Project Gotham Racing 2 review

13 January 2004 10:34 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Project Gotham Racing 2 takes the street racing away from the lanes of London and sees you racing in different cities across the globe, but can a game famous for its recreation of London racing fair as well to cities afar?

The answer is yes. Originally titlted MSR and released on the Dreamcast the game hasn't grown that much in the prevailing versions. That said he hasn't needed to. The perfect mix of street racing along side “Kudos” earning moves offers plenty to the show-off and hardened racer alike.

For those unaware of the series the main goal is to win races. Winning races allows you to progress through the game, open new tracks and new car categories. The better you place the more points you earn. The more points you earn the better cars you can get and so on. The bonus points come when you perform what the game calls Kudos. Performing handbrake turns, powerslides and other such stunts will get you more points and the cycle goes on.

What this amounts to is a game that you can grow into. At first new players are likely to really only want to concentrate on getting around the lap and placing in a high enough position to progress. But as that confidence grows so does the game.

Graphics are stunning as the cityscapes whiz pass at high speed and the Xbox copes admirably. As are the cars with their shiny reflective bodywork while the soundtrack involves the usual funked up tracks to get the race moving.

For the online player, Project Gotham Racing 2 is Xbox Live ready and players can either challenge up to eight other player's head to head or post and download fastest times to practice and race against.

Verdict

While this is more of the same as Project Gotham Racing and MSR for the Dreamcast it’s still good fun. New cities include Florence, Moscow, Washington, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Yokohama, Stockholm, Hong Kong, and Sydney and these offer their own challenges as you’d expect. The handling and physics of the 100+ cars from 14 classes are pretty true to form - a Porsche will outrun a Focus etc etc. With the amount of bits and bobs such as the cars, the career mode and the cities this makes for one of the better racing games on the Xbox.

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Review Recap

Made by: Microsoft
Price as reviewed: £35
The good: more of the same
The bad: more of the same
Quick verdict: Fans have already bought it and kept in the charts for months on end. Cynics can rent or wait for budget while the rest burn rubber
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