PGR4 improved Forza Motorsport 2 on gameplay, PGR3 on graphics and MotoGP on bikes. Awesomeness-in-a-package.
PGR4. The highly anticipated game by Bizzare and MSG. Will that hype turn into something good? Perhaps. A short sum-up by this amateur overly-honest reviewer.
- Graphical: Top effin' notch. No questions asked. Cars are more detailed than ever.
- Gameplay wise: Deep. Alot deeper than Forza 2. But, as that game was as shallow as an empty glass of coke, this still has a bit of lacking options.
- Sound: A sh*tload of music. All genres are in. Cars sound awesome, and the bikes are extremely awesome when it comes to sound.
- Sequel-wise: Improved. But missing alot from other games and it's history.
- Value: Deep.
So, I'm planning on doing a somewhat deep review. And I will bash ALOT of things. So, if you're a fanboy, I will dare you to say I am a pr*ck. I will only enjoy it. Either way, PGR4 is a great game overall. If you're into car collecting. That is. PGR4 has the best graphics out of any vehicle game. Period.
Cars look great from outside, and also inside. Indepth, and everything works like it should on the dashboard. The bikes have the same, just plain terrific. The driver animations look pretty damn sweet, tough they are a bit choppy and laggy every now and then. Mechanical wise, framerate hasn't dropped on me once in these past two days. The weather effects have alot of effect on the handling. Also, the vehicle physics like suspension act pretty realistic and the bike physics like weight shift and such are damn well made
Graphic-wise, this game has peaked. But, in games of this era, graphics tend to eat gameplay. The better graphics, the less gameplay value. In PGR4's case, it's suprising how much has been spared from that evil curse. Still, I've been greatly dissapointed of the number of cars.
Like, they've wasted alot of licencing money on buying the '81 Pontiac Firebird. That's one of the worst editions of that car. Also, there's a '69 GT500, where's the '07? Replaced with a '66 Ford Mustang. They took an GMC Syclone, overall a pretty ugly truck. They took several bad BMW's instead of the good ones. The DeLorean DMC has no power whatsoever, and is barely used throughout the game. The game misses out on alot of great cars and bikes. For instance the 2002 Chevy Corvette. 2004 Ford Mustang. Ducati 999R. 1972 Chevy Corvette. 2005 Chrysler 300C. 2005 Chrysler ME4/12. Alot of the great cars have been wasted on somewhat sloppy ones. There's almost no German cars. The french have been abandoned and the US vehicles pretty much suck. The worst thing about it is only one pick up truck. Finally, I thought. A game where trucks make an apearance. Sadly, only the Syclone was given an chance.
I've been forced to use many of the cars I pretty much don't like. I do love the Buick GNX, but I am ordered to use a differentclas.sed car at almost any time. In the end, the game completely forgets about the less-powerfull cars.
So, qua vehicles, the game is pretty downright sad. About tracks, simply said: Best ever made. The weather effects are awesome. And with every different effect, the whole theme has changed. Buildings become white, when snowing. Roads become tracked and slippery with snow. Pools of ice appear before difficult apex's. The windscreenwhipers turn on, and rain starts to effect the cars look. Slides of water flow from front to back. Graphic wise, it looks amazing.
With snow, your car slowly turns white.
Sound wise, it's simply said awesome. Everything sounds awesome. The music list is just too large to recall, and bikes sound better than they do in real life. I'm not going indept with sounds, cause if they aren't bad. They are good. 'Nuff said.
Onto the value. It's pretty deep. With Forza 2, I had to rely on the achievements to keep me motivated enough to play. PGR4 isn't that shallow at all, it's great fun. Online it's even better. Only thing bothering me greatly is the lack of good cars. Also, the achievements are INCREDIBLY easy to earn. It took me only 1,5 days to get 600+ gamerscore. So, in the end, the achievements seem shallow, but the game sure as hell ain't.
The kudo system brings in some more value. The kudos you earn while racing, you use them to buy new car packs, track packs, cheats etc. Also, a 1 million kudos gamerpicture. Which costs, 1 million kudos. Showing the world that you're hooked.
PGR isn't a Forza game, being simulation-realistic. it's an arcade racer to the core, and it's doing damn well at that. And I'm being very honest when I say, this is the best game of the year. The best racer game, that is.
Rental, buy. I don't care. It's awesome.