PGR3 Official Xbox Info

[FordGTGuy]

Genre: Racing
Release Date: TBD
Console: Xbox 360
Xbox Exclusive
$49.99


Features:

Players 1-2
Co-op
System Link 2-8
HDTV 720p
Storage Device
Players 2-8
Co-op



Project Gotham Racing® 3 creates the ultimate roster of the hottest supercars in existence, introduces them to the high-definition era, and drops them into a completely new gaming world, where style rules the road.
Define and create individually customized gameplay; race on or offline; and drive what you want, where you want. Drive with style and daring to earn Kudos in front of large crowds, and win badges to reward your skills in all areas of the game.
With a whole host of new racing modes, custom races, community support, and campaigns, PGR 3 takes advantage of the online advances Xbox 360™ has to offer.

• The original Kudos challenge: Powersliding, pulling off a 360, getting airtime, staying on the race line, drafting, and getting up on two wheels will earn gamers Kudos points for their style and skill.
• The ultimate supercar collection: Take the wheel of more than 80 authentically modeled and licensed supercars from manufacturers such as Ferrari, Dodge, and Lamborghini with fully modeled interiors, functioning dashboards and individually recorded engine roars.
• A world of living, breathing cities: Drive in New York, Tokyo, and many other cities, all brought to life with motion-captured crowds of people.
• An online community: Show off in front of a global online audience. With GothamTV, gamers can watch any player in the world on live news feeds, get live ticker-tape information when friends break records, and compete with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
• Customized gameplay: How you play the game, and in which car and city, is now up to you.
• Real life in the living room: With Xbox 360, PGR 3, an HDTV, and Dolby® 5.1, you can plug it all in and take it away. With individually recorded engine sounds and ambient recordings.

E3 Preview


U.K. developer Bizarre Creations ushered in the original Xbox® launch in 2001 with its technically gorgeous arcade racer Project Gotham Racing®. The game let lead-footed speed demons unleash their pent-up energy on a host of virtual race tracks. And it introduced a radical approach to scoring with its Kudos system - a rating that tracked and rewarded ballsy drivers for pulling off fancy maneuvers.
Project Gotham Racing® 2 took the game to the next level. It featured more cars, more tracks, and more unlockables, and introduced white-knuckled online play via Xbox Live™.
Project Gotham Racing® 3 brings even more innovations to the next generation of gaming, including new online modes and spectator viewing.
Bizarre Creations is gearing up to bring the next generation of racing to Xbox 360™ this holiday, when Project Gotham Racing 3 speeds into town. Get your helmet ready!



The Sport of PGR 3


By Alex McLain
Some claim that video gaming has already infringed upon the boundaries of sport, but there is something to be said about the compelling level of competition now available in games. The current generation of games has already made leaps and bounds toward legitimizing online competition, and has made efforts to create a more sport-like atmosphere.
Project Gotham Racing™ 3 aims to revolutionize this "real sports" angle and set the standard for next-generation racing games by creating a new organized sport with real heroes, villains, and abundant opportunities for global fame and recognition. The goal is to make every race, every competition, and every tournament a real sport with real champions.
Crack the top 100 players on Project Gotham Racing 3 and you earn a spot on the World Leaderboard. Your name and a video clip your performance are broadcast around the globe via GothamTV, the channel that makes players into heroes.
Imagine the satisfaction of realizing you're skilled enough for folks around the world to jack into your races using GothamTV to check out your moves, look for tips to improve their own game, or simply enjoy the show you put on.
PGR™ 3 uses a variety of different elements to shape this idea into reality. Let me explain ...
Immersion
It takes more than highly detailed cars and beautifully rendered routes to truly immerse you in the "real sport" experience, and Project Gotham Racing 3 delivers in every area. From the start, the development team focused on making the cars, cityscapes, environments, and even crowds breathtaking. The PGR 3 spectators "look as realistic as the city environments," according to a manager on the dev team.
Special audio lets you feel each moment of crowd interaction as onlookers cheer for you and your competitors. This isn't just a group of stick people gathered around a light post, it's a writhing mass of fans who are wholly engrossed in the proceedings. Literally thousands of individual spectators have been modeled for the game, and crowd reactions change depending on which city you drive in. Unique trackside commentators also call out the action at each different location.
Feel the Crunch
Also boosting the immersion factor is an increased focus on accurate damage modeling for the cars. The competition intensifies when you hear the crunch of steel as another driver smacks into your side panel and your windshield cracks in response to the impact.
You may even hear the sound of your exhaust pipe dragging on the tarmac when your car takes a hard hit. PGR 3 audio has also been thoroughly customized to reflect the makeup of your car. You can easily identify a bumper's crunch into carbon-fiber material, metal, plastic, or glass.
Human-Like A.I.
Your A.I. opponents will be more fallible and more human in their decisions as they react to aggressive driving or other situations in the race. Instead of you against the machine, PGR 3 becomes you against other drivers. And online play makes that a reality.
Online Tournaments and Competition
The real sport element is heightened even more by the global competition you face when you race against real people on Xbox Live™. PGR 3's online career mode delivers all the drama and excitement of a real sport.
Project Gotham Racing 3 is set to deliver on its promise to create a real sport with real champions, and will help define the nature of competition in the next generation of gaming.



