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| Project Gotham Racing 3 |
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| Racing |
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| Bizarre Creations |
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| Microsoft |
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2nd December 05 |
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22nd November 05 |
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3+ |
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(E) - Everyone |
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At the Leipzig games convention we managed to get a sneak peek of the forthcoming Bizarre Creations game, Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360. Firstly I must stress that the version running on a dev kit was no-where near finished but enough to give us an idea of what to expect watching the game running as a Ferrari was taken for a spin around one of the tracks.
The first thing we were told about the game was that all of the cars will run a minimum speed of 170mph which means that there will be none of the more regular road cars such as mini’s on offer. The point of this is to allow gamers the chance to get stuck into to the meat and speed of the game from the offset without having to wade through slower vehicles first. We were also informed that of the 80 odd cars in the game will be available from the offset as well as the tracks set in New York, Tokyo and London (two more cities will be available but will be announced in the next few weeks). The reason for this is so that every gamer can have access to content on the disc as opposed to just rewarding the more hardcore gamers. We were told that hardcore gamers should not fear as there would be enough bonuses for them to unlock as well. This time all of the major super car manufacturers are present, and yes that does include the famous Lamborghini cars.
Another key feature of the game is the Project Gotham Racing TV which is a mode that is basically set up like a real life TV station which will allow players the chance to watch other players (on xbox Live) race. For example you could watch the racing of the Number one ranked player or simply rivals on your friends list. The top ranked player over Xbox Live will also feature heavily in other people’s games and will appear on their screens in a variety of interesting ways. The TV mode is there for you to simply kick back and watch just like you would a TV channel and obviously you will be able to use your own soundtracks here as well. There will also be a number of Bizarre Creations hosted tournaments advertised on the TV channel as well as others that players have created.
We were shown a video of the game which stylized some fancy camera shots of some cars racing around a circuit, which was sharp, fast but not the kind of thing you would be used to when actually racing. We were then shown some of the more technical aspects of the game whereby the attention to detail was staggering as each city has been faithfully recreated to the extent that if you lived along one of the routes you would probably recognize the buildings. Some artistic license has had to be employed in some cases with store front names otherwise Bizarre Creations would have to pay out huge sums of money for licensing.
Many photos were taken along the routes of the buildings and these were often painstaking complex as each one had to be perfect to become a texture used in the game. I noticed a small pigeon on one building which for a moment I thought would still be there until the next shot of the same building front revealed no pigeons! The team had to take approximately 20,000 photos in each city to faithfully recreate them in the game. So many pictures were needed because of the painstakingly small intervals used for each building.
We were also shown some interior shots which were a mixture of in game and wire frame images. There was a lot of detail on display and although we didn’t see the driver we were told that the driver will shift gears correctly and differently according to the dimensions of the car. So for example if the gears stick is higher in a Ferrari than a Lamborghini then the animation is there for that. The cars themselves and I’m sure most of you have seen the screenshots are looking very polished but will receive real time damage if you drive like a bull in a china shop.
The final part of the sneak preview showed us a Ferrari driving around a circuit using a plethora of viewpoints with the actual game rather than fancy video sequences. I cannot stress enough that the build we saw was very early and littered with errors such as a poor frame rate, pop up, too much motion blur and un-polished graphics. However even in this early state the game looked pretty sharp and the sense of speed was of a high standard. The internal views didn’t look quite as polished as the rest of the graphics nor did the reflections on the surfaces of the car but I will say that at this stage the overall look of the game is still highly impressive and I was itching to grab the controller and have a play. What was nice and I hope is included in the final game was the option to look around from an internal view including looking out of the side windows (although doing so in a real race might not be so practical unless you really do master the circuits).
We were shown the crowds which for the first time in any racing game looked highly detailed considering that mostly you will be whizzing past at great speed. We were also told that if you look closely you will see some members of the Bizarre Creations development team used as models. The crowd isn’t there just for effect either as they will actually boo if you drive poorly or cheer if you drive with style. What is more the crowd will cower from the sidelines if your car gets too close. The kudos system has been reworked and features different types of rewards for more types of moves but other than that we were told the Kudos system was being kept under wraps for now. Another cool feature was being able to plot your own routes on the maps giving players an almost limitless amount of track combinations for single and online play modes. This kind of thing is excellent for longevity in racing games and I’m thankful as you will be too of its inclusion.
Project Gotham Racing 3 will be available at launch on Xbox 360 and is shaping up to be an excellent driving game that will surpass the awesome Project Gotham Racing 2 by a long stretch. The only thing that is really bad is waiting for the game to be released!
Preview By: Robert Cram
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