On Drafting Soccer Moms (AKA Project Gotham Racing 2 Review) - Page 3

The sound is damned fine. Some of the cars still sound like sewing machines, but for the most part cars sound rather convincing. I rarely get to play with the sound up with an 8-month-old in the house, but when I do, the big American iron does sound ballsy, and the redheads usually sing well to boot. There's little more I like hearing than the turbo whine of the Porsche GT1 rocketing around the 'Ring at around 220 MPH. Not only does the game sport a stunning variety of sings and actual radio stations from the locales in the game, but you can (of course) make up your own track list and listen to that.

Oh the Live integration. They did this one right, folks. Before you ever even enter a multiplayer game over Live you'll have experienced more entirely sexy Live integration than you could dream of. Go on, hop in to the main single player component the Kudos World Series. Starting with the compact car class, you'll participate in a number of events within succeeding classes, unlocking more events and car classes as you go, earning kudos and unlocking cars to boot. Before you enter an event you will see a small scoreboard on the right of your screen the shows the top 7 or so (I forget) scores for that event from everyone in the world who has Xbox Live. You can elect to see the top 10 and what cars they used, then scroll through them and see more. Should you desire, you can download the ghost of anyone in the top 10 to see precisely how they approached the event. This is astounding and an ideal use for a service like Xbox Live. Unlike almost every other game in existence that has a single place to access all of the Xbox Live features like friends lists and options, an Xbox Live menu is usually available at the touch of a button from just about everywhere you'll find yourself in the game. There are a whole class of separate events that occur monthly that test your ability to drive a particular vehicle on a particular track so you can test your driving style against everyone else on a level playing field.

Of course the multiplayer overly Xbox Live is well done, of course it is. I have zero complaints, no left out features. Search out games, enter the lobby, wait until the current race is done then join the race and go. Hosts have control over every option in the game, from weather to time of day and car restrictions. You can restrict by class or even down to a particular type. Probably the most fun games are the ones where everyone agrees on a certain level of performance rather than a class... so, you are allowed to choose any car with a performance level of 12 (meaning that the segments of "top speed" and "acceleration" can add up to no more than 12 for your car) which creates some good variability in an otherwise staid restriction environment. Restricting by class works, but there is generally a vehicle that eclipses the rest in the class (e.g. the Porsche Cayenne in the SUV class) so doing a "gentlemen's restriction" by performance usually works better and creates closer races. Also nice is the fact that you can unlock additional cars in the game without ever having to bother with the single player game if you don't desire... kudos earned online are tallied with a separate "Xbox Live Kudos Rank" which earns you additional kudos tokens. Note that it's farther between kudos ranks for the Xbox Live ranks, so if unlocking cars is your goal, the best way is through the single player game.

Article Author: ColdForged

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