Online Gaming - Project Gotham Racing 3

Project Gotham Racing 3

Project Gotham Racing 3 was first released as a launch game for the Xbox 360 on 22nd November 2005 in the US and then later released on 2nd December 2005 for Europe.  This particular game is the third in the extremely popular series for the Xbox with plans already in place for fourth game to be designed.  The game is ultimately a racing game with an arcade style that allows multiplayer offline play.  This is available by two players playing on one Xbox 360 console or more through a system link.

The PGR3 game allows players to participate in races using chosen cars.  When racing, the player doesn’t have to win the set race to go through to the next round, it can depend on other factors such as speed, completing the set challenge and earning Kudos points.  These Kudos points are awarded through acknowledging the players driving ability and skill.  The skills awarded with points can range from the way corners are taken whilst driving, power sliding, overtaking or taking all 4 wheels of the car off the ground.  Combinations also feature which allows players to attain points before the completed Kudos points are banked.  These are usually the more stylish moves in play and if the moves are linked together, bonus points are awarded; however they are deducted if the player crashes or collides with guard rails.

There are 80 licensed cars that feature in PGR3 and these cars are selected from over 30 manufacturers.  Out of the 80 cars available, 71 of them are unlocked which allows players to use them to play at the start of each new game.  The remaining 9 cars are left out and are only available for selection once enough Kudos points have been earned.  When the points have been attained, the player is able to unlock one of the 9 cars which are one-offs, prototypes and concept cars.  Each car is allocated a class ranging from A to E, with the best performing car being Class A and the worst performing car being Class E.  New cars can be purchased using virtual cash or credits and these credits can be earned by winning online races.  These credits are transferred to Kudos and can be cashed in to purchase new cars which retail for virtually the same as the real world prices.

There have been expansions to the pre existing list of available cars on PGR3 which was released on 14th April 2006 and is entitled: PGR3 Speed Pack.  This allowed players to download 12 new cars and soon after Cadillac authorised 4 of its cars to be featured in the game allowing players to download them for free.  July 2006 also saw another download: Style Pack, allowing players to use 12 cars which are available for a certain number of attained points.

The game gives the option of 5 cities to play through: Tokyo, Las Vegas, New York, Nurburgring and London.  There are also various race options, for example, players can create race matches allow players to choose from 3 race modes: street race, eliminator and capture the track. 

With the PGR3, a new addition has been made from the first two PGR games.  This is the Gotham TV function, using this allows players to view certain online career races.  Up to 30,000 Xbox live viewers can watch a selected race.  There are six different channels to choose from on Gotham TV: friends’ channel, Gotham heroes, today’s highlights, Gotham heroes archive, view replays as well as being able to view a ticker screen which will provide players with news and scores.