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Project Gotham Racing is familiar ground to those of you who played Metropolitan Street Racer on the Dreamcast. You progress through the game, not by just finishing in first place, but by earning Kudos. Kudos are given based on how well (or cool) you race. Project Gotham Racing still has more to offer than MSR, so don’t overlook it if you didn’t like that title. Race over 200 tracks, in almost 30 cars. Perform stylish, daring maneuvers and power slide your way into the next level of play. Gameplay:

The first thing you need to do is create a driver. Choose your helmet, license plate and a few other minor options. Then name yourself and you're off. There are 5 race types to choose from. The more tracks and cars you've unlocked with your driver (through earning Kudos), the more tracks and cars you will have access to in the different modes. You can play Gotham Racing in Quick Race mode, Arcade Race, Time Attack, Kudos Challenge, and Multiplayer modes. Quick Race pits you against five other cars for a specific number of laps. Arcade Race is a solo race where you simply earn Kudos while trying to navigate through course cones. Time Attack is a "beat your personal best" type of race, complete with ghost cars from your previous runs. Multiplayer mode - of course you know what this one is. Last but most definitely not least is Kudos Challenge mode. This is Gotham Racings form of "campaign mode". In Kudos Challenge, you try to work your way through all the tracks and cars (hopefully), by completing level goals known as Challenge Events. Challenge events can range from a raw street race, to seeing how many laps you can complete on a track in a given amount of time. Challenge events are configurable in order to let you increase the default amount of bonus Kudos points you can earn at the end of the race. Depending on the type of challenge (9 total), you can set your top speed to beat, starting position, single fastest lap, or total track time. The Challenge Event I like best is the Style Challenge. Whoever shows off the best, wins! You have to earn at lease a Bronze Medal in each Challenge Event for that specific level to advance.

Let's talk a bit more about these "Kudos". If you've played Metropolitan Street Racer for the Dreamcast, you'll get the BASIC idea of Project Gotham Racing. The focus of the game is to score Kudos and unlock new tracks to progress through the game. You earn Kudos a number of ways. You can do this by doing power slides, catching air, pulling a James Bond (put your car up on 2 wheels), navigating through street cones, doing a full 360, passing other racers, and for just finishing a race unscathed. Those types of Kudos are known as "Performance" Kudos. There are other types of Kudos you can earn, like bonus Kudos for finishing a race based upon your set difficulty rating. Performance Kudos are your bread and butter though. You can also do combo's of tricks to earn even more Kudos during a race. You have to successfully complete a trick to earn the Kudos. As you are performing a trick (such as a power slide), you're Kudos counter will start counting. You will not be rewarded the Kudos until you have fully completed the trick and get back on course. Even the slightest little error can trash every point you just earned on that, AHEM, near impossible 360 power slide, two wheel, big air, overtake trick through the course cones that you just pulled off. This can get rather frustrating, but adds much more challenge to the game.

Longevity:

Project Gotham Racing is filled with over 200 tracks! Yes, you read that correctly: 200+ tracks! Your races will take you through four cities: San Francisco, New York, Tokyo and London. Each city has 3 distinct “districts”. Each district has 17 tracks – I’ll let you total that up. There are well over two-dozen cars to unlock (29 I think it was). You will unlock tracks much more often, obviously. Unlocking a new car is more of a milestone, since you will not get new cars nearly as often as you will unlock new tracks. Each car will usually perform and handle better than the previous. When you get down to the last few cars, picking your car will be a choice of personal preference. Project Gotham Racing also got a couple automobile licenses that racing games in the past, have had trouble getting; namely the badass Ferrari’s! The only thing that may wear you down is the level of frustration generated by some of the challenge events. Some of them are downright impossible.

Controls:

The controls are set up nicely. Right trigger for accelerate, left trigger for break. Cycle views with the standard black and white buttons. Power slide with the easily accessible A button. X and B shift (if you choose Manual transmissions) and Y looks behind you. You can of course, use either the thumb-pad or analog stick to steer.

Graphics:

Stunning, photo realistic, gorgeous, ! If you haven’t played many Xbox titles yet, you probably will be blown away by the graphics in Gotham Racing. Everything from the city streets, to the details of the cars emblems is fantastic. The graphics play smooth and fluid. They never skip a beat. The graphic detail levels in Project Gotham Racing are some of the best on the Xbox to date.

Sound:

We are treated with realistic sounding engines and tire squeals, not just rice boy ‘bwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” engines that sound like a 250cc dirt bike either. You have the option of listening to pre-set radio stations (different for each city), or you can play a virtual CD. You can create a virtual CD from rip’s you’ve created on to your Xbox. Import your tracks into Gotham Racing’s Virtual Car CD Player.

Overall:

This is a damn sweet game - especially if you are into racing games. I am not a racing nut, but I thought it was one of the best racing titles I’ve ever played. The diversity and sheer vastness of track selection, combined with spectacular graphics and the unique style of play makes Project Gotham Racing a roaring success. Devoted racing fans will definitely want to give it a rent, at the bare minimum. Casual gamers with a knack for racing games may also want to check it out.