Anybody still playing Project Gotham series?

R

Roboturner913

14
United States
United States
PGR2 is one of my all-time favorite games regardless of genre. Just pulled out my OG Xbox for an hour or two tonight and man it's just as good as I remember. Had a lot of fun with PGR3 and 4 too, but that second one was something special. The first one was mind-numbingly difficult at times. I also still have a copy of Metropolis Street Racer that I could never bear to let go, but my Dreamcast is long, long gone.
 
This would've been an interesting series to bring back for the launch of the Series S/X, since Forza's a next year title & (iirc) the console is lacking 1st party exclusives to really garner interest.
 
I occasionally play both MSR & PGR1/2, I have a DC & OG Xbox plugged into a PC CRT ready to go.

All these games are special, I agree that the pinnacle is probably PGR2, it's so playable even now, always brings a smile to my face, (now adding it to my holiday playlist :) )
 
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I bought myself a used 360 along with pgr3.

Now im playing both pgr3 and pgr4. I love these games so much hence why I had to get a used 360 just to play them again.

Its a shame that I cant get the dlcs for them :(

End of life excuse is for MS not to pay for the licences anymore hence why the dlcs of pgr and forza got closed off. A shame I missed out on them.
 
Haven't played any of them for a while, but I still have the series, my favourite being PG4. It was my fervent hope that they would make PG3/4 backward compatible. I don't know why this series was discontinued.
 
zargdin
Haven't played any of them for a while, but I still have the series, my favourite being PG4. It was my fervent hope that they would make PG3/4 backward compatible. I don't know why this series was discontinued.
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Got killed off to make way for more forza. Bizzare creations getting bought by activision was an awful decision dont know why MS allowed it to happen.
 
SestoScudo
Got killed off to make way for more forza. Bizzare creations getting bought by activision was an awful decision dont know why MS allowed it to happen.
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Bizarre Creations staff now make Forza games*. After Activision closed it down, I hear some made their way to Playground Games. FH1 launched the following year.

* -- Assuming there are still some of them with PG today.
 
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SestoScudo
Horizon can never replace the PGR series
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I didn't say it did, but it kinda could if PG would put in more effort on the map design and circuits/courses upon it. PGR-like streets and courses would be a superb match for FH's more realistic-leaning handling. Extend that design sense into the countryside and it'd be tons better than the too-casual oversized wide open crap PG calls map design.

I guess that's just me, though.
 
I have an old Xbox 360 and PGR 4. I would play it if I had a controller.

I used to play it a lot back in 2014 - 2016 and there were a group of guys that would regularly play it. I wonder if they're still on... I miss that game.
 
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Wolfe
I didn't say it did, but it kinda could if PG would put in more effort on the map design and circuits/courses upon it. PGR-like streets and courses would be a superb match for FH's more realistic-leaning handling. Extend that design sense into the countryside and it'd be tons better than the too-casual oversized wide open crap PG calls map design.

I guess that's just me, though.
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I agree to be honest. I always thought pg can do pgr.
 
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MS saw the PGR series as a competitor for the fledgling Forza franchise, so it was bought and mothballed. Nevermind that the games were fun, it’s business.
 
PGR2 is special to me. I got a free Xbox original like maybe more than a decade ago. Came with a slew of free games in shopping bags.

PGR2 was one of them and it was the only game in that lot that left deep impression on me. I finished it.

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Not quite as rabid as this guy but who is?

Then I got an Xbox 360 and by this time PGR3/4 were cheap.

3 wasnt that great but 4 was a revelation... if a short one.

MS have some gold on their hands if they revived some of these old franchises.
 
Earning the Speed 12 signified you were elite and gave you a huge advantage online...and then MS released a participation trophy version because everyone else complained.
As an aside, the PGR2 online community was mostly serious hardcore racers who didn’t tolerate crashing or griefing. The monetary barriers to entry for Live play were still high in 2003 and there were very few casual people playing in the rooms.
 
I really enjoyed PGR 3 & 4. I never had an OG XB, so I played the first 2 games only a small amount, but I liked them to...I still remember the description of the F50 GT from PGR3 "unending acceleration".

I still find PGR 3 & 4 to have excellent sound quality even from the perspective of 2021, I'd say only Dirt Rally is comfortably better. More than that, they managed to make every car feel really special, especially how you could arrange your garages. Great track design too, not sure anybody has done urban circuits better really. And winter's morning at the Nurburgring? I mean, that was just awesome. I really miss the series and hope it returns one day.




The PGR series had a lot of really neat features, and most of them were implemented really well.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
I really enjoyed PGR 3 & 4. I never had an OG XB, so I played the first 2 games only a small amount, but I liked them to...I still remember the description of the F50 GT from PGR3 "unending acceleration".

I still find PGR 3 & 4 to have excellent sound quality even from the perspective of 2021, I'd say only Dirt Rally is comfortably better. More than that, they managed to make every car feel really special, especially how you could arrange your garages. Great track design too, not sure anybody has done urban circuits better really. And winter's morning at the Nurburgring? I mean, that was just awesome. I really miss the series and hope it returns one day.




The PGR series had a lot of really neat features, and most of them were implemented really well.
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That music in the PGR4 video got me excited to the point that I want to play it!!
 
