago

    The other day I was reading eurogamer when I came across a thumbnail of a screenshot of PGR3. In its reduced state, I could not tell the screenshot from an actual photograph. I actually didn't realise it was a game I was looking at.

    The result? Utter indifference towards what I thought was just some photo of some car.

    I wonder if that's meant to tell something about the ever increasing push towards realism.

  • Moz #110 6 years ago

    I agree with Scimarad.

    And have no problems with the score.



  • Eighthours #111 6 years ago

    Word has is COD2 achieves this. PGR3 has clearly been rushed to market. Anyone who says frame rate doesn't matter between 30 and 60 obviously hasn't played them side by side for some time. The sense of speed is completely changed.

    Have you considered why not even one review criticises the frame rate? It's because in this case the 30fps doesn't matter. The motion blur and other effects hide it rather effectively. Believe me, if the game suffered the reviews would have been all over it.

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #112 6 years ago

    gerald: *hugs*

  • Xerx3s #113 6 years ago

    Nice review. Spoton score id say. Brilliant intro. 80% is a very good score imo. Prefer this over mario kart, just played to many of thsoe games when i was young (no jokes tyvm;p). Might pick this up after xmas.

  • Moz #114 6 years ago

    "Have you considered why not even one review criticises the frame rate? It's because in this case the 30fps doesn't matter. The motion blur and other effects hide it rather effectively. Believe me, if the game suffered the reviews would have been all over it."

    I agree that high frame rate is important for racers, some how they just look nicer at 60fps. But most other things look just fine at 30fps. Given as films are only 25fps and you dont hear people going on about how much better the cinema would be if they records films at a higher frame rate!

  • statix101 #115 6 years ago

    "Have you considered why not even one review criticises the frame rate? It's because in this case the 30fps doesn't matter. The motion blur and other effects hide it rather effectively. Believe me, if the game suffered the reviews would have been all over it."

    @Eighthours
    But it shouldnt be having to disguise the fact its only 30fps.....the game isnt even running at the 720p with 4xAA that Microsoft said would be standard on all games, such was the power of the console.
    So why should i give money for something that isnt doing what it was originally sold as being able to do.
    There are certain types of game that demand 60fps...and racing games is one of them....First person shooters and 3rd person games are fine at 30fps, no problem there.





    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 18:20

  • bloodflowers #116 6 years ago

    Eighthours: Yeah well - I think it matters, it matters a whole lot - because at the end of the day while PGR2 was considered great graphics on the Xbox, Outrun 2 was smoother and nicer to look at. It matters for every game - hold down rotate in Halo, now do it in Darkwatch - which is the easiest on the eyes? I'll be voting with my wallet, I expect more from the next generation.

    I'm not so blind as to think this is always going to be the way on the 360, hopefully 2006 and beyond is going to bring us some good and smooth games. I cancelled my preorder ages ago, so it'll be about 2006 before I have to worry about it much more ;-) Not worth owning (for me) until either a Rainbow series game gets released, or something that plays like Midnight Club (and please don't suggest trash EA alternatives). I'm putting my hopes on Test Drive Unlimited for the free roaming semi-arcade type driving - but who knows?

  • gerald #117 6 years ago

    Stable framerates do matter. I prefer solid 30fps over wannabe-60fps, that occassionaly drops to 45fps. Bizzare did the right thing in going for 30fps, having no time to optimize for solid 60fps.

  • Eighthours #118 6 years ago

    "Eighthours: Yeah well - I think it matters, it matters a whole lot - because at the end of the day while PGR2 was considered great graphics on the Xbox, Outrun 2 was smoother and nicer to look at. It matters for every game - hold down rotate in Halo, now do it in Darkwatch - which is the easiest on the eyes? I'll be voting with my wallet, I expect more from the next generation. "

    Even on the leaked vids running on a PC, you can tell it's way smoother and faster than PGR2. As I said, the 30fps is hidden by the effects.

  • l_p_4_7 #119 6 years ago

    @gerald:
    Or rather, they didn't make the right choice, they had no option.

  • gerald #120 6 years ago

    @l_p_4_7:
    could be. They clearly would had to sacrifice prettiness to do it.

