Project Gotham Racing 4 - Xbox 360

[Yoshimax]

Macau and Quebec (especially) are what it's all about eh ! I hope they bring back Edinburgh as DLC (looks like there's room for another 2 cities on the select screen )

[John Beaulieu]

Macau is bloody hard imo - the tracks are narrow as hell, with lots of jumps leading up to corners.

Saying that - I loves it

[Yoshimax]

How much Kudos did you bag for that 720 pirouette last night ?

[John Beaulieu]

not quite sure but I had 1900 kudos after one lap

just couldn't handle that car in the wet - was slippier than <edited out cos I don't want to give myself an infraction for inappropriate language>...

[Yoshimax]

I know what you mean - one of them things tourette boy Roddy kept shouting about every other corner last night

[Wools]

I played the demo last night.

I can see this returning the series to it's highpoint, Project Gotham Racing 2.

It looks beautiful, cars have far more depth to them, and the single player side looks more rounded and progressive. I'm going to be dedicating a lot of time this weekend to this.

[englishbob]

Had a scoot and IMO they have ****ed this up.

Yet again, I am presented with a game that fails on its first 2 minutes, the front-end. Before I am blinded with the amazing graphics, weather, new cars and courses, I find a retarded front-end system that does 2 MAJOR things wrong...

Firstly, controller configs. Yes, they are utter ****. Every single other PGR game has let you configure your controls how you want them. So PGR4 goes one step forward, by fixing everything for you. Here are your options...

Analog Classic - gears on X / B buttons. Arse.
D-pad Default - D-pad steering only, no L stick control.
Analog Default - gears on the Y / X buttons. Not as bad as X/B, but still arse.
D pad style - no L analog steering again.
Analog Style - gears are LB-gear up and RB-gear down. Think about that for a second. Totally arse-about-face, gear down above accel and gear up above brake. Riiighhhtt.
Button Default - accel / brake on the face buttons. Say no more.
Trigger Button - Accel on RT, brake on B button. No comment
Wheel Default - Just about the only salvageable config, Accel / brake on the triggers and gear up is RB and gear down is LB. Just.
Button / Trigger - Gear up/down on face buttons, accel is A and brake is LT. WTF!

Why oh why can't I define what I want. I would like to use the right stick please. Like all the other PGR games. FFS!

Secondly, they have totally balls'd up the in-car cockpit view as well by doing away with the Tachometer AND Gear display. With the exception of the Ferrari, its bloody impossible to know (a) how fast you are going, (b) how close to the redline you are and (c) know what gear you are in.

Ok, so (a) and (b) can be argued around, but (c) with no gear display means that you have to remember what gear you might be in when approaching a bend.

So so disappointed in this. If I go to the pub on Friday lunchtime and have a few beers, I may pick it up on the way back to work. However sober, I am seriously going to have to think long and hard about this one. Can I possibly live with the fact that for some unexplainable reason, yet again a racing game fall so short on something so simple as defining my controller and seeing how fast I am going and what gear I am in?

Am I just asking too much????.......

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/forum/view...hp?f=30&t=15320

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/forum/view...hp?f=30&t=15373

...I don't think so

[Yoshimax]

X down, B up and A handbrake is pretty much conventional these days and works nicely for me with the only niggle RB being the trick button on the bike.

When you're driving to work or back do you have a big number on your dash/windscreen saying what gear you are in ? Do you look at your speedo/tachometer to judge when to change gear ? me neither I just know when to change and same goes for this game.

As for the LB and RB buttons being on the "wrong" sides - As I mentioned above the RB is a nightmare for tricks on the bike because 9 times out of 10 you're accelerating (on right analogue stick) when you need to use it and if you try you'll find it's way easier to press LB whilst holding RT and RB whilst holding LT - I guess that's why they've done that rather than to appear retarded

[Rossco]

Yeah as Yoshi says, the gears on the opposite bumper buttons makes sense really but may be a little off at first, I would prefer gears on A/B and handbrake as X to be honest but is irrelevant when using the wheel anyway.

