An answer to a Gadfly's PG2 question

[Darwin]

I was responding to a question Gadfly posted in a System Wars forum regarding Project Gotham 2. As I was writing it, a Mod closed the thread. However, thanks to the almighty copy/paste functions, here it is.


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I'd love to hear more about Project Gotham II since I haven't even gotten to rent it yet. Is it the "must buy" racing game of the season?
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PG2 is indeed an impressive game. With the exception of the framerate, PG2 improves upon the first one in every way (graphics and gameplay).

First things first. It does not run at 60 fps, like the first Project Gotham did. However, the framerate is stable and good enough. You won't notice it after a few minutes.

Second thing: PG2 has improvements in the AI, although it still needs further tuning. The AI does use dirty tactics, but NOT NEARLY to the extent it did in the first game. You will get some moderate pit maneuvering from the AI, but it's easier to maneuver out of than what we saw in the first PG. Also, the AI seems to be more vindictive if you "draw first blood" ... i.e. I think the computer cars remember if you hit them first and then do a little tit-for-tat later down the road. If you are not vindictive to the AI, they seem more rational and less likely to do you harm. Also, the "invincibility" of the AI that was in the first PG is gone now. In the first PG, the AI was pretty much immune to you pit maneuvering them, even though they could spin you out very easily. Not that I was trying to be vindictive in the first game, but I felt it was unfair. Now in the second PG, you can (if necessary) spin out the AI. And in some of those street races, it can be the difference between completing the race or not. The AI can still be *******, but it's not nearly as frustrating as the first game.

Along the same lines, PG2 no longer penalizes you for colliding with other cars. This also means the AI cannot cause you to lose your kudos when they accidently touch you.

The rubber-banding from the first game is still present, although it seems to be toned down a bit. PG's rubber-banding was never serious, but it was enough to make those long races a bit unfair. PG2 still has a small bit of rubber-banding, but it also seems to work in your favor some times.

The AI do respond to you in some ways. They will attempt to pass cleanly and will stop if about to hit you ... sometimes. However, they still take the correct line most of the time and still have that "predictability". I would have liked to see some more randomness, more "human error" to their driving. As such, the easier modes are easier buy having the cars "sandbag" the race or slow down, not because they act like a beginning human driver would.

The physics in the game are almost the same as the first, although it seems a bit more simulation-based. The cars don't slide quite as much as the first game. However, it is still an overall mix of arcade and sim racing.

The amount of kudos points awarded for sliding has gone down a bit. However, the Kudos system in PG2 better ballanced. PG1 (and especially Metropolis Street Racer) were very generous with Kudos when you powerslid. This meant that less-skilled gamers could exploit the powersliding to acheive lots of points. In PG2, the game really encourages overall better driving. You now receive Kudos for taking a curve apporpriately ("good line" kudos) and the better the line the more you get. Also, you can get points for drafting. Now, gamers have an incentive to actually race well, because they get points for skilled cornering. You can also use these to continue your combo. Play online and you'll see that (for the most part), the guys in the front generally get the most Kudos, not the guys trailing in the back who powerslide through every corner.

PG2 also expands it's medal system to include two more levels. Now you have steel, bronz, silver, gold, and platinum. The difficulty level has been spread out more to accomodate a wider range of gamer's abilities. In the first PG, even getting a bronz in some areas was very hard. Also, in PG1 you needed to get mostly Gold if you wanted the better cars (which were absolutely necessary to even pass the challenges in the latter chapters). Now in PG2, the gamer is given more choices. You can still get good cars and pass the races without going to the brink of frustration. Obviously the game does reward you for choosing the harder difficulties, but it is now more of a choice.

The tracks are very well designed. Not as many (quantity) as the first PG, but overall better quality. Also, there is not as much "recylcing" of the tracks that we saw in the first PG. PG2's tracks are more unique (although there is still some recycling). One thing of note: PG2's tracks don't have the steep elevation changes that we saw with some of the PG1's tracks (San Francisco). PG2's slopes are mild. But, all the tracks in PG2 are new, unlike PG1 which was 80% recreation of the tracks in Metropolis Street Racer.

Getting through all the single player races will give you about 20 - 40 hours of play time. This really depends on what types of medals you want.

[Gadfly2317]

I'd much rather read a review from somone who's opinion and racing tastes I respect than try to surf around the net looking at reviews from joe schmo. So, thanks for the taking the time to break down some of the AI differences.

I haven't played the first one. Since its just 20 new, I was going to take in Apex and get PG1. But now I'm sorta leaning towards just waiting a couple weeks and getting PG2. Is it enough better than PG1 to be worth the extra $30 since I haven't played either Metropolis or PG1?

Little things do bug me. . . .like some of the enemy AI stuff you point out about the first one. I really don't like it when I can't spin out an enemy but they can spin me out with a little bump.

