Project Gotham Racing 2

[Shimmyhill]

Ive not seen that G-Funk so i guess its a option you can turn on or off.

Im loving the game, im up to American Muscle cars now (mainly cos i keep going online rather than playing the main game)

This and motogp1/2 are what online console games should be all about.

Would be good to play some fellow NTSC-UK peeps online, get bored of beating the French !! (i have started a server 3 times and twice its filled up with french people !!)

[g-funk]

Would be good to play some fellow NTSC-UK peeps online, get bored of beating the French !! (i have started a server 3 times and twice its filled up with french people !!)

Yeah, we should get an organized game sorted.

[tankplanker]

My copy turned up Saturday morning, but I had to wait until the kids went to bed before I got to have a go

Loved it straight from the off (I'm a big MSR/PGR1 fan), I'm up to the 4x4 mode at the moment (working straight thro' in medium mode, planning on going back and doing expert once I have "completed" the game).

I do not like the way that they segregated the different medals, meaning that you have to replay the level in order to get the higher medal, rather than letting you earn the higher medal if you met the relevant conditions. I guess this would not work with the races against other cars as you would have to have a single difficultly level - but I do not like the fact that for medium you only have to come 3rd against a relatevely poor AI where as with expert you must come first against pretty sharp AI - why didn't they jsut stick with 1st for all positions above medium and tweak the AI?

One thing I would have liked would be the ability to trade in your tokens for cars online tough, but other than that its **** hot.

You can do that, go to the garage option (hard to find, its poorly placed) and you can buy any car with the exception of the ones locked by conditions rather than tokens. Only downside is that you are using your precious tokens to unlock cars from future levels that you aren't currently playing so you lose the benefit of unlocking the best car for the level you are currently on, but it will be there waiting for you when you do get there.

Its also possible to test drive any of the token unlockable cars via this option as well - so I find it a bit of a mystry why you can't test drive a car from within the main game mode when you are chosing to unlock a car for a challenge. It is a real pain to naviagte back to the garage and test the car, mainly because the placement of the garage option is so well hidden - at least to me.

I really like the way that they have intergrated Live into the game, best use of it so far. All its really missing is a proper league/tourney structure ala XSN - imagne being able to have single model/class series initally balanced by your ability in the off line game, or with your friends. This seems like a missed oppertunity to me, esp. as they have the online leaderboards intergrated so well.

[g-funk]

really like the way that they have intergrated Live into the game, best use of it so far. All its really missing is a proper league/tourney structure ala XSN - imagne being able to have single model/class series initally balanced by your ability in the off line game, or with your friends. This seems like a missed oppertunity to me, esp. as they have the online leaderboards intergrated so well.

Totally agree, it needs some kind of purpose to the racing. Although its a great game I can see the online racing becoming boring fairly quickly. Even a small leaderboard within each room would have been a good option.

I don't like the scoreboard structure either, would have liked to see some stats based on a win/raced ratio. Seems the people at the top are just who has played the longest.

[Hodge]

No offense but the purpose to the racing is to win and challenge the best and does it brilliantly. Get to know a few people that are around the same skill as you and play fair and you can have some great games. XSN wouldn`t really work in a game like this as it`s only for one on one situations and that would be pretty boring for a game like this.

[jimtendo]

Anyone else getting sound skipping problems?

Kind of like a slight skip when the radio/ custom soundtrack is playing? (it can happen anytime/ randomly during the race)
or when you see the cutscene introducing you to the city/ track?
or when you win an event and let the 'victory' music go on a bit, you hear a skip.

It is not a constant effect (which would really do my head in), where it will skip then music is fine for about 5 seconds, then it skips again. It's more sporadic, and probably happens twice or so, maybe a few times more during the whole event (Intro/ race/ victory screens - kudos accumilation stats screen)

I've tried the CD/ DVD lens cleaner, which hasn't made much of a difference.

Similar problems are mentioned on this Bizarre Creations topic.

[Roost]

Yup had it on the pirate version i had and on the PAL version i'm using now, at first i thought it was maybe a groovy effect they'd put in if you go over a bump, like how the radio goes quiet if you go under a bridge. But it just seems to happen randomly.

[PeteJ]

I have noticed some skipping but thought it was my Xbox going wrong. Sometimes it doesn't recognise the disk when loading, which is annoying.