And also kinda agree with Yoshi on the tachometer etc, in other racing games I rarely rely on the screen to tell me how fast I'm going or what gear I'm in especially, you just know! Although sometimes the speed is important to know for certain corners when you know you can take them flat out at 80mph for example so not being able to easily see your speed is a bit **** I guess.


But I havent even played the game yet so cant really comment!

[Mardigan8]

Does this mean it has done away with the view where the speedometers are at the bottom of the screen and you are right at the front of the car?

[Charlie]

My NTSC-J copy turned up this morning which really surprised me considering I only ordered it last Friday from a Hong Kong based eBay seller, and for a paltry &#163;12 + &#163;10 postage too . Had a bit of a scare when my 360 initially repeatedly failed to recognise the disc which then got me thinking I'd been sent a non-region-free version, but eventually got it working after giving the disc a quick wipe.

And so far I'm really enjoying it, it's much better than the demo which left me with somewhat mixed feelings and it definately seems to hark back to PGR2, what with the choice of slower cars and emphasis on kudos, which should please a lot of fans. Cars seem notably more twitchy than those in PGR3 and quite oversteery when powering out of bends. Not overly keen on the presentation side of things which I feel was geared towards our American cousins, not that it matters much when the game's a good'un. Special mention must go to the achievements which are excellent, really creative and, most importantly, a lot of fun trying to get. Oh, and Geometry Wars Waves is ace, and an extremely addictive and clever take on an already classic game.

[Yoshimax]

Does this mean it has done away with the view where the speedometers are at the bottom of the screen and you are right at the front of the car?

Nope it's still there man - He's talking about the one where you can see all the cockpit in front of you !

[englishbob]

X down, B up and A handbrake is pretty much conventional these days and works nicely for me with the only niggle RB being the trick button on the bike.

When you're driving to work or back do you have a big number on your dash/windscreen saying what gear you are in ? Do you look at your speedo/tachometer to judge when to change gear ? me neither I just know when to change and same goes for this game.

As for the LB and RB buttons being on the "wrong" sides - As I mentioned above the RB is a nightmare for tricks on the bike because 9 times out of 10 you're accelerating (on right analogue stick) when you need to use it and if you try you'll find it's way easier to press LB whilst holding RT and RB whilst holding LT - I guess that's why they've done that rather than to appear retarded

I am glad that the forced conventions of the controls are working out for you, I really do, but they don't do it for me, sorry. You should be allowed to define your controls how you want them. End of.

Sega Rally has also been guilty this month, offering nothing more than 2 preset controller setups, this simply isn't good enough. When playing a game like Gran Turismo on the PS2 hardware, the only way to gain any kind of edge was to have the accel/brake on the right stick, because it was the only method on the pad that had some kind of analogue reach. So why can't you now use it in the PGR series? Only Bizzare knows, and they have screwed up IMO.

True enough comment about real driving and "knowing and feeling" where the car is on the redline and gears, but it doesn't translate to games 100&#37;. Here is the deal...because there is no gear / tacjometer on display in the cockpit view, you are driving, in the snow, on Nurmberg Half F1 circuit in reverse, you get to the first bend in about 3/4th gear, you change down a gear to take the first bend, slip, panic, and beach the car. Now your at zero revs and speed, you need to start again. You can't remember what gear you are in. You frantically change down. Start to accelerate, suddenly you are in reverese! Race lost, game over. Not very good is it, all for the sake of a gear / tachometer display that was in the last game!

[Roddie]

Hang on, you're wanting to use an analogue stick on the 360 pad for the accelerator?

[Charlie]

You should be allowed to define your controls how you want them. End of.

Can't really argue with that. I'm fortunate in that I get on fine with PGR4's default controller settings, but it, and indeed every other game, should allow the user to map the controls to their liking.