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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good racer, but with it's fair share of annoying faults, 2 Feb 2004
This game has been described as the finest driving game ever made, and that it is nearly perfect. Well, it is very good indeed, and one of the finest racing games in history, but it is by no means without its faults. First though, the good points. The graphics of PGR2 are simply astonishing, and prove yet again the superiority of the Xbox as compared with the PS2. Just check out the leaves blowing around as you power by, or the real-time reflection on the body of your motor. Simply superb, they set a new visual benchmark in videogames. The sound effects are also magnificent, and the ability to play your own pre-recorded songs from the hard drive is the icing on the cake (far too few games allow you to do this, but the original PGR did and this sequel is no different). The variety of cars is also massive, with over 100 cars to choose from, from the basic Mini Cooper to the fastest road car never to be built, the TVR Cerbera Speed 12. Each car is good in at least one aspect and there are no cars put there purely for show, unlike in the Gran Turismo franchise where some of the motors you can choose are completely useless and unable to win even the easiest event. The range of races available is also unprecedented, with somewhere in the region of 170 different races in single player mode, with many more if you attach your Xbox to the Live service.
However, despite all of this glowing praise, the game is by no means perfect. For starters, some of the collision detection is shockingly unrealistic. If a computer car pulls up alongside your vehicle and starts to push against you, you will invariably spin towards him, smashing you into a wall whilst he carries on on his merry way. If you try the same trick against him, it will still be you who comes off worse. This soon becomes very frustrating, as computer controlled cars can send you spinning with impunity, but you can’t do the same thing to them. This was a feature of the original Project Gotham Racing a couple of years ago and you would have expected it to be sorted out this time around, but to no avail. This problem is exacerbated by the AI of the computer opponents. In short, they don’t have any. If you are stopped on the racing line with an opponent approaching, they will never attempt to drive around you, they will always smash straight into you. If you are blocking where they want to go, they won’t try to get by another way, they will try to push their way through, usually sending you spinning out of contention. Highly irritating. And one last gripe, the American Muscle Car series is about as much fun as you’d expect it to be, i.e. none. Apart from these problems though, PGR 2 is still one of the finest racing games yet to be released, but with just a little more work on the part of the developers, it could truly have been an all-time classic.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow..., 15 Jan 2004
By A Customer
Thats all I can say, wow... Let me start off by saying this IS THE BEST racer for the Xbox by far, and possibly the best racer ever made. The sheer volume of this game is overwhelming, you have 102 cars in the game, 172 Races in the World Series and an infinite amount online. As soon as you pick up the game and start the first World Series race, you realise the jaw-dropping graphics of the game, There is no 30 FPS like you find on NFSU, it runs perfectly smoothe. The beauty of this game is that it doesn't matter if your a racing game fanatic petrol-head, or a novice to racing games, you won't be missing out. The difficaulty settings playable for every race range from the very easiest bronze medals (novice), right through to platinum medals in expert mode. And there will always be a game to suit your standard online. Let me talk about the cars for a second. Each one is rendered beautifully to look almost identical to it's real life replica. Choose to race anything from a Mini Cooper, a Honda Civic, SUVs, Pick-up trucks, Porche 911s, the 600+ hp Enzo Ferrari, or even the insanely fast TVR Cerbera Speed 12. Each one actually handles different, it is no longer a case of 'the fastest car wins' as most car games are, each car suits a particular driving style, and there isn't a car that is put in just for show. Then you get onto the actual driving, I have NEVER played a racing game that drives as realistically as this. I may have to retract that statement when GT4 comes out, but there is no more crashing into corners and keep on going, no more hurtle through bins, lamp posts and postboxes and keep going like you get with NFSU,this game requires BRAKING. The smallest nick on the side can mean the difference between first place and second, the decision is yours whether you can risk powersliding a turn or just taking it normally and not getting the kudos. The details are beautiful, you can see birds in the sky, water on the road, reflections in the car's paintwork, there isn't a badly rendered pixel in the whole game. The single player mode is addictive, but it's when you get online that the real fun starts... There are hundreds of game's open right now, pick a course and start racing against people your own standard, trash talk them when you beat them, suffer the humilliation if you lose. But it doesn't stop there, you can play Cat and Mouse games online which when played with your friends are absoloutley hillarious. And of course, the person who lurks behind you the whole race only to slam you into the wall on the final bend and take pole position doesn't neccessarily come off any bettet, as you get Kudos for driving well, and Kudos is what you need to level up. I gave this a 5 star on it's driving alone. Perfect physics, incredible choice of cars, and the brilliant online mode makes it even more so. The only way this game is not perfect is on the sinlge player mode, which is fine, but would be enthralling if it had a garage to buy upgrades to your ride. If anybody still isn't convinced that this is the most detailed racing game ever, drive Endinburgh very, very slowly and look at the shops you pass on the left, it has the EXACT SHOPS logo and all, in the exact order that are really there, it is pure class to go into the shop the day before, then race past it in an Enzo Ferrari the next day. The best racing game ever made for the Xbox, one of the best GAMES ever made. Buy it now.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Potentially the best racing game of 2003/4, 6 Oct 2003
Don't listen to all those people who say PGR2 won't live up to GT4, its a game all its own, with a slightly more arcade driving model, and a completely different style to Polyphonics opus. Where GT is all about gear ratios, massive turbos and cars by the bucket load, even if they are slow ones, PGR and its sequel are about driving with style, finesse and in the fastest machines money can buy, and some machines money can't. From 60's muscle cars like the corvette stingray and Shelby Cobra, to the Ferrari Enzo and Konigsegg CC 8S, 40 years of motoring exotica's are in here, and not a trace of every Japanese car under the sun, just the best ones!!Then there are the tracks, GT has a few real tracks, such as Laguna Seca, and the rest fictional tracks, PGR2 has dozens of tracks for each of the ten cities in the game, including Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Moscow, Washington DC, and the full length 8 mile Nurburgring circuit in Germany. One area where PGR2 will really excel will be online play, not only will you be able to race against up to seven other players, but the best player in the world for each track will have his ghost saved to the Live! servers, so those who race that track can see exactly how you got that spectacular laptime. Ultimately, any true racing nut should have both of these games, but if you must have one and you prefer to let your driving do the talking rather than the size of your turbocharger, then PGR2 is the game for you.
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