    I think, its an early game-design-decision: max out framerate or crank up the effects? ...or try both and delay forever (see GT4).
    Bizarre choosed the second one (giving them very impressive screenshots to hype their game as a sideeffect). Does Ridge Racer run in 60 frames?

  • bloodflowers #121 6 years ago

    Sorry, but blur looks shit. You get enough of it off the average LCD or plasma (or big CRT with picture processing you can't disable), without having jelly smeared on the source image too.

  • statix101 #122 6 years ago

    "Does Ridge Racer run in 60 frames?"

    Nope...another 30fps let down, and its the most arcadey of all race games where speed is everything ffs.


  • bloodflowers #123 6 years ago

    statix101: No way? Even the PS2 one managed a respectable speed, and that was a launch title too.

  • Yossarian #124 6 years ago

    unless they throw a 9 at CoD2 (very unlikely), Condemned (more unlikely), or PDZ (even more unlikely), Eurogamer have pretty much damned the 360 launch with faint praise.

  • sibod1 #125 6 years ago

    OK so here we have a slightly negative review from a site reknowned for being rather anti-XBOX and XBOX 360.

    Ever since the PS3 'Real next gen' front pager, most people sensible people have realised that EG isnt exactly on the level. Easily swayed by Sony's showmanship.

    When I read the preview comments for PGR3 from EG in 'Lid off' last week, it was obvious they were angling for a contraversial review.

    Making comments like 'it's a sterile environment' and 'the trees don't sway' seem to be grasping at straws to prove a point. It doesn't matter that you have 100s of spectators that react dynamically to the action, that you have so many subtle, but important special graphical effects going on, that the whole thing is running several times the resolution of Previous gen games - oh no. THe trees dont sway.

    Yes, I know it was only an illustrative point, but it's obvious that they have been swayed by Sony's talk of living environments in games etc and are hoping to use this review as an example of how MS has failed to make a true next gen game whereas Sony will do x y and z.

    I fully expect a low score from EG for PD0 - with plenty of out of place comments that really are exaggerated for the sake of antagonising the XBOX fans.

  • bivith #126 6 years ago

    "The result? Utter indifference towards what I thought was just some photo of some car.

    I wonder if that's meant to tell something about the ever increasing push towards realism. "

    no

  • caligari #127 6 years ago

    "Ever since the PS3 'Real next gen' front pager, most people sensible people have realised that EG isnt exactly on the level. Easily swayed by Sony's showmanship."

    Wow, you should write for 'Dharma and Greg'!

  • bootsy_NL_30 #128 6 years ago

    wow its busy here, I think it was a good review.

    I dont agree with the comment about the graphics, Its like saying that high tempo music doesnt have the same impact as slow music because the notes just fly by.

    anyway its exactly what I expected and I think 8/10 is a good score.
    Whats weirding me out is that Gamespot is giving higher scores than IGN......EG is doing what it always does but those guys are just being very very weird.

  • Carrybagma #129 6 years ago

    EG 10/10 reviews by format: -

    GBA: 2
    GBC: 1
    NGC: 3
    PC: 6
    PS2: 6
    XBOX: 4

    Sony fanboys through and through. And PC fanboys. And they HATE gameboys.

    Zzzzz..

  • Feanor #130 6 years ago

    Gamespot have caned some of the 360 titles they didn't think were up to it. Quake 4, Fifa, Gun, etc.

  • Shinji #131 6 years ago

    Hmm, not entirely accurate - the Games page still needs some fixing I think!

    10/10s by platform:

    Xbox: 3
    GBA: 3
    PC: 3
    PS2: 6
    Cube: 2

    These figures are somewhat skewed because I *know* there's stuff missing from the 10/10 list. Deus Ex was a ten, I know because it was the second time in my career I'd ever given something a ten (the first was Ocarina of Time, fact-fans) - and there are a few others missing too. Also, Soul Calibur II was a cross-platform release. It was reviewed on the Cube, but the 10 stands on all platforms, so it adds a +1 to all those scores.

