On Drafting Soccer Moms (AKA Project Gotham Racing 2 Review)

Ours is—if anything—a litigious society. Witness the Haitians suing Rockstar over content in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and the lawsuits filed against Nintendo, Sony, id software, Atari, Jesus, and a small newt by families of victims of the Columbine massacre. I'm personally still looking for my strike-it-rich lawsuit, as I'd really like to get a new car and with the current state of torts I figure it's merely one well-placed grape away.

But all of these slavering reptilian stuffed suits are really missing out on what I think of as a clear and present danger today: Project Gotham Racing 2. Addictive as crack dipped in velvety dark chocolate, it also horrifyingly alters the minds of players. I now aim to acquire kudos in my aging 1998 Dodge Intrepid ES, AKA the Imperial Smoothie Cruiser. This is not a conscious thing, but I literally hear the kudos wrack up in my head. "Nice Line, +13 kudos" as I hit the apex of a turn on the on-ramp. "Nice Overtake, +25 kudos" as I blithely blow past a laboring Sonata. I find myself edging closer to cars, trying to hit that perfect drafting distance and calculating that distance based on speed, "fixing to hit 65, so I need to start lengthening that tail some," as the kudos tally increasingly. "Oh, 2X combo, another nice line!" Insidious. I have so far restrained myself from getting two-wheel, "cool air", nice slide, and 360 kudos. This, I'm sure we can all agree, is good. You may think I joke but I do not.

This should tell you how completely wonderful I think this game is. Those of you owning an Xbox and subscribing to Xbox Live that do not currently own this title are, frankly, blithering dolts. I say this because I care. You will not find a game out there today that has more to offer the Xbox Live gamer than PGR2.

What's possibly most alarming about the game is that I've found myself driving on previously unremarkable stretches of road and suddenly think "kriminy, this looks exactly like a scene from PGR2." Whether it's the lighting on the car in front of me as we negotiate a curve, or the glare of the sun off the roof of a car, or the shadow cast by an overpass, there are times when it's actually disturbing how close PGR2 comes to imitating reality with the graphics. They haven't overdone the reflections of the cars, for example. You've seen the mirror-like appearance of the cars in some recent games (e.g. NFS:U)—not so much resembling cars as they resemble miniature ice sculptures. Don't get me wrong, there are reflections. Stunning reflections of subtle beauty, but mildly subdued so as to provide more depth and realism to the depiction. It supports widescreen TVs. Enough said.

And the tracks. Look, forget everything else about the game, every other track that exists. It has the Nurburgring. Yeah, the whole sordid thing, all 20.8 kilometers of some of the twistiest, gnarliest German racing asphalt ever, lovingly recreated right down to the graffiti on the pavement. Sure it has other locales like Sydney, Washington, Chicago, Edinburgh, Moscow, and Florence, but until you've slung serious metal around the twisties at the 'Ring, you haven't lived. There's a couple of really good videos out there on the net of real drivers taking real cars around the entire ring, and damned if they didn't capture the feel of the 'Ring perfectly.

Article Author: ColdForged

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