All About the Cars


Whether for aesthetics or performance, the Project Gotham Racing® series has always provided a ton of options in choosing your ride. The series also offers a varying experience depending on the vehicle you choose, and not only just to offer choices but also a variety of strategy. With the next iteration, Project Gotham Racing® 3, well on the way (due to ship with the launch of the Xbox 360™), we took a look at what the game is focusing on to continue this trend of individuality. Let's see what we dug up.
Knowing Is Half the Battle
You can know a lot about a car by getting behind the wheel and taking it for a spin, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have the lowdown before you grab the keys. Project Gotham Racing 3 offers a comprehensive examination of each car before you even test drive it. Here's a quick look at some of the more major statistics you'll be privy to:
1. Top Speed: This is a crucial element, especially as you compare the abilities of cars within the same class. The top speed alone won't tell you if it's the best car, but it does give you a good idea of what sort of race track it works best with. Open tracks with long straight-aways let vehicles with high top speeds use this to their best advantage.
2. 0-60: Directly opposed to the Top Speed is the car's acceleration, and this statistic gives you a great idea of just that. Like Top Speed, the 0-60 stat gives you a good idea of what sort of track this car is inclined to work best on. On tight tracks and tracks with numerous hairpin corners, you want a car that puts power to the ground well.
3. Weight: The overall heft of the vehicle not only tells you how it most likely handles, but it should also speak to your individual likes and dislikes. If you desire a precise car that can turn on a button, you want the lighter variety. The heavier, more deliberate rides might be more to your taste if you enjoy broad, smoking powerslides.
4. Drive Train: Like Weight, the Drive Train speaks more to your individual taste and the general performance of the car. For instance, a rear-wheel drive car behaves differently than a front-wheel drive vehicle in wet conditions.All of these statistics exist to help you find what works best for you, and that's a huge point of focus for Project Gotham Racing 3. A constant plague of racing games is the "money car," that one vehicle in the game that dominates all the others, whether you like the way it drives or not. PGR™ 3 works hard to dismiss that problem, and instead offers you a fleet of "best" vehicles that you can choose from and race competitively with at all times.
Life Begins at 170 mph!
While the official car list for PGR 3 is still tightly under wraps, we do know that all the cars featured in the game were chosen based on their ability to reach at least 170 mph. Simply put, the PGR 3 team has assembled a fleet of the world's fastest, most desirable supercars, and a range of car classes are included in this elite group.
PGR 3 rewards you for driving with sheer bravado, slick maneuvers, and straight acceleration. Finding the perfect balance between intense style and lightning speed is what sets you apart from the competition. See you on the tracks!