    I guess that does show us giving more 10s to PS2 games. In fairness, I think the sheer breadth of the PS2 arsenal and the range of experimentation that such a large installed base has allowed accounts for that. Plus the fact that they have the ICO team on staff :)

    Surprised the Cube didn't warrant more tens - I gave Wind Waker a ten but that wasn't our official review. Fingers crossed for Twilight Princess... It's worth pointing out that Eurogamer has ALWAYS taken shit for being Nintendo-biased, and yet the Cube and Xbox warrant the same number of tens in our reviewing system. Shove that in yer pipe and smoke it :)

  • Helios #132 6 years ago

    Is there a single race mode?

  • Yossarian #133 6 years ago

    Shinji, what were the three Xbox 10s? if one of them wasn't Ninja Gaiden I am boycotting your site. :)

  • Shinji #134 6 years ago

    Ninja Gaiden was a nine. Shit, I think I might start boycotting the site myself, that's a travesty (although the review does make points about the camera which are probably fair to knock a mark off for... bah!).

    The Xbox 10s were Rallisport Challenge, Soul Calibur II and the GTA Double Pack.

  • sibod1 #135 6 years ago

    Case A:
    Site reviews game, gives it great marks - is unnoticed other than it's generally same as other sites so game must be worth buying.

    Case B:
    Site reviews game, gives it a lower than 'the rest' score, suddenly is praised for being 'honest' and 'true' and 'unbiased'.

    Fact is people only notice a review if it's unexpectedly low - and it causes debate.

    I wonder if EG is deliberately giving shitty reviews for games on a new system to score points.

  • Shinji #136 6 years ago

    Seriously, honest to jesus - how the FUCK is 8/10 a bad score?? Someone please, please, PLEASE explain this to me?

  • Eighthours #137 6 years ago

    "Does Ridge Racer run in 60 frames?"

    "Nope...another 30fps let down, and its the most arcadey of all race games where speed is everything ffs.

    Ridge Racer 6 does run at 60, you pleb.

  • Yossarian #138 6 years ago

    The Xbox 10s were Rallisport Challenge, Soul Calibur II and the GTA Double Pack.

    so ports, with the exception of RC?

    I see.

  • Yossarian #139 6 years ago

    no, Ninja Gaiden with the (completely free!!) Hurricane Packs makes a case for the game being 11/10, and for the record I felt the retroactive inclusion of a free camera pretty much showed every reviewer up: it simply wasn't able to keep up with the action as efficiently as the default system, at least once you learned how to use it. the fact is NG's default camera makes the best attempt it can at getting the job done. if you can find a controllable system that is easier to use and more intuitive that also keeps up with the action, and importantly whose control doesn't interfere with said action, by all means go into games development.

    game of the generation for me. the game clock has counted out 120 hours of my time invested in it, and I still haven't beaten the electric worms on Very Hard. I will go back someday, I tell myself. or I could just buy NG:BLACK.

  • bootsy_NL_30 #140 6 years ago

    yawn@ninja gaiden comments

    everyone knows that game kicked a whole lot of ass, and the review was one of EG's best ever, even if the score wasnt perfect..kinda makes a case for actually reading the reviews , ignoring the score and draw your own conclussions based on your own preferences and those written by some journalist.
    Edited by 1 at 22/11/05 @ 21:12

  • bloodflowers #141 6 years ago

    Drifting further and further off topic ;-) Actually I thought Ninja Gaiden was more of a 7. Another middle of the road 3d runaround platformer with pretty graphics and a horrible camera. Absolutely nothing we hadn't seen before, just a nice big pile of hype and pseudo ninja-cool. It wasn't actually bad, just - meh. The original arcade game was more fun.

  • Yossarian #142 6 years ago

    I honestly don't get the camera comments. I mean, really, I can't remember it irking me after the first level or so. and it was never responsible for my death that I recall.

  • chronom4n #143 6 years ago

    one thing that i can't believe is the fact that they have not made the trees behave in a realistic manner. i mean pgr2 had it so why cant pgr3 have it. call me anally retentive, but it is touches like these that make a city or environment come alive. i honestly thought that animated foliage would be a given in a next gen console.

  • Calgon #144 6 years ago

    Sounds good will be getting this at some point, more PGR greatness it seems.

