Articles
By Nonny
Published: Mar. 4, 2007 9:50 AM
Whereas in PGR2 players got just one huge showroom here during the course of the game you’ll unlock several Garages which are based on the world locales in the game in which to place your cars as you see fit. Once parked you can then walk around them in real-time like a virtual tour and take in every minute detail at your leisure. In a direct compliment to this car watching pastime and surely a nod to a similar feature in Gran Turismo 4 a Photo mode has also been included. At any point in the Garage mode or in fact during racing you are able to pause the game and take photos from any angle you desire, of anything you desire, whether it is the cars or the city backdrops. The photo mode even includes all the features of a normal camera so you can control aperture, focus, and exposure and take photos in colour, black and white or even sepia tones. These can then be saved to the HDD or memory card. The quality of the photo mode speaks for itself though as all screenshots released by Bizarre Creations themselves were actually taken using the in game feature, very cool.
Taking PGR3 online is where the game really begins to shine though it does have its fair share of minor niggling flaws. The online career spans a series of selectable events and is where players race against real opponents in ranked races. This mode uses the TrueSkill matchmaking which uses a rating system similar to Halo2 and upon entering a desired race category players must wait until other similar matched opponents are found who are looking for the same race type. Also using TrueSkill is a new feature called Gotham TV. This is an extremely cool spectator mode where, as the name suggests, several people can tune in to a particular race in progress and simply watch it as a live broadcast. Whilst spectating you can also watch from any of the default camera angles for any of the cars in the race. As your own TrueSkill ranking improves, or sometimes by sheer luck you could be dropped into a ranked game on the Heroes channel which is where the best of the best players in the game are tracked whilst playing online. Also when signed into Xbox LIVE a news ticker constantly streams across the bottom of the page informing you of such events and there is also a friends channel so if anyone on your friends list is competing in an event you will know about it and can view them. One of the coolest experiences I’ve had personally using this feature was when I was chatting using the dashboard private chat to a friend who was playing ranked games. During the conversation he told me he had just been dropped into a Heroes race with several top players so on hearing that I quickly exited my own game and jumped over to Gotham TV where I then watched the entire race from inside his car, whilst giving him friendly advice for the whole race.
On the topic of ranked games and TrueSkill it works well but not always. Firstly players are unable to control anything in the matchmaking process and it tends to not match players so accurately on the skill rating but more so on the track they have chosen which is probably why you could easily be a beginner player and be thrown to the wolves on the Heroes channel. Also when dropped into a ranked game lobby you must simply wait until the minimum number of players needed have been found and then a timer automatically counts down from 30, if during this time the minimum number drops with people leaving or new people enter the room the counter resets. If anyone has ever played online before they can appreciate this tends to happen a lot and it’s a huge oversight. Several times myself I have been sat in a lobby waiting for the game to start for nearly 10-15 minutes simply because people are dropping in and out of the room at random. Once in an actual race it can be good fun though if you are lucky enough to be in a room where everyone is concerned more about racing than they are about just attempting to jostle for position and ram opponents. This unfortunately seems to be a regular occurrence and can ruin the experience.
Thankfully this is where the Playtime mode comes in. Under Playtime you can select to play split-screen, system link or online and when played with friends this is the best way to experience how the game should be played. There are several game modes on offer including Street Race, Elimination, Capture the Track as well as Race against the Clock (Time Trial). All modes are unranked online in Playtime and the host can configure multiple options such as time of day, track selection, laps, enforce in-car view (more on this later) and car class. This freedom affords the player(s) the ability to play the game exactly how they wish and just enjoy it. As well as this perhaps the best feature in Playtime is the ability to create custom tracks using the Route Creator. Here new tracks can be made by plotting waypoints markers at any of the main junctions in each city which connect as you go allowing you to create new circuits or even point to point races. It’s a simple yet great feature for adding depth once all of the tracks in the game have been explored and raced many times.
« Previous Page | Page 2 of 3 | Next Page » - 
