Project Gotham Racing 3
Three-dimensional crowds are a big plus as they wave their arms and cheer as you drive past. If you happen to drift too far and collide with the barrier, the crowds will back away as in real life. And while you're up so close to the crowd, notice that those camera flashes that you see while you drive are from crowd members that are actually holding cameras. The car models are spot on as well, and look fantastic when free roaming around your garage, walking amongst all your expensive machinery. To show off the detail of both the cars and environment, there is a Photo Mode included which can be accessed either during a race, watching a saved replay or while walking around in the garage. You have full control over the camera position as well as other options including focus, shutter speed and exposure. Who doesn't want to show off their shiny supercar in front of famous landmarks such as London's Big Ben or in the dazzling night-lights of Tokyo? There is no damage to the cars visually or to the vehicles' handling, which definitely makes PGR3 an arcade racer.
The roar of the power-hungry engines are noticeably unique for each of the supercars, which mixes in well with the other environmental sounds such as the crowd cheering you on as your tyres screech while sliding around a corner. The in-game music is of a wide variety, strangely including classical works from the likes of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. Having said that, thundering around the Nurburgring Nordschleife while listening to such masterpieces works quite well. As the game manual says, "If the huge choral music of Verdi doesn't make you drive faster, nothing will." Of course, you can listen to your own music either stored on your Xbox hard drive or streaming from a USB device or personal audio player - functions which are built-in to the Xbox 360 platform.
The single player 'Career' mode comprises of 23 championships made up of individual events. Progression is simple - complete the individual events to win the championship, which unlocks new championships to compete in. There is nothing ground-breakingly new with the events, apart from the Time vs. Kudos event. This is where you are given a small amount of time to finish the circuit (depending on the car and difficulty), but earning Kudos will stop the clock counting down which is essential to give you more time to reach the finish line. Over Xbox Live there is also an Online Career mode in which you are matched up with other online players of similar skills and comparable chosen cars.