    Sony Zombies are going to realise and say to themselves(come this time next year) "Ive waited all this time and for what?" A more expensive console that isnt all its cracked up to be. I passed on the PS2 and unless Sony offer more than they did this gen which isnt looking likely then I guess I might just pass on the PS3 also. Revolution sounds interesting though maybe I will pick that up after I get my Xbox360 next year.
    Edited by 6 at 22/11/05 @ 22:27

  • SirScratchalot #145 6 years ago

    @teamster_jr
    You don´t really select "splitscreen" from a menu, you just load up another profile via the live button and hit start. Yeah, from now on everyone playing on your xbox locally needs their own profile. Or a guest profile. Annoying. And not easy to figure out without someone showing you the ropes....

  • The-Bodybuilder #146 6 years ago

    >" i mean pgr2 had it so why cant pgr3 have it"

    It did?

    As much as i like the gotham/msr series, I think it's finally reaching it's peak.

  • Nikanoru #147 6 years ago

    Bivith: nice argument. :)

  • The-Bodybuilder #148 6 years ago

    Good review btw.

  • kangarootoo #149 6 years ago

    @sibod1

    Case C:
    You are mad. But also funny, so keep it up.

  • captain-future #150 6 years ago

    what was it that the reviewer missed to at least make it a 9?

  • brombeer #151 6 years ago

    You really must see this link (out of warning and fun)

    ht tp://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=530081

    In America there seems to be a lot of disfunctional 360's (lock-ups, overheating, faulty DVD drives, faulty HD). I get the feeling even the assembly of the 360 has been rushed., not only the games and the development of the hardware. Perhaps time to cancel your pre-order?

  • Talha #152 6 years ago

    @brombeer : Even if it has been rushed, you really cannot blame MS for it - surely they want a launch lead over Sony more than anything else.

  • technos #153 6 years ago

    Yeah, watch out peoples.

  • Talha #154 6 years ago

    I think it is pathetic to think that EG is giving these titles deliberate low scores. Just because a title is next gen, or on 360, it does not automatically qualify for a 10 score. I think EG scores are objective, and if someone thinks otherwise, they are most welcome to go to the likes of 1up and Gamespy to get their fix. Two days ago one enlightened soul informed me about 360 launch games: 'Just wait till they [EG] start handing out the nines'. Honestly.

    Don't know if that was relevant, since couldn't bring myself to read the gazillion comments, but it fulfilled my trolling urges quite nicely
    Edited by 1 at 23/11/05 @ 06:02

  • kaosridder #155 6 years ago

    yep brombeer I saw that too. Thats antoher reason why im holding my horses untill after Christmaz so they can iron out stuff. Though I believe some of them are fanboyz trying to rustle up things.

  • bloodflowers #156 6 years ago

    Agreed with Talha. If anything, they -should- be harsher on 360 titles. These are more expensive, on newly purchased hardware, and people should expect more of them.

    One thing I would dearly love to see in reviews though, is an accurate critique on the graphics of a game. I want to know how smooth things run, and there was no mention of the fact that the game isn't really high def either. At 60fps I would buy this game, at 30 I won't - may aswell stick with PGR2. They should have dropped some of the excess scenery that people don't (as mentioned in the review) pay much attention to in favour of a smoother ride.

  • Gouki #157 6 years ago

    I'd take what ever eurogamer had to say with a pinch of salt.

    Read other reviewers and sites 1st.Pleeeeeeeeeease!!!!

    the only thing that these guys are looking forward to is extended drinking hours in the UK!!!!!!!!!

  • Eighthours #158 6 years ago

    At 60fps I would buy this game, at 30 I won't - may aswell stick with PGR2. They should have dropped some of the excess scenery that people don't (as mentioned in the review) pay much attention to in favour of a smoother ride.

    As I've mentioned about eight gazillion times in this comments thread, the game is perfectly smooth because of the motion blur and other effects, and that's why the frame rate hasn't been mentioned. It's masses smoother and faster than PGR2. Jesus.....I wish there was a rolleyes smiley on here.

  • gamesb*tch #159 6 years ago

    "even if it was rushed you can't blame MS for it"

    yes, I blame society :/

  • Talha #160 6 years ago

    @gamesb*tch : Yeah, quote a fragment completely out of context and end up looking a complete dork.

    Works every time.

