A rising tide lifts all boats. Even at the height of street racing game mania, when Need for Speed, Burnout, Midnight Club and Juiced games all topped the chart, Microsoft exclusive Project Gotham Racing titles didn’t join them. But with the Xbox 360’s success by 2007, Project Gotham Racing 4 was in pole position to be the most popular thing out for a week, if not to secure a future for the series. And while its innovations had largely been picked up by others, it was still a taste of what other players had been missing out on.
The series actually started on a different less popular console, as Dreamcast title Metropolis Street Racer. Developers Bizarre Creations were responsible for 1996’s PS1 Formula 1 and its sequel, gifted with the exceptional Murray Walker but otherwise struggling to square personality with simulation. In Metropolis Street Racer they went a less real route, designing street races with ‘Kudos’ points awarded for stylish driving, in the manner that Need for Speed: Underground would pick up and run with.
The same building blocks are still present for Project Gotham Racing 4. In its career mode you climb the ranks through a series of short championships where you compete with other drivers around tight city centre tracks, from Macau to St. Petersburg to Quebec. Each city has a range of different routes rather than just a single circuit. Those kudos points come from burnouts, powerslides and drafting behind other cars, but it also gives you them for pulling off a corner with particularly fine positioning, or just making it through a section of track without hitting the walls.
There is no ludicrously overpowered nitro, neon direction arrows, or dodging oncoming traffic involved; for most of its races Project Gotham Racing 4 is first and foremost a racing simulator where the most unrealistic thing is being able to shut down so many streets. Nonetheless, the kudos system takes a weighty place in that. Your rewards for finishing first, second or third are given in large numbers of kudos points and the championships decided by their totals, meaning those achieved through other means act as a tiebreaker. My first two championships saw me match the race results of another driver but lose out through not having sufficient style. On progressing further, there are events where it takes an even more central role, like the time trials where earning kudos stops the clock.
The points also tie into the ability to unlock further tracks and cars, though there is no tuning up your cars aside from some nice paint jobs. The whole system gives you something extra to think about apart from driving, and more of a reason to venture into using motorbikes, which are a pain to ride but let you pull wheelies down every straight for easy points. None of it is handled terribly, but it is the kind of thing that gives the publishers a unique point to stick on the box, but doesn’t feel particularly vital in practice, like the way that Project Gotham Racing 4 connects to the internet to bring you the real live weather from wherever you are racing.
The fact that such trappings feel excessive is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the racing. The cars don’t have the finely detailed fidelity of a Forza Motorsport 2, but the close, twisty street racing has plenty of excitement and a good sense of weight and challenge. The use of real places is a great way of adding identity and interest even before getting to the inevitable highlight of the London rounds and racing around bits of Westminster I’ve walked through many times. Blasting up and down Whitehall in a McLaren F1, its cacophony drowning out Mozart, drafting other cars and swerving round statues, is a ridiculous thrill that doesn’t need any extras.
Top of the charts for week ending 13 October 2007:
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