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More PGR4 impressions

It's funny. Now that the end of the year is coming, game companies are releasing their biggest titles. I've been calling up the distributors for review copies, and those are pouring in, with many brilliant games waiting for me to unwrap and start playing them. I don't see this happen any time soon, however. The problem is easy to summarize: Project Gotham Racing 4. I've had this game for a few weeks now, and even though I have been playing it practically every day now, I'm still as excited about it as when I first fired it up. It's almost like the damn thing is glued inside my Xbox 360, refusing to budge for any other game, laughing in the face of other racing games coming out and quietly waiting as I do my best to get all 50 achievements. If this game was a drug, I would have been put in an anti-drug clinic already days ago, to follow their strictest possible program.

Continue reading "More PGR4 impressions" »

It's funny. Now that the end of the year is coming, game companies are releasing their biggest titles. I've been calling up the distributors for review copies, and those are pouring in, with many brilliant games waiting for me to unwrap and start playing them. I don't see this happen any time soon, however. The problem is easy to summarize: Project Gotham Racing 4. I've had this game for a few weeks now, and even though I have been playing it practically every day now, I'm still as excited about it as when I first fired it up. It's almost like the damn thing is glued inside my Xbox 360, refusing to budge for any other game, laughing in the face of other racing games coming out and quietly waiting as I do my best to get all 50 achievements. If this game was a drug, I would have been put in an anti-drug clinic already days ago, to follow their strictest possible program.

New Forza Motorsport 2 track released tomorrow

If you are one of the many racefans who have played Forza Motorsport 2 to death, then you will be excited to know that there is a new trackk for the game, to be released on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow. The track is called Twin Ring Motegi, a track that will no doubt ring a bell to anybody who has played a few more racing games here and there, and it will cost you 600 Microsoft Points. That's a bit steep for just one new track (and many fans have complained that they are being ripped off), but it does come in four variations, with three of these being road tracks and one being an oval. I'm sure plenty of gamers out there will be grabbing it tomorrow. I won't be one of them (yet), since I'm still up to my ears in PGR 4, but when my excitement for that game has waned (probably around the time PGR 5 comes out), I might download the track anyway.

Gamespot asked Forza 2's lead designer Dan Greenawalt about the track, and he had this to say on why they chose Motegi. Greenawalt: "Motegi was already on a short list of tracks with international name recognition and cool gameplay moments that we started researching immediately after finishing FM2. However, knowing how long it took to create each environment, Motegi moved to the top of the pile because of how many ribbons that we could give players with this one environment. Basically, we knew that Motegi would give players the most gameplay bang!"

To read more from Greenawalt, click the link!

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Special Kart Rider Halloween tracks for download

You know, I didn't really know anything about Kart Rider until a few days ago. I'm not really a PC gamer, but the concept of the game is pretty cool. It's a free online game, where you race people from all over the world (apparently, millions of people) over colourful tracks in the Mario Kart style we have seen copied dozens and dozens of times (and probably a few dozen more even). The designers of the game add new tracks and karts to the downloadable content every now and then, and to coincide with Halloween, here are two new Halloween tracks, along with a new Pumpkin Racer E2 kart.

The two tracks are called Fright Fight and Hidden Monastery, and will be based in a new area of the game called Creepy Hollow. According to the press release, "Creepy Hollow’s new courses feature winding trails through eerie forests, twisting cliff roads, long dark corridors, and even a ghostly cemetery." Sounds like good fun.

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Race the Top Gear track in Gran Turismo 5

The BBC and Sony have signed a contract, which makes it possible for fans of Top Gear to race the exclusive Top Gear Test track in GT5. Besides that, gamers will be able to download 40 episodes of the Top Gear television series through GT TV, "a dedicated online channel packed with the latest news and content from the motoring world, [which] will launch worldwide on PLAYSTATION®Network in 2008."

Which is all pretty cool indeed. Says Polyphony Digital president Kazunori Yamauchi: "“We at Polyphony are great fans of the world’s best motoring programme, Top Gear, so we’re delighted to be collaborating with BBC Worldwide to deliver Top Gear content via Gran Turismo. We’re sure that players will be as thrilled as we are when they get the chance to put their own driving skills to the test on the Top Gear Test Track in GT5, as well as enjoying classic episodes of Top Gear via GT TV.”

Need for Speed: Pro Street demo available on Xbox Live

All you Xbox 360 owning Need for Speed fans better get online, because the demo for the new Need for Speed is available now. I cannot really tell you a whole lot about it, since my recent move to a new house is giving me some Xbox Live related issues, but I'm pretty sure it's worth your time to pluck those 654 MB's off the web.