  • Fairlane #161 6 years ago

    Almost there.............. 2 posts to 200

    This will be my first post, but I must say that this EG Vs X360 bla bla bla is very funny. Almost spend more time reading your comments, than what it's actually abought

  • kangarootoo #162 6 years ago

    1

  • kangarootoo #163 6 years ago

    2

    \o/

  • Fairlane #164 6 years ago

    Goooooaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllll!

  • Calgon #165 6 years ago

    Brombeer

    "In America there seems to be a lot of disfunctional 360's (lock-ups, overheating, faulty DVD drives, faulty HD). I get the feeling even the assembly of the 360 has been rushed., not only the games and the development of the hardware. Perhaps time to cancel your pre-order"

    Alot? Hmmm sounds like hyperbole to me m8... theres 3-4 people with complaints in that thread on the official xbox website I might add and they are guessing what the problem is. Could be that some just have faulty discs. Either way there has always been a small amount of defective units for any console thats come before it... it would be the first time ever if there werent. If you ask me seems like MS did an exelent job so far getting everying out on time with so few reported faults.

    Perhaps its time to grow up and not spread your bs just because you want people to wait for your console of choice(if you have one, maybe its another MS hate thing).

    Fanboys always get jealous and worried on the launch of a rival console... they will try and discourage the gullable average Jo's in any way they can.
    Edited by 1 at 23/11/05 @ 15:43

  • bloodflowers #166 6 years ago

    Eighthours said:
    "the game is perfectly smooth because of the motion blur and other effects, and that's why the frame rate hasn't been mentioned."

    My car is fast because it's red, and that's why the 1.3L diesel hasn't been mentioned.

    To my eyes, blur is absolutely horrendous to look at. It's like being drunk. It is not the same thing as smooth movement at all. If you aren't able to perceive or appreciate the difference, then great - enjoy it. Forced blur to mask a deficient engine is very nearly the worst thing ever invented in game graphics, and definitely worse than just 30fps -without- the blur, which is far easier to look at as a player needing to concentrate on what's going on.

    Hopefully some game devs read these comments from time to time - please, if you must have constant blur, make it optional, even if the default is on.
    Edited by 2 at 23/11/05 @ 17:23

  • brombeer #167 6 years ago

    @Calgon: You're totally mistaken. Why would I want people from stopping to buy a 360? If they feel the need, then be my guest to buy it. It's their choice with which console to play games on, I couldn't care less. And there were lots more than 3-4 people with defects, mind you. I just thought to share the news, that's all. And yes, it's my opinion that the 360 is rushed too hard. And we all know what rushing things will eventually lead to, don't we? But it's only my opinion.

  • Calgon #168 6 years ago

    Huh? this isnt your burnout blur... this is a hardware effect not too dissimilar to that which is used in films. With this its harder to tell where one frame is switched to the next which is deffinately a good thing you wont see alot of jerkiness, which is the most off putting thing for me. Another thing wasnt it already said that the framerate is always over 30fps?
    Either way it looks alot faster than PGR2 which wasnt so bad once you got used to it and with the slick motion blur which gives it an extra bit of class for me(judging by the videos Ive seen at normal screen resolutions too... If I find that it looks cheap when I play it for myself I'll retract that statement but for the most part it looks great so far to me)

    Also dont forget Bizzare said if theyd have delayed it 60fps would have been reachable add to that the fact that they didnt implement the Tile based rendering which is where MS were able to make all those claims about AA, High def and 60fps for Xbox360 games. But as it stands 60fps would have been better yes but they didnt do a bad job at all it runs smooth and fast and it looks amazing.

  • Calgon #169 6 years ago

    brombeer

    No you were hyperboling... I read that thread a handfull of people reported some faults not lots at all. Nothing to report really is all im saying... maybe thats not what you were trying to do but you obviously arent interested in the console so whats the deal? and why make mountains out of molehills? there is nothing for the people who are planning to buy an Xbox360 to worry about that they wouldnt have to worry about with any console release past or future.

    No the console is not rushed MS has made one of the most efficient consoles ever and the development enviroment is one of the best ever(ask John Carmack or wait for some more developer opinions in the near future), something Sony have yet to accomplish.

