The 1st game in this kudos racking series was Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast, which was then followed up by PGR on the XBOX, which contained the same cities again, as well as a New York stage also. This time though, it’s a whole new story, with fresh new tracks and a lot more of them. Plus not only in the streets. You’ll now find the massive Nürburgring track, which stretches on and on for several km. Drive this in your small sports car class, and you could very well be going on for almost a quarter of an hour trying to complete one lap. ;-)
Project Gotham Racing, and its 2 prequels are all about driving style. Okay, so you can complete a race with your car looking as though it’s just been pulled out of the scrap yard, after you’ve hit every guard rail, but it won’t help your kudos rating, and it certainly won’t make things easy driving like a madman. On the other hand, driving like an old Sunday driver grandma isn’t the best approach either. You need to push your car to the edge, and find the right balance, keeping to that strict “etiquette” that ensures you finish 1st with no missing paint or number plates.
When you start out driving in the
races which earn you kudos, you can choose from 5 different levels of difficulty, which are rated by the type of metals you receive if you crack it off. The 1st, and easiest level is steel, followed by bronze, silver, gold and finally platinum — the hardest to get. Completing the whole Kudos series thing with at least one type of medal rating gets you a new car. Finishing it with steel gets you the Ferrari 250 GTO, I think. With a minimum of all bronze, the Delfino Feroce, minimum of silver, the Porsche 911 GT1, gold, the something I haven’t got, and platinum, some other car I don’t have yet! (The Mercedes Benz CLK-GTR, and Tuscan dealie I fink.)
Some of the platinum races are super hard core, especially one of the cone challenges that requires you to get 19 000 kudos points in 2 laps! This particular one, that was in the Ultimate series, was the final bronze medal I had, and just to get silver requires you to get 4550 kudos, which pretty much means linking nearly every cone up, and adding in some extra power sliding action.
As you accumulate kudos, you increase in rank, and each time you do so, you gain tokens which you can exchange for new cars.
My Fave Cars In The Game:
Ultimate:
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• Pagani Zonda — It was said that this car was inspired by the voluptious body of Horacio Pagani’s missus, Cristina. It certainly moves quick, and has that unmistakable look about it, that make it instantly recognisable.
• Enzo Ferrari
• Porsche 911 GT1 — This car is insanely fast, and is what you get for completing all silver medals in the Kudos World Series mode. |
Extreme:
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• Ferrari F50 — one of my fave cars in other games too.
• Ferrari F40 |
Track Specials:
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• Ferrari Challenge Stradale, Porsche 911 GT3 (996) |
Grand Touring:
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• Ferrari 575 Maranello |
Super Cars:
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• Delfino Feroce, Dodge Viper GTS, Ferrari 355 F1 |
American Muscle:
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• Corvette Sting Ray |
Sports Coupe:
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• Morgan Aero 8 |
Classics:
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• Ferrari 250 GTO, Porsche 911 RS 2.7 |
Roadster:
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• AC 427 Mark III — The acceleration on this one is fantastic, and on windy tracks, it’s more than a match for cars in some of the next classes up. |
Pacific Muscle:
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• Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) Nür |
Sport Utility:
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• Porsche Cayenne Turbo — This is what I reckon is the ultimate in it’s category. It’s fast, has plenty of room and drives sensationally also. |
Coupe:
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• Audi TT 3.2 Quattro |
Sports Convertible:
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• Porsche Boxster S |
Compact Sports:
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• Ford Focus RS |
You can also go for best times in the Time Attack mode, and with Circuit Challenge, use any car you have, to set a record for that track. With Car Challenge, you go about setting a best time for the particular car that you chose.
There’s also the “Arcade” mode, even though it’s not actually an arcade game, with street racing against other cars, a timed run where you must complete the listed amount of laps in the given time, and the good old cone challenge, where you need to get the right amount of kudos. These modes also have medal ratings which add to your total, so it’s worth getting into these as well as the main Kudos World Series.
One of the other good points, is that if you find something a bit tricky initially, you can go and do another event first, and then come back to the harder one later, so you’ve always got something to do, and aren’t locked out of everything because of one race.
In terms of tracks, you’re certainly not let down by a limited choice. There are 11 different cities from various countries, with multiple circuits in each. Edinburgh has 10, Moscow has 7, Barcelona has 6, Washington D.C. has 7, Chicago has 10, Florence has 11, Stockholm has 10, Hong Kong has 8, Yokohama has 10, Sydney has 12 and the Nürburgring course in Germany has just the 1. So, a total of 92 circuits, not including the test track. I’m not sure where they pulled the 100 + tracks from on the box though.
Graphics: All in all it is one stunning looking game. The cars are all amazingly realistic, as are the tracks. The special effects are awesome also — The cars all reflect the surrounding scenery, as do the roads when you’re driving in the rain, and the road also has a shine to it as the sun hits it. Very high quality texturing that you expect to see on the XBOX and some cool out of focus effects in replays. Basically, this is top of the line, and (at the time I first reviewed it) you probably won’t find a better looking racing game even on PC. Seriously jaw dropping. 98%
Animation: The whole game plays exceptionally smooth, and you’ll also notice various things happening in the backgrounds too here and there, such as the lights on the ferris wheel in Yokohama, the fountain in Washington and even the great looking bits of garbage that flicks up off the road in Edinburgh. The rain also looks cool with nice little splashy bits where it hits the ground. The game supports the 60 Hz PAL mode also, which you will no doubt want to use most of the time. 95%
Sound: There’s an awesome amount of songs to choose from, and you can set up your own play-list from them too, or use your own from CDs that you’ve copied to your XBOX’s hard drive. Great engine noises that reflect the real car’s sounds, plus cool screeches, thumps and tyre skidding noises also. 95%
Playability: A little tricky to get into at first, but once you get the hang of it, it really is fantastic. Having played both MSR and PGR 1, I feel that this is the best of the 3. Each car handles differently too, and the test track is a great place to go and find out how. The physics seems serious, but with a touch of fun in there also. 92%
Lastability: There’s so many different events to enter into that you’ll be playing for donkey’s malonkeys. Plus getting those tricky platinum medals really requires some skill and determination. Plus with XBOX Live, you can take on people from round the world as well as comparing yourself to top players’ times. Plus even if you have completed everything, you can still go back and try for more kudos by doing better driving and throwing in some nifty slides, 360° spins and so forth here and there. 97%
Overall: I reckon this is kind of like the connoisseur’s choice for racing games — it’s certainly all about style, and it’s presentation reflects that also. Some of the menus are a bit iffy to find your way through, but other than that, it’s nothing short of spectacular. If you haven’t done so already, hunt down a copy. Even now in 2017 this still puts up a good challenge for one of the best racing games you can get. 93%
