Project Gotham Racing (Xbox Classics)

Another highlight of the game is its detailed graphics. The more than 200 circuits, based on London, Tokyo, San Francisco and New York, are extremely authentic. Those familiar with the areas are sure to do a double take at the numerous courses. The games' cars are also beautifully rendered and feature impressive reflection and lighting effects.

Gameplay is quite diverse with quick race, arcade race, kudos challenge, time attack, and multiplayer modes. Kudos challenge alone features nine different types of gameplay that ranges from races, time trials, and obstacle courses. The only significant drawback with this game is its difficulty. Most players will find that two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through, the game becomes exceedingly difficult to the point where it's more frustrating than fun. Despite this problem, it still provides dozens of hours of entertainment for most and a challenging time for the hard core. All players will find that Project Gotham Racing is a truly distinct and beautiful racer. --Raymond M Padilla

Good points - great gameplay , good graphics and super sounds

Bad points - it does not have the tower and st pauls. boo hoo

Verdict: Buy this game if you like urban racing! rating: 9/10


Enjoyable racing game - until it becomes impossible   December 11, 2003
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

Project Gotham is initially one of the more entertaining race games. Up until you get through your third Kudos Racing season and the 3rd Arcade Challenge/Quick Race Challenge you'll be having great fun in your beautiful Nissan Skyline, screaming round corners and doing stunts.

Then the game's difficulty curve becomes too steep and you find yourself trapped, unable to complete a certain challenge and therefore unable to advance through the game. You'll find yourself attempting an Overtake Challenge for the 13th time and you'll realise with accelerating dismay that you are wasting your time.

Project Gotham offers the most limited choice of cars outside of rally sims. It takes the rather offensive route of awarding the player with the same cars over and over again - e.g. soft-top and tin-top models of the same vehicle which are basically the same car with no performance difference. Many of the cars have statistics so similar that again, they might as well be the same vehicle (Lancer and Impreza).

Most of the cars included do tend to be fun to drive and they all look fantastic. There are a couple of oddities: the VW Beetle looks like it's been stretched, the BMW Z3 cannot take corners without coming out of them completely sideways, the Ferrari F355 has a very high "Handling" score but spends most of the race struggling not to do doughnuts.

The gameplay is very fast and furious. Losing your concentration for a few seconds is the difference between earning a medal and being sent spinning to the back of the pack. There's nothing so exhilerating as flooring the throttle downhill in a Camarro. It's extremely rewarding to take a powerful rear wheel drive monster round the American circuits amassing thousands of Kudos points.

Gameplay flaws are present in most races. The enemy cars make successful attempts to nudge, bump and block the player, and they seem to get a speed increase on the final lap of a race. Let a car out of your sight and it'll build such a lead you may as well restart the race. You will find yourself racing the same opponents over and over again which gets really, really boring.

The tracks are OK to look at. Most of them are far too cramped to accommodate side-by-side racing and you will be losing hundreds of Kudos points on the tighter corners which simply don't allow powerslides.

The game modes:

Overtake Challenge: You'll learn to dread these. You need to pass slow-moving cars who invaribly get in the way on tight corners. You'll spend on average 50% of the race just trying to catch up with all the other cars, and that's if you don't waste time gathering Kudos. Ugh.

Kudos Challenges: Involves burning round a track trying to rack up Kudos points. The targets become ridiculously high as you advance. (1600 Kudos in a 3-lap race - the most I've ever got on this track is 1450!) I cannot overemphasise how soul destroying this gets.

Street Race: The only really enjoyable element of the game - a high speed run round town a la Gran Turismo.

Hot Lap: Can be fun. You need to complete a track under a set time limit. The time limits are usually pretty fair.

1-on-1: Race a new, more powerful car. No matter what this car is it's always faster and better round corners than yours (imagine my amazement when a computer-controlled Chevy Corvette cornered better than my Nissan Skyline!). If you do beat this car you unlock it and can use it at any time.

Pointless extras include unlocking horrible new colours for your car (the new colours are the same for each car). Oh, and tons of those useless time trial tracks every racing game features for bored players keep unlocking themselves. Woo.

You should find the Ford Focus to be the most useful car initially due to its better than average handling. After that the Nissan Skyline and the Panoz Esperante are very exciting to drive, particularly the Esperante. The later cars - including some of the Ferraris - oversteer so badly they are no good on most tracks, and the British and American muscle cars are a bit of a joke seeing as they all have a handling rating of 4 or 5 out of 10!

I'd recommend giving this game a miss now that Project Gotham 2 is out.


More Kudos   December 8, 2003
 0 out of 2 found this review helpful

I’m not a big racing fan. In fact it has been such a long time that I still believe that Formula One on the Amiga was something of a peak.

This game looks good. The cars look shiny, metallic reflections and everything looks cool. The replays look like film images and it is all very impressive.

Races are fun, Time Attack is fun but Kudos challenge is probably the best. Kudos’ are points that awarded for going fast, skids and for being cool. And the more Kudos the more cars and tracks you can unlock. And this game gives you a lot of chances to be cool. Nothing is better then taking that green car on the inside with a handbrake skid. Playing with a friend is unwise, especially if you have a life to be getting on with. The words “one more go” have passed my lips many a time during playing sessions.


Good But Nothing Spectacular   September 23, 2003
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

This game takes a slightly different angle to standard racing games. You are awarded Kudos, a type of money for winning races, pulling skids round corners and not damaging your car etc. The graphics are splendid but unfortunatley do not make up for the bad points about the game. The tracks are a bit too dark and headlights on cars dont seem to actually effect the lighing on the road either. The AI on this game is near perfect and you will need to restart if you make a mistake on a race if you want to win it. There are several modes of play, arcade mode gives you a track race against 5 cars. Or there is time attack, kudos challenge and multiplayer.
The cars are very good with a nice variety of sports cars, from the New VW Beatle to the Aston Martin Vanquish and F50. But sadly you can not modify or but parts for them.

Personally i think it is a good game but just not GT beater. Hopefully the sequel will improve on a good idea. But you can pick up Sega GT for a very small price nowadays, which has a longer life span.