    I can agree that some of the developers could have used some more time to get to grips with the final dev kits, but its not a bad launch line up at all from the looks of things and its only going to get better. Ive pretty much made up my mind now after reading the initial reviews of the games, hardware and reading whats to come, its looking highly likely that I will be purchaising Xbox360 in the near future... Id be buying at launch if I had the money but maybe I could wait for the first price drop if its not too far off. MS has pulled out all the stops this time and looked to have learned alot since their first console which is my faveourite of this gen so its looking mighty good to me.
    Edited by 2 at 23/11/05 @ 18:33

  • Eighthours #170 6 years ago

    bloodflowers, I reiterate: NO REVIEW HAS MENTIONED THE FRAME RATE, BECAUSE IT IS NOT AN ISSUE IN THIS GAME.

    Jesus. H. Christ.

  • bloodflowers #171 6 years ago

    Eighthours: I reiterate - not to /you/. To me it matters. It would be nice to see someone say, even without colouring it with opinion 'it is 30fps'.

    Is that so fucking hard to understand? Is half a sentence so much to ask? Problems with controls are always mentioned - why not graphics? Not everyones eyes are equal. I have tremendous discomfort in cinemas because I can see this giant flickbook in front of me. When something fast moving is shown slow enough for me to register frames, and they mask it with a blur, it's actually even less pleasant to try to focus on.

    Repeat: NOT EVERYONES EYES ARE EQUAL. SOME PEOPLE FIND 30FPS UNCOMFORTABLE EVEN WHEN MASKED.

  • brombeer #172 6 years ago

    @Calgon: Then look at this:

    http://forums.xbox.com/2/530545/ShowPost.aspx#530545

    At least 40 different people complaining about the same problem (the 'AC power brick' and the Xbox not reading discs). From the sound of it, there does seem to be many Xbox 360 which just broke down in less than an hour...

  • kangarootoo #173 6 years ago

    "At least 40 different people"

    That really isn't very many is it. I'm not saying all is well, I'm not saying that all XB360s are shoddy, I'm simply saying that we don't have any real ideas of what kind of numbers are involved.

    There is a name for this sort of thing. Anecdotal evidence. Its like when someone says "cigarettes don't harm you 'cos my grandad smoked forty a day and lived to 103" or "driving after 6 pints is fine 'cos I do it all the time and haven't crashed yet". It gives no context to the value (like knowing how many died early due to smoking in the first example).

    Actual numbers (such as the 40 in this case) don't mean anything out of context, so we need to know how many people have had issues compared to how many XB360s were actually sold. Until we have some idea of that we really don't know how reliable the system is.

  • Shyvah #174 6 years ago

    @bloodflowers

    That's some crazy shit. You are in a tiny minority from the sounds of it (with the flicker book thing for movies). I'd prefer reviews to let me know if I'd have problems due to my colour blindness, but they don't. It would be cool for reviews to let people know if there are subtitles if they are hard of hearing but again, they don't. There are a lot of things reviews could include.

    I'm not having a go, but you are in the minority (as am I), and generally speaking the minority doesn't get its way.

  • Calgon #175 6 years ago

    kangarootoo

    Exactly the majority of buyers are busy playing their Xbox360s apart from the odd one who tells of a trouble free experience after serveral hours play, some of the reported faults might simply be faulty/scratched disks, user errors(improper setup), an improperly installed OS which could be fixed and sent back to them swiftly.

    Some of the reported faults will be hardware related but we dont know how many and what the problems are in most cases. Also we have lots of rabid Sony zombies trying to create some sort of alarm which is nothing new. Dont be too surprised if some of these people are Sony fanboys worried because XBOX360 has sold like hotcakes and doesnt look like slowing down(ok maybe thats unlikely but Ive seen how low some retarded fanboys can sink).

    Know this though SO FAR there are way less defective units than SONYs PS2 had at launch. PSPs? *sarcasm*Yeah Im sure PS3 will have no defective units because sony have always had a good record for that*/Sarcasm off*

    Just wait and see so far so good really unless we hear of a heck of alot more cases.
    Edited by 2 at 24/11/05 @ 04:36

  • brombeer #176 6 years ago

    We'll see...

  • BillGaitas #177 6 years ago

    Isnt it funny that the graphics in PGR3 arent considered relevant when the power of the the ps3 and 360 has been constantly discussed.

    Driving games are my favorite type of games so should I keep playing my ps2 instead of buying any of the next gen?