Anyway, thanks again for the info.

[Glockstar]

Darwin's racing game reviews are great, especially for the racing-details parts, but I don't always agree 100% with him.

First off, Project Gotham Racing (1 and, now, 2 which are both very similar) is WAAAAY more arcade than sim. When you consider that the only goal of the game is to acquire more cars to race with - cars that you cannot tune or modify, btw - you'll soon realize that PGR is not that much different than your favorite racers of the arcades. Sans steering wheel, seat, and gas pedal, of course. But like those great arcade racers, PGR is done so well that your main reason for ultimately coming back to it will be to... just have fun. And PGR is tons o' fun.

For a while. A long while actually, if you have XBox Live. This is in no way suggesting that PGR ever loses it's flavor, or anything (well... unless of course you don't like it when your games get too hard) but PGR is notorious for getting very difficult (very, very, difficult) - about "halfway thru".

There are really only three official modes of 1P play but two entail all different kinds of challenges (like one on one racing, timed runs, and racing thru pilons). Of course, in almost all of these challenges it is mandated that you "drive with style"; only Time Attack mode doesn't involve kudos (the style points of PGR).

But you do need to earn kudos in order to "unlock" new cars. One of the major differences between PGR1 and PGR2 is that, in the latter, you get to choose what car you unlock. (You essentially buy new cars with your kudos tokens). In the first PGR new cars would come to you in sequence.

Of course, another "little" difference is XBox Live. But I know that you're not hooked up yet, so I won't get into that part of it here. I will say this though, PGR2... in my eyes... is easily, easily, worth $50 if you have XBL. $50, for a game like this, is a steal!

Is PGR2 worth $50 without XBL?
Hmmm... well...

Just as much as "beating everything" is, the allure of being able to race in... whatever car it is that gets your blood pumping... will be a thing that drives your progression thru the game. But that's not what makes PGR so great, or so popular. It's the rush and the fun (that goes along with the challenge)... pure and simple. I would never say that Rallisport Challenge or World Racing aren't fun, but I will say that PGR offers up a (very) different kind of fun - that no other racing game does, or can. (Well... maybe NFS:Underground.*)

There was a lot of effort put into this game, and it's all very evident. From the cars to the cities to the tracks. And when you throw in one of the greatest (if not the greatest) mini-games ever created, and I think you've got yourself a game worth $50, no problem!

At the very least, I'd suggest renting it.
'Cause like I said - and even if while you are playing it on the first day of your rental period, you come to the conclusion that you now want to buy the game - it's that type of game that you can't have a problem with paying "too much" for it... if you know what I mean. Be forewarned though... if you don't have XBL then you may feel like you are missing out on a ton. And, well... you are, but...

--- --- ---

*Just know that NFS:Underground is all about progressing with one car, while PGR is about progressing to, and then with, (a whole bunch of) different cars. Also, there's not much diversity in the tracks in NFS - and the whole racing at night thing gets kinda old. In PGR2 there are A LOT of tracks - set in A LOT of real life cities. From Chicago to Moscow to Hong Kong to Florence (and 7 others - with more on the way via XBL)... with each city being so beautifully, and expertly, recreated you know there's going to be diversity here!

[Gadfly2317]

<div class=\"smallfont\">Darwin's racing game reviews are great, especially for the racing-details parts, but I don't always agree 100% with him.

First off, Project Gotham Racing (1 and, now, 2 which are both very similar) is WAAAAY more arcade than sim. When you consider that the only goal of the game is to acquire more cars to race with - cars that you cannot tune or modify, btw - you'll soon realize that PGR is not that much different than your favorite racers of the arcades. Sans steering wheel, seat, and gas pedal, of course. But like those great arcade racers, PGR is done so well that your main reason for ultimately coming back to it will be to... just have fun. And PGR is tons o' fun.

For a while. A long while actually, if you have XBox Live. This is in no way suggesting that PGR ever loses it's flavor, or anything (well... unless of course you don't like it when your games get too hard) but PGR is notorious for getting very difficult (very, very, difficult) - about "halfway thru".

There are really only three official modes of 1P play but two entail all different kinds of challenges (like one on one racing, timed runs, and racing thru pilons). Of course, in almost all of these challenges it is mandated that you "drive with style"; only Time Attack mode doesn't involve kudos (the style points of PGR).

But you do need to earn kudos in order to "unlock" new cars. One of the major differences between PGR1 and PGR2 is that, in the latter, you get to choose what car you unlock. (You essentially buy new cars with your kudos tokens). In the first PGR new cars would come to you in sequence.

Of course, another "little" difference is XBox Live. But I know that you're not hooked up yet, so I won't get into that part of it here. I will say this though, PGR2... in my eyes... is easily, easily, worth $50 if you have XBL. $50, for a game like this, is a steal!

