 |
| Source // Moby Games |
There are a great many series of racing games. Some I'm not really interested in, and some I never had the chance to play, being exclusive to a platform I didn't own. One such game is Project Gotham Racing 3, a game with a weird name on a new system, the Xbox 360, that I didn't want.
As a release game at the start of the next generation of consoles, PGR3 would be raising the bar, and I had to double-check that this was indeed an Xbox 360 game that I was playing next for the 1001 list. It feels too early, somehow. Surely there can't be hundreds of games from the seventh generation to keep us going. How many sequels will we be playing?
A question for another time, for we've got some street racing to do. Legally, this time.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Fun Times
A long time after release, I picked up an Xbox 360, and I believe I rescued a copy of PGR3 from the rubbish. Finally, I'm able to see how this generation kicked off, though you won't be seeing any of my experience with it.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
PGR3 takes players to the streets of London, Las Vegas, Tokyo, New York, and... the Nurburgring. Ok. Uhm, it takes you to the streets of these iconic cities in all manner of competitions, from races to time trials, stylish drifting events to speeding past speed cameras, and a few more side attractions in between.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
You start your career with 85k Credits, with which you'll be able to afford a car, certainly, but not one of the fast ones. You'll have to work through some events for those. And then hope you own a garage with enough space to put them in. No, really.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Anyway, PGR3's career mode is a string of arcade challenges, each victory unlocking another, harder event for you to compete in at a later time. The streets of London are first on your sightseeing list, in a simple street race to welcome you to the world of PGR3.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
I haven't bothered to look at the wider internet to find screenshots of the actual game in motion around London, as I saw it, but here's a screenshot from the photo mode showing London at night, which is close, right?
Let's babble for a little bit. First of all, PGR3 looks great. It's perfectly playable today and holds up well. The city streets are full of people, advertising boards, greenery. If you thought the cars were detailed, the entire city seems to have had just as much attention paid to it. You can lose yourself staring down the streets, picking out the landmarks, and familiarising yourself with where you are, and before you know it, you've driven into a wall.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
The 1001 list points out how the wing mirrors let you know that you're in the next generation, and alongside the cockpit views and damage models, I can't disagree. I'm not really a fan of Ferrari, but damn, look at that screenshot. How do you not want to see what that game is like?
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
What is it like to drive then? The triggers are host to acceleration and braking, with a handbrake button to force your car into a drift where you think its appropriate, and that's important in PGR3, as it carries over the Kudos system from Metropolis Street Racer.
If you drift behind someone, overtake them, then slide around the corner, you generate Kudos points. Successfully bank them by not crashing will net you rewards. In some modes, these points will freeze the clock, allowing you to finish a lap within a time limit. In others, you just need to score as many points as you can, showing off to the crowds.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
And there are crowds. Quite a few of them. The streets are packed. You don't see much detail as you scream past at 100mph, but you know they're there. They add to the feeling that your racing is very much the focal point of the city. I mean, you have taken over most of the streets, so there's not much else reason to venture downtown.
Cities are distinct enough to feel different. Las Vegas offers a load of drag-strip centric courses, New York has you drive over the river, London weaves you between all the tourist attractions.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Frustrations
But while they're lovely to look at, driving around them might not be everyone's cup of tea. I'm not talking about the cone challenges that turn a circuit into a giant wobbly slalom. There are a few little quirks and quibbles you might have about PGR3.
Firstly, it's arcadey in its physics. It actually reminds me of Forza Horizon 4, which is a good thing. It means anyone can feel pretty comfortable in driving these cars around. What isn't good is that the AI are so determined to stick to their line that if you dare to overtake them in such a way that allows them to clip your rear end and spin you around, they will.
Speaking of the racing line, the mini-map appears to show it, and not the actual track dimensions. Some circuits in New York have ruddy great big walls down the middle of the road, but these aren't made apparent in the map. Some straight lines have whopping great big chicanes the appear out of nowhere if you're not paying attention.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Good luck paying attention at night, because these tracks are dark. Not pitch black by any means, but corners will leap out in front of you and bring any Kudos chain to a stop if you're not careful. Stick a street event in a city with narrow roads and you might start to ignore the Kudos mechanics entirely, especially if you don't need them for the event itself.
You might think that you could learn the tracks during the daylight hours and pick out your points of reference at night, but often I was picking out markers that I could see, but corners I could not. There isn't an overview of the circuit you're about to race on, so if you're not looking at the mini-map while driving down a straight you absolutely know ends well into the distance, you don't see the turn that puts you into a different part of the city.
Minor irk, definitely. I must stop sightseeing.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Further Fun Times
If you ever get fed up of racing through the arcadey career mode, or hit a roadblock and need a distraction, at least PGR3 is accomodating. There's a circuit designer in here that allows you to create your own tracks through the city. Like an idiot, I forgot to try that out. I'll have to go back and play it some more later.
With online leaderboards and a push for video content, of all things, sharing your own courses was just one more thing in the list of things you can do in PGR3 to keep playing long after you've completed the career mode. Hop into races, challenge yourself to drive around cones, start at the back of the pack and overtake X drivers within a time limit... PGR3 is street racing legalised and set in stunning locales.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Or you could play Geometry Wars.
Final Word
As far as pick up and play games go, you could do far worse than Project Gotham Racing 3. I'd be happy with this on my brand new Xbox 360, definitely. I'm happy with it now, a decade and a half later, but it's not perfect.
I've not mentioned the music. Like other racing games, it includes a wide range, from Queen of the Stone Age to The Chemical Brothers to Brahms. Yes, as in Classical composer Brahms. The list is thrown together and slapped on top of the gameplay because someone said 'we need music'. You can barely hear it during the racing, and most of the time it does nothing to make PGR3 feel any better. It feels out of place, as though an afterthought.
Which is a shame, because visually, PGR3 ticks a great many boxes. Ignore the dated menus, though. They've not aged as gracefully as the in-game graphics.
It's not perfect, but it's definitely worth a spin if you don't want to think about car tuning setups and simulator-like physics. If you just want to race around a city and have the option of some mini-game-like driving challenges, Project Gotham Racing 3 will suit you nicely.
I can't see myself sitting down to play it all, but I can see how easy it'd be to do. It's a welcoming game. It makes you work, though. I wasn't awarded a car at one point, but the right to be able to buy it when I had the money.
Thanks, PGR3. Of all the racing games, it's the arcade one that doesn't dish out new cars after every event...
Fun Facts
Knowing that players of previous titles didn't like starting with slow cars, most of the cars available in PGR3 are on the higher end of the performance scale, letting you floor it down the Las Vegas strip far faster and far sooner.
Project Gotham Racing 3, developed by Bizarre Creations, first released in 2005.
Version played: Xbox 360, 2005.