  • tengu #178 6 years ago

    Is this Calgon moron in spouting fanboy crap in every thread today?

  • BillGaitas #179 6 years ago

    "you should get an Xbox, far better selection of great driving games"

    to late for that, i guess ill keep driving GT4

  • brombeer #180 6 years ago

    "you should get an Xbox, far better selection of great driving games"

    Why? Because you also get real flames at the exhausts of the Xbox?
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/05 @ 06:27

  • captain-future #181 6 years ago

    7 / 10 max from me. Played it for some hours at an Xbox 360 event and I'm really thinking about changing my launch title list of games to buy to something else.

  • tiddles #182 6 years ago

    Saw this running for the first time today and was very impressed - the motion blur effect works really well, giving you a great sense of speed and (to my eyes) making it look unlike any racing game so far. You certainly won't be thinking about it running at 30fps - it genuinely felt faster and smoother than GT4 running at 60, and I speak as a GT fan who felt PGR2 really suffered from its lower framerate. Although the gameplay may well not be any great leap over its predecessors, PGR3 is the first X360 game I've seen which actually LOOKS next gen.

  • thebuzzard #183 6 years ago

    If you play this on Live its a def 9/10 if you dont and have played the others its probably a 6 or 7

  • Vinny67 #184 6 years ago

    Call Of Duty 2 - 7/10, Condemned - 7/10, Kameo - 5/10.
    I was always a fan of this site until all everyone donned their 'Sony goggles'.
    The slating the 360 received prior to launch was absurd, combined with the d*ck sucking Sony got for the in game movies they showed (anyone remember the fuss made about the Bouncer on PS2) for the PS3 really p*ssed me off.
    This latest set of reviews has only convinced me to delete this website from my favourites list and go to somewhere (anywhere) more objective. Somewhere that the reviewers don't have their d*cks so far up Sony's marketting a*se.

  • bloodflowers #185 6 years ago

    I actually have it now, played it for some hours.

    To me, the 30fps is very noticeable, right from the very moment the image appeared. The blur is not overly intrusive, it doesn't hide the 30fps at all.

    Unrelated to graphics, the game is lacking a sense of speed - PGRs main fault (to me) has always been that it wants so badly to be a sim and an arcade racer at the same time, judging when to slow down for corners is pretty difficult, and you DO need to because the sim handling will turn you into a swaying bus after collision with a wall.

    Related to graphics - the improvements in lighting have brought with them downsides. Unless you turn the TV brightness up to where it looks silly, lots of graphics are so shadowed they may aswell be black, others are too dark. A good example of this is trying to do the first Cone Challenge. Normally a hated mode at the best of times, it's much harder when the bright yellow cones are turned to a very dark brown/yellow, next to a brown fence, just because of the shadow from a tree overhead. Games get this wrong too often - how frequently does a shadow look pitch black to you in reality? Worst example is Lockdown boot camp map on Black Arrow, the sun is shining, yet in the corners it's pitch black - wtf?

    Aside from that it's pretty nice, I wouldn't argue with the score at all. I'd give it full marks if they took the sim edge off the handling and fixed the graphics.

  • sonmi451 #186 6 years ago

    I've never owned an Xbox or played PGR until today as we have a 360 at work.
    I have to say I think it's superb. The cockpit view is absolutely brilliant, and the handling and sound is great. Only criticism is the framerate on the replays can be a little dodgy and I can't find any Alfas in the car selection, although I did find a Lambo Muira which was rather nice.

    and all this from Gran Turismo fan. GT5 on PS3 had better have cockpit views or I'm buying a 360......actually I might buy one anyhow.

  • dryden555 #187 6 years ago

    The game feels a tad rushed for the launch release. The cars look absolutely great but the wonky lighting and shadowing of the tracks doesn't say "next-gen" at all.

  • Glitch #188 6 years ago

    OK! where do I start. The game is good, graphics are class and overall it plays well, I enjoy it.

    BUT!

    Who the fuck designed the menu system. the writing is hard to read and very unclear.

    They have left a large black space at the top and bottom of the screen, compacting everything into the middle. WHY?

    Colour schemes? Dont the creaters understand what the are? geeez, the GUI is soooo badly designed it makes me wonder why people got paid to make it.

    Thats just the menu, actually playing the game is great.