Is PGR2 worth $50 without XBL?
Hmmm... well...

Just as much as "beating everything" is, the allure of being able to race in... whatever car it is that gets your blood pumping... will be a thing that drives your progression thru the game. But that's not what makes PGR so great, or so popular. It's the rush and the fun (that goes along with the challenge)... pure and simple. I would never say that Rallisport Challenge or World Racing aren't fun, but I will say that PGR offers up a (very) different kind of fun - that no other racing game does, or can. (Well... maybe NFS:Underground.*)

There was a lot of effort put into this game, and it's all very evident. From the cars to the cities to the tracks. And when you throw in one of the greatest (if not the greatest) mini-games ever created, and I think you've got yourself a game worth $50, no problem!

At the very least, I'd suggest renting it.
'Cause like I said - and even if while you are playing it on the first day of your rental period, you come to the conclusion that you now want to buy the game - it's that type of game that you can't have a problem with paying "too much" for it... if you know what I mean. Be forewarned though... if you don't have XBL then you may feel like you are missing out on a ton. And, well... you are, but...

--- --- ---

*Just know that NFS:Underground is all about progressing with one car, while PGR is about progressing to, and then with, (a whole bunch of) different cars. Also, there's not much diversity in the tracks in NFS - and the whole racing at night thing gets kinda old. In PGR2 there are A LOT of tracks - set in A LOT of real life cities. From Chicago to Moscow to Hong Kong to Florence (and 7 others - with more on the way via XBL)... with each city being so beautifully, and expertly, recreated you know there's going to be diversity here!</div>

I gonna have to at least give it a rent right now--I almost never rent anything--I just buy it if I want to play it, keep it however long I feel like, and then trade it in. Ends up being cheaper than renting, really. But right now, I've bought about 15 games in the last month, and I'm supposed to be christmas shopping this month. My fiance' is going to kill me if I go out again and then come home with something else for myself (the other night I came home with all three seasons box set of Family Guy.) But after xmas, I was going to get Prince of Persia (Xbox,) BG&E (GC) and Harvest Moon (GC). Probably have to add PGRII.

I do appreciate the additional info on this game. I still may just cheap-out and buy the first one for right now, though. I can't imagine they are extremely different racing experiences, despite some of the adjustments. I imagine its great for all the new tracks and cars more than anything, and right now, all the tracks and cars on PG1 will be new to me, too.

Oh yeah, you mentioned something about a mini-game? What were you referring to? If It got mentioned already, I must have forgotten.

[Glockstar]

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I gonna have to at least give it a rent right now--I almost never rent anything--I just buy it if I want to play it, keep it however long I feel like, and then trade it in. ...

I do appreciate the additional info on this game. I still may just cheap-out and buy the first one for right now, though. I can't imagine they are extremely different racing experiences, despite some of the adjustments. I imagine its great for all the new tracks and cars more than anything, and right now, all the tracks and cars on PG1 will be new to me, too.

Oh yeah, you mentioned something about a mini-game? What were you referring to? If It got mentioned already, I must have forgotten.</div>

Either way, I don't think you can go wrong. PGR1 is worth the $20 just as PGR2 is worth the 50. I've always said it, and I beleive it still holds, PGR1 is one of the top games for the XBox for those without XBox Live.

I like that attitude about the game being new to you no matter how old it is to everyone else, though. I think the same the way. Athough PGR2 does have newer, and more, tracks, PGR1 still has the best one... San Francisco! PGR2 is definitely missing San Fran. (Though I do believe that Fr'isco is going to be the first city available for download for PGR2.)

The mini-game is GEOMETRY WARS!
And I love it! (Obviously.)
It's a cross between the old vector graphics Asteroids, and Robotron. It's even got that great vector graphics look! In GW, you control a circular ship around the screen, much like you do in Asteroids, but you can shoot in any direction (with the right thumb-stick). It's tricky to get your movements coordinated at first, but as you can read, it's not a hard concept. Unlike Asteroids, however, you cannot travel thru the borders of the screen to the other side - they are not connected - you are boxed in. There's no enemy fire to dodge or absorb, just enemy shapes that want to crash into you. Some of them need to be shot more than once, and others do weird things like create black-hole type of effects. There are power ups though, like rapid fire and multi-shot, as well as 3 destroy-everything bombs that you are given at the start of every game. Extra lives and bombs come every 20 to 25 thousand points (or soemthing like that), otherwise the games parameters are the same everytime you start it up. It's just like an old-school arade game - and great old-school, simple, fun!