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Polyphony discussing Gran Turismo on PSP

If you are one of the people still hopeful that one day we will see Gran Turismo on the PSP, then here is some more hope for you. Joystiq had an interview with Polyphony Digital's president Kazunori Yamauchi, in which he discussed his plans for GT Mobile, if it will ever come. One of these plans is to make it possible for PSP gamers to take on their PS3 friends in online races. "We're just talking ideals here – but it would be nice if we were able to allow people to compete whether they're on the road or in their living room on the PS3, compete in the same race. Even though the visual qualities will be different depending on which hardware they're on it would be nice if we could allow for that. Technically, we think we should be able to."
Which would be a pretty funky idea, if it ever comes to fruition. For more on Polyphony's plans with Gran Turismo, click here for the full interview.

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First impressions: Project Gotham Racing 4

Most of the times when a new game in a long series of games is released, I shrug my shoulders and wonder what all the fuss is all about. The thing is that these new parts in series that were started by a brilliant original mostly don't add anything new. Or at least, they don't add anything new that makes you relive the wonder and excitement that the original game brought you. The Project Gotham Series is different. When the latest installment dropped on my desk, I had to resist an urge to rip a few weeks worth of appointments out of my agenda, just so I could make sure that all the time I had free would be spent with the new racing game from Bizarre Creations. Sure, I hadn't been that excited about Project Gotham Racing 3, which was competent but missed that certain something that MSR and PGR 2 had, but I was certain that this time, with a less tight deadline, Bizarre would have been able to come up with something that would eat away my time without remorse. And boy, was I right!

Actually, the title of this article is not really correct. I'm planning to write first impressions of racing games when I have played about a game for a couple of hours, so that they really are my first impressions and not impressions that have already been shaped by numerous nights of playing. The thing is, though, that even though I have already played the game for about 30 hours, it still feels like I have only scraped the tip off of the iceberg. This game is so immensely huge, that even without playing the game online, you can literally spend weeks and weeks (maybe even months) discovering all the circuits and cars, and really getting to grips with all the different gamemodes. And since this game is so amazingly well made, and just so much fun to play, and the urge to do well is so high, I find myself restarting races over and over again, just to make sure I get as high a score as possible.

First impression: Juiced Hot Import Nights (Xbox 360 and PSP)

It's not fair really. If Juiced 2 had come out at a different time than now, I would probably already have clocked up quite a few hours in this game. Because even though it is completely derivative of most other games in the street racing genre, the circuits are quite well laid out and the driving engine is easy enough to enjoy cruising through a few levels here and there. They have even implemented an original system of progressing through the levels, not by winning competitions, but by unlocking a set of challenges for every new level you achieve.

But compared to the majestic Project Gotham Racing 4, Juiced Hot Import Nights is nothing more than wasting time until I can start clocking up more kudos in PGR 4. What doesn't help matters is the supreme ugliness of the menus in this game. Even though street racing games revel in using as much neon colors as possible, I don't think I have ever seen menu screens this awful. They look like the designer only had his eyes on the scantily clad women gracing these screens, and couldn't concentrate well enough on actually constructing the rest of the screens in a manner that wouldn't make gamers eyeballs scream in anxiety.

Metropolis Street Racer: To play or not to play?

The past few days I've been more or less unable to let go of the new Project Gotham Racing. While I'm nowhere near ready to review it yet, I'm already quite sure this will be my game of the year. Bizarre Creations has more or less perfected the Project Gotham formula for this one, with some of the best circuits seen in any of the PGR's and a perfected game engine that makes it seemingly impossible for this game to ever be bested (that is, until the next one comes out, of course). Playing this fourth game, though, brought back some memories of my first experience with the Project Gotham franchise, back when it was still called Metropolis Street Racer and was still playing on Sega's Dreamcast.

The 10 Best Kart Racing games ever

Kart Racing games. Everybody has played them, and everybody has probably cursed them. It's a genre of racing where innovation is not an issue (just stick a bunch of funny characters into those karts, preferably licensed characters, and watch them (and your sales figures) go!) and that seems to have been milked so utterly that even the mention of new kart racing games is enough to make people want to throw their consoles out of the window. Still, when you sit back and look at it, it's also one of the most fun genres to play with friends, as these games are easy to pick up and enjoy, making them perfect for any multi player evening. Yes, a lot of crap has been released in this genre, but also these ten gems.