If any racing game deserves a remaster it is PGR2, getting 232 platinum's is still one of my finest achievements in a racing game, the last few were brutal, particularly a cones challenge with a Ferrari, it took me months to get right... It is the game that got me into online racing, I also remember vividly taking an Audi estate to a cones challenge and setting a Number one score on the leaderboard :)

PGR3 was probably the most played title in the series for me, especially online the introduction of matchmaking worked pretty well, I used to love the one on one events close personal and super intense when you got an opponent of equal skill (I used to be fast back then). Gotham TV was a pretty ground breaking thing back then, with live races being streamed in game, the notification at the start of a race used to add a little something to the experience :embarrassed:

I was lucky enough to visit Bizarre Creations and try PGR4 before release after many years of involvement on the Bizarre forums, it was a really interesting trip, I remember a smashed up door from a lotus in the sound department for some reason, it had been used through out the series.

It was a sad times when the series and studio died, it brought something different that no other title has seemed able to replicate very well.
 
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@graveltrap wow some of those platinums were super hard. Well done mate.

I just wish that MS would put all of them on back compatibility. Just imagine that especially for the first two games, upscaled, better textures and all.
 
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graveltrap
My copy of PGR3 signed by the dev team :cool:

View attachment 1005505
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That's an amazing thing you have.

I have something similar, I've got my front covers and manuals of CMR 1-4 signed by Nicky Grist, sadly I never managed to get Colin's, I queued patiently at Castle Combe on one of their Rally Super Car days to ask him but with 3 people to go they whisked him away. Damn.
 
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I still have my xbox360 hooked up to play PGR4, it's so good. PGR2 is by far my favourite though, I got all platinums back in the day and unlocked the Speed 12, shame I have nothing to prove it :(

It is also a shame PGR2 has somewhat broken backwards compatibility on the Xbox360, I started playing it again a few years back and had to stop about a quarter way through because of a bug.
 
imported_Tuned
It is also a shame PGR2 has somewhat broken backwards compatibility on the Xbox360, I started playing it again a few years back and had to stop about a quarter way through because of a bug.
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Yeah I remember how frustrating that was. PG was also backwards compatible but also suffered from bugs - I think it suffered from terrible slow frame rates at certain points. But the whole PGR franchise was great, it's not clear why it wasn't continued.
 
zargdin
Yeah I remember how frustrating that was. PG was also backwards compatible but also suffered from bugs - I think it suffered from terrible slow frame rates at certain points. But the whole PGR franchise was great, it's not clear why it wasn't continued.
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I don't remember what bug it was that stopped me playing, but the fact that it did means it was serious, and now that you mention it I think it was terrible frame rates.

PGR never continued because Bizarre Creations made Blur, which apparently did not sell well, so they were dissolved into other studios. Some of their staff is at Playground Games making Forza Horizon, which is the franchise I presume PGR was "reborn" into.
 
Live For Speed
I don't remember what bug it was that stopped me playing, but the fact that it did means it was serious, and now that you mention it I think it was terrible frame rates.
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Another problem with PG2 was that you got a blank black screen when there should have been a game menu, making selecting stuff a bit difficult. Also, as far as I recall, there was a strange grey rectangle thing on screen during the races, flitting about the place.
 
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zargdin
Another problem with PG2 was that you got a blank black screen when there should have been a game menu, making selecting stuff a bit difficult. Also, as far as I recall, there was a strange grey rectangle thing on screen during the races, flitting about the place.
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Yes, some of the menus would blank out, especially during the car selection screen before the race. The way I was able to continue, was every time I would press up or down on the dpad, the screen would appear for a brief milisecond giving me enough time to see what I was selecting. It was a game within itself :)
I don't recall seeing the grey triangle though. It's weird that PGR2 or the og xbox in general, has not been fully emulated in all these years.
 
A feature I haven't seen from any other game is the environment having a effect on car sound.

In Nurburgring, the euro city tracks and the Michelin race track you car hear the car echo in the distance *If volume is set to 3 or lower*. While on Vegas and the other night tracks the Intake sound will create a echo warpy acoustic effect, especially if you double tap the accelerator *Idk how to explain it but that's what it visually looks like in a audio program*. and NY just sounds more racecar-like.

I've tested everycar in the game and only noticed this effect with: F1 LM and CLK-GTR SS, it's strongest with the CLK.

The CLK-GTR sounds quite different when using these camera angles on these particular tracks. I can try to film examples later; but on Vegas it has a unique acoustic effect from 5600-6600 RPMs, while New York has a different effect at the same RPMs. I only noticed the effect because I use the sound of the car to mod into other games and was fiddling around with the properties of said sounds.

The properties of alot of the cars are very unique

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Another unique feature speaking of sounds is the cars making the same sounds they make IRL with crackles and pops being heard every once in awhile with certain cars. Like the CLK-GTR you can actually hear the gears *click* at random points when shifting sometimes and with the F1-LM you can hear this aswell. I've only hear the effect on:

Panoz GTR-1
DBR-9
RGT Murcielago
F50-GT
F1 LM *Kinda frequently*
CLK-GTR SuperSport
FXX *Only heard it once with this car*

One of the RUF cars, the C class one I think the RGT but only when a flame pops out the exhaust.
Murcielago LP640

Here you can hear it when they shift to 3rd gear:


Hear you can hear the same effect but it's kind of faint:


And on the F1 LM it's audible from the 4th gear on up here:


There's no audio that i'm aware of that has the F1 LM going full tilt but I can't imagine it would sound different.

Would love to see footage or hear audio of the cars going full-tilt on a dyno like the F50 GT, afaik there are only pics of the F1 LM on the dyno.
 

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