Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft
Released on: October 2, 2007
System: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Review based on: Retail Copy
Official Website
The Scoop: When making the fourth iteration of game without the pressures of a console launch date you come up with this.
Hitting Start...
- The promo video got me excited every time I saw it on GameTrailers.com and now I have seen it in high def and 5.1 surround and I've got the chills.
- The menus are different and that's cool, but over all the 'feel' of PGR is in full effect here.
- Bizarre has said a few times that they hope people spend a lot of time in the new Career Mode, so I start there and get to choose a beater to race with.
- I don't win my first race, or even my second, but I mop them up in the third and start to get my racing thumbs back into shape. The first tracks look fantastic, they really do.
- After a few series of races I get my first invitational event but I don't realize it's a bowling game where my car is the ball. I lose by one cone and discover that I can't replay the event because these invitationals are win or lose and then they are gone, until next season (when ever that is). I'm disappointed.
- Now I have to race this old race car (which has no grip on hot clean asphalt) on the Nurburgring! Sweet, lots of sliding Kudos! Oh wait, it's snowing and I have to finish in 9 minutes?
- I crash into the wall hard near the entrance to the F1 circuit and I restart the event when it takes me 20 seconds to get out of the snow covered grass. A little bit annoyed I decide to show the Green Hell who's boss. Eight minutes and forty seconds later I win the race and have sore thumbs, but I press on.
- Quebec is gorgeous and the tracks have elevation changes! I love that, I really do (sorry Forza, you failed here).
- St Petersburg in the rain is brutal.
- Why the hell is it raining all the time... oh wait, because it looks awesome and mixes up thing really well in the races, that's why. It's gratuitous, but it's awesome.
- It's 1:30am...
"...and I've already racked up 435 gamerscore."
Am I impressed? Yes, I'm impressed that the fourth iteration of a game can be this fun and engaging so far. I have to admit that it's hard to see this as PGR4 and not PGR3.9 or PGR2 The Super Awesome Edition, especially after the first hour of the Career Mode started off kind of slow.
How come? It's a great game and I'm glad I bought it because it is a better version of its predecessor, much like Halo 3 is a better version Halo 2 (in many of the same ways, such as better graphics, better controls, more stuff sprinkled around all over the place.)
