Project Gotham Racing 2 Impressions

Project Gotham Racing 2 is the eagerly anticipated sequel to Project Gotham Racing, the popular Xbox racing game released when the Xbox launched in November 2001. Shortly after Project Gotham Racing shipped, UK-based developer Bizarre Creations started work on the ambitious sequel, which was unveiled at Microsoft's X02 event in New York last year. We've had a chance to check out a new version of the game, which is looking mighty fine.

While Microsoft and Bizarre aren't revealing everything that's being packed into PGR2, the build of the game we saw offered a good sense of what to expect. The game will feature more cities, including Barcelona, Spain; Edinburgh, Scotland; Moscow, Russia; and Florence, Italy. A new garage mode will let you examine all the cars you unlock in the game. The game's roster of vehicles includes the GT2 and Mini Cooper S from the original game, as well as new classes of cars such as SUVs, the X5, and the first video game appearance of Ferrari's Enzo. In addition to contemporary vehicles, the game will include classic cars such as the Pontiac GTO and Trans-Am. At present, the number of cars in the game is expected to be roughly 100.

Project Gotham Racing 2 will also include damage modeling for the cars, although the damage will not affect a car's performance. The game's difficulty will now run from novice to expert, and you can play through the game on any of the difficulty levels. The addition of a new ranking system that scales according to the difficulty you're playing on makes the game more accessible to players of varying skill. Along the same lines, Bizarre has tweaked the game's kudos system, which rewards players for skillful driving during a race. This time out, the game will be more forgiving about docking points when you don't race well. For example, whereas as in the first Project Gotham Racing you would be deprived of points if you bumped a wall, in PGR2 you will be docked only a percentage of points based on the nature of the impact. So slightly scraping a wall will cost you only a few points as opposed to all of them. However, if you smack into a wall hard, you can kiss your points good-bye. The kinder, gentler kudos system will also provide you with ample opportunities to earn points, and you'll be provided with a breakdown of where you earned them at the end of each race. The game features 12 categories in which you can earn points.

You'll be honing your skills in several game modes. The version of the game we saw gave us a taste of the plethora of ways you'll be able to test your racing skills. The single-player game will feature kudos world series, arcade racing, time attack, and leaderboard challenge. Kudos world series is a series of races set around the world--you'll have to beat various races in each challenge to progress. Arcade racing will offer three types of races: street racing against AI opponents, timed runs that require you to beat the best times on a track, and style racing, which tests your kudos-earning skills. Time attack forces you to set and beat times on various tracks.

The Xbox Live component of the game is integrated deeply into the game's modes. If you're connected to the service during any single-player race mode, PGR2 will show a leaderboard and where your performance would place you in real time. You'll also be able to download ghosts of top-ranked players on the leaderboard. If you manage to beat their records, the leaderboard will upload a ghost of your race for other players to try to beat. If you manage to improve on your time while racing a top-ranked ghost, the game will show your ghost on the track as well, offering an even greater challenge. Traditional multiplayer games over Xbox Live will support up to eight players. In addition, Microsoft and Bizarre are in the process of sorting out downloadable content for the game--currently the intention is to make cars, tracks, and possibly even cities available

The game's graphics engine has undergone a serious overhaul in order to accommodate the team's ambitious goals. An all-new graphics engine allows a higher level of detail, and special effects such as specular blooming from the lights on the cars are impressive. The environments have greater detail than the previous game, which reflects the more than 5,000 reference photos used when modeling the cities. Bizarre has even thrown in little touches, like birds swooping around in the distance. Like its predecessor, Project Gotham Racing 2 is slated to run at a constant 60 frames per second. The work-in-progress build we checked out, while having a few rough spots, is nearly there already.

The audio in the game is slated to improve on the original game with the inclusion of more than 150 licensed tracks and more local DJs providing voice for the radio stations you'll hear in each city, as well as the ability to use custom soundtracks in the game. The game will also feature a new bit of functionality to allow you to adjust your tunes on the fly. By clicking in the right thumbstick you'll bring up a small menu at the bottom of the screen that will let you switch tracks by pushing left or right and adjust a track's volume by pressing up or down.

While still months away from release, the game handles as tightly as its predecessor does. The gameplay tweaks that have been included to offer a more balanced experience seem to be coming together very well. Project Gotham Racing 2 is currently slated to ship this holiday season exclusively for the Xbox. Look for more on the game shortly.