I'm enjoying PGR2, but it seems to be missing which I thought the previous two games had. It lacks character, leaving it feel a bit souless. I loved being able to 'bet' in MSR how well I'd do, even take risks with Wild Cards, now I'm just completing objectives as they come along. I dislike the structure also, the way the cars are presented and restricted in each chapter. I'd have liked to be able to go back to the start every so often and get the top medals with my new cars, rather than being restricted to 6 or so cars each chapter.

I do like the game though, some of the tracks are especially good which was always the biggest flaw of the series. Good stuff, but not as great as I was hoping.

[Roost]

The offline for me is just a pretty good game, very hard if you to unlock everything, but if you just want complete it on medium (silver) its all a bit easy.

Enjoyed the game offline it online really makes the game a hell of a lot better.

[baad bwoy]

I think this game is great, I never really enjoyed the first two in the series, that much but am really getting into this, I particularly like the use of rumble used to portray the differing road surfaces so accurately, this is the first game I have played where I have noticed this effect complimenting the action, the rumble usually feels just an annoyance but it has been really well worked in PGR2, I also like how differently the cars handle, and how fun and engrossing the play is, and the feeling of triumph in beating a computer oponent. I do dont feel this game is soulless as some people have written, I have found it to be exciting stimulating, probably the best driving game I have ever come across 8)

[tankplanker]

No offense but the purpose to the racing is to win and challenge the best and does it brilliantly. Get to know a few people that are around the same skill as you and play fair and you can have some great games. XSN wouldn`t really work in a game like this as it`s only for one on one situations and that would be pretty boring for a game like this.

I have to disagree with that, what about a full on league (which is possible with other XSN games like topspin I think) with your mates? Once a week race against the same group of guys, with the structure chosen in advance?

What about picking the best four from your league to challenge four from another league? Or two from four leagues?

It would give the online racing far more focus that it has now - at the moment its down to luck and persistance to play against somebody of your chosing - scheduling matches against people you don't know is just to hard (as it is for most live games).

I agree with most of PeteJ's comments except the restriction by group, unless the tweaked the difficulty of the lower classes when entering a car from a higher up group the expert medals would fall far to easy and if they did tweak the difficulty you could end up missing out on using the lower cars to the full - all the races would turn into Extreme car fests. This is what I hated about GT3 - not enough restricted races forcing you to learn the tracks rather than relying on brute force of a much more powerful car.

I've put 7h 15m in so far, 68 medals down (all silver), so 6 minutes a medal - so medium is far to easy.

Also I am having the skipping problem with some soundtracks that I ripped to my xbox.

[MikeF]

well I got this game on Saturday afternoon at 2pm. I wasn't even sure if I would like it or not as I hated the demo.

How wrong could I be I absolutely this game and have clocked up over 20 hours of play already.

[NeilMcRae]

Hmm, another qa issue for a Bizarre Creations game? Now where did I hear that before? MSR anyone ?

[jimtendo]

Hmm, another qa issue for a Bizarre Creations game? Now where did I hear that before? MSR anyone ?

Hehe... I can't remember the specifics, but it invloved something about the kudos system, and that in earlier versions of the game it was extremely easy to get loads of kudos.
I checked the wireplay forums religiously to find out where to buy the 'fixed' version. One poster mentioned that the 'fixed' versions were in boxes where the 'Dreamcast' lettering on the spine was embossed not printed in black. This turned out to be untrue.

I also remember 'Formula 1' on the PSone, had a few glitches. One which had a glitch (which only applied to full race setting) where you get to a certain point and refuel. After that, you had to come back every lap thereafter to refuel, because the fuel would run out every single lap.
Or something like that.

[dc-arena]

Amazing game online (once you have found people who play properlly*)

Shame the AI is so unbelivabley aggressive and cheating-skum in one player mode. Ruins it really as you are racing nicely (the whole point, to get Kudos), and they just spin you off the road or T-bone you constantly. Grr. Annoying.

Yeah you can notice its 30fps, but it is smooth, and its a million times better than the demo. Lack of lag is awesome too, with only a couple of instances in 3 weeks racing. Excellent.




*People who are just out there to spin you off the road, smash into you, and worse of all DONT know what braking is for.. Idiots. And then they laugh..