I was joking with Darwin the other nite that I don't need, or want, Midway Arcade Treasures anymore - Geometry Wars has all of those Midway games beat! Thing is, I wasn't really joking. Again, I know you don't have XBL yet but they've even got a Live scoreboard for this mini-game - that shows the Top 100 scores. (My best score is about 140,000 points away from 100th place tho'. :p )

[Darwin]

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I still may just cheap-out and buy the first one for right now, though. I can't imagine they are extremely different racing experiences, despite some of the adjustments. I imagine its great for all the new tracks and cars more than anything, and right now, all the tracks and cars on PG1 will be new to me, too. </div>

I wrote a review of the first PG on this site, if you wanted to read more about it.
http://www.videogamereview.com/X,Box/Project,Gotham,Racing/PRD_155605_4167crx.aspx#reviews

I think my overall experience with PG1 is well summed up here:

"Project Gotham is a game I both love and hate at the same time. It does so many things right. It implements some very innovative concepts into a racing game (or at least borrows those innovative concepts from the same team that developed MSR). And the game does so much to make the gameplay well ballanced. Yet, there are a few things it does horrible, namely the AI. Project Gotham is a monumental game that will often times leave you screaming in frustration. The game is very very good, and yet very frustrating. I have never come across a game with so much of a disparity between quality of gameplay and fun. And after playing this for about 100 hours, I still cannot understand what possesed me to complete this game."

Seriosuly, the game was unecessarily frustrating. The second PG, IMO, renders the first PG obsolete. The second PG still has the extreme challenge for those who choose it, but without a lot of the cheap-ass frustrations in the first game. The games are not monumentally different in their gameplay. In fact, all of the basic gameplay in PG2 is an exact copy of the first PG. It's just that the problems from the first have been (mostly) fixed and the game has become a lot more enjoyable. Honestly, I have smashed 2 controllers playing PG1 as well as injured my wrist from gripping the controller too hard. And this is why (pertaining to PG1):

"The street races in PG are just a bunch of bull. The AI drivers are not really racing, but rather they are all gangin up on you. Whether hitting you from behind, or braking when in front of you in the middle of a straightaway, these guys are just jerks. They will spend the entire race tyring to spin you out and will even sacrifice their own position if necessary to do so. That is not racing. And there is a small amount of rubber banding with the AI, to ensure that they will catch up to you near the end of most races. Even when they spin themselves out going around a corner too fast, they will rubber-band back up rather quickly (this is blatantly evident during the replays). This means you can drive a race flawlessly and then lose in the last part of the last lap simply because the jerk behind you taps you."

[Gadfly2317]

Thanks again guys for all the feedback on this one. You're right, this game is seriously awesome--one of the best racing games I've played. Gran Turismo was always one of my very favorite of the realistic looking racing games, but PGRII may unseat it. The replay value here is massive because of the Kudos system. I mean, you can just race to win and still get kudos, but just from the limited time I've spent with it already, I can see replaying the hell out of this for the kudos combos.

And my god is it gorgeous. These real-world city's are so gorgeous and well done, I feel like I'm on vacation. I know Gamer kind of flippantly called this a "generic racer" and I kind of know what he meant, a lot of racing games do seem really generic, just a bunch of cars and some new tracks. I would say PGRII is the least generic racer I've played in ages, primarily due to the brilliant details and the kudos system. And you're right, this game is FUN. I've gone on about how fun Mario Kart is over in the GC forum, but it is at its most fun as multi-player. I don't know how PGRII is as a multi-player game, but I don't think single player racing challenges get much better than this one. It makes me glad all over again that I got the xbox to go with my GC, rather than a PS2. I don't have any idea how GTA4 will turn out or how it will truly distinguish itself from its predecessors, but things like Rallisport Challenge (and the upcoming sequel), Mercedez World Racing, and PGRII more than make up for Gran Turismo (which I feel like I've pretty much experienced and haven't been that impressed with the sequels--the freshness of PGRII makes it seem like a much better choice for me.)

I rented Prince of Persia this weekend too, but even though it is gorgeous graphically and has some of the best most fluid 3-d platform controls I've ever seen, its frankly left me a little flat. I think I'll just play however far I can get on a rental and leave it at that, maybe pick it up someday during a gaming release drought after its price has dropped. PGRII is way more of must-own for me.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

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*Just know that NFS:Underground is all about progressing with one car, while PGR is about progressing to, and then with, (a whole bunch of) different cars. Also, there's not much diversity in the tracks in NFS - and the whole racing at night thing gets kinda old. In PGR2 there are A LOT of tracks - set in A LOT of real life cities. From Chicago to Moscow to Hong Kong to Florence (and 7 others - with more on the way via XBL)... with each city being so beautifully, and expertly, recreated you know there's going to be diversity here!</div>


True, but the thing that NFS has over PGR2 is the feel of speed, IMO. I forgot what car I had in PGR2, but the thing just didn't feel fast at all compared to NFS, and I untimately ended up buying NFS over PGR2.

For some reason though, NFS doesn't have custom soundtracks (Madden does, but this doesn't?). That has ben my only gripe so far.