Pure Speed, Pure Showmanship


By Alex McLain
The Project Gotham Racing® series has built a large and enthusiastic following with its compelling combination of pure racing and cutting-edge style. Slick but realistic-looking cars hurtling down a straightaway before taking line-perfect curves with a dash of powerslide and a pinch of fishtail for spice is the way the PGR™ series plays out. This dynamic dichotomy between speed and style makes for a fresh take on the racing genre, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
Project Gotham Racing® 3 ups the ante by setting a new standard for vehicle performance. As the tag line notes, "Life Begins at 170 mph," and this time they aren't kidding around! PGR™ 3 features the fastest, most desirable supercars on the planet. Every car on the track has been hand-picked specifically for its ability to hit 170 mph (and beyond). Why drive anything else?
Off the Floor
While you're revving the engine and getting ready to peel away from the starting line, your car should feel like it just came off the showroom floor, and in this regard, PGR 3 delivers. The paint shines and glimmers and reflects the light with that new car brilliance. Your car is a well-oiled machine that is prepared to prove its mettle, but this exotic showroom style is much more evident than in previous efforts. Not only are the basic visuals greatly improved, but the subtleties of each car have been paid far greater attention. The interiors of the vehicles, for example, have received a massive overhaul. The dashboards are authentic and look so real you'll swear you can smell the leather and see your face reflected in the speedometer glass.
Dynamic Handling
While the look of the car sings with showroom quality, the dynamics of driving them help to instill that exotic quality of high-end racing the Project Gotham Racing series thrives on. In PGR 3, a few areas have been scrutinized for fine tuning:
1. Kicked Back: Ever sat in a muscle car that flexed its full muscle? That first burst off the line lets you know you're dealing with formidable power, and that moment, that first burst of inertia, has been finely tuned in this latest offering. Lower gears make you really feel the thrust and power as the car tears up the tarmac. Acceleration off the line is now the adrenaline-pumping experience it should be.
2. Higher Gear, Higher Thrill: Also fine-tuned in PGR 3 are the steering mechanics and the disparity you feel when taking technical turns at 60 mph in the lower gears versus the car-vibrating thrill of subtle alterations when clocking near 200 mph. Now you can truly feel the sweet handling of a finely tuned car, but still experience the thrill of putting a car through its paces as you test the limits of your tires' adhesion to the road.
3. The Art of the Slide: While clearly prominent in the early iterations, the physics for tire grip (and the powerslides that result from it) have been loosened even more, making for more woolly and wild fishtailing turns that give PGR 3 its exhilarating, unique feel.
4. Manual Is Your Friend: No one goes to the dealership and asks for an exotic sports car with automatic transmission (AT). True exhilaration comes from smoking around a turn and dropping your Ferrari into the perfect gear, hearing the roar of torque you're about to employ while losing the least acceleration. Therefore, even more attention has been paid to the mechanics for the manual transmission setting in PGR 3. Those that choose to master its subtle art will thrive against those who cling to the "ease" of an AT.
Project Gotham Racing has always been and will always be about slick cars and exquisite style, but the introduction of the world's fastest supercars brings a new level of sophistication to a racing game that is still well aware of its primal roots. Look out for Project Gotham Racing 3 as it blazes a trail forward in all its areas of expertise.



Under the Hood of PGR 3


Martyn Chudley, managing director and designer at Bizarre Creations, let us play pit crew for the day when he gave us some background info on his company's upcoming game, Project Gotham Racing® 3.
Xbox.com: Was Project Gotham Racing 3 conceived originally with the successor to the Xbox® in mind? If so, how did it change your outlook on what you could accomplish?
Chudley: Yes, we started out knowing that Xenon was the platform we were aiming for, and that was really exciting for the team. Looking at the specs, we realized we could push PGR™ 3 into new directions and add loads more realism. And, of course, everyone on the team was buzzing that we were getting to work with the new hardware!
Knowing that you're aiming for Xenon does help in the design. But obviously, when you're writing for a machine that doesn't exist yet, there are problems that you can encounter on the way. You end up developing the game alongside the hardware - which is great in some ways, as you work out problems together with the hardware people. But it can also be stressful, too, especially at the start, as there's nothing powerful enough to run your code and graphics in their full glory!
At the beginning, we started designing the game based on the hardware specs and a bit of inspired guesswork, and as the hardware firmed up in design, it got easier all the way. We started off hoping that it would cope with the artwork and programming effects we were all optimistically developing, and it's got more and more exciting as it becomes apparent that it can do all that was promised!
Obviously, things like the graphics have taken a big step forward. The artists have been able to add in all the polygon detail that they've just had to fake in the past. And the texturing has taken leaps forward, with massive resolutions being used now. The programmers can smoothly push around many times more polygons, and can add fantastic programming effects such as post-processing and high-definition. All of this, plus features like full-screen anti-aliasing, which was already featured in Project Gotham Racing® 2, combine to make the graphics even more realistic.
The sound engine has been completely rewritten, too, and it's amazing how good the Xenon can make a game sound! We re-recorded our engine samples from the real-world vehicles - even the rarest models - specifically to take advantage of the new hardware.
When you have a huge leap forward in technology, you can really push the game forward like this. There have been things that we've wanted to do in the past, but have never had the chance, as the hardware wasn't up to it. But now we can really let our imaginations take us where we want to go. And as we get more familiar with Xenon over the years, I'm sure it can take us even further.
Xbox.com: Aside from graphic and sound design, what game-design elements does the system allow you to implement that were not possible with the first Xbox?
Chudley: I think our biggest design element that has really made the difference to how the game feels is the whole atmosphere we can achieve with Xenon. With Xbox, although we could get something close to reality, it always felt a bit clinical, as we hadn't got enough graphics or processing power to make the worlds feel real. For example, it wasn't possible for many reasons to include any "life" in our cities in the former two games, and so they always seemed barren and lifeless.
But now, with the power of Xenon, we can finally take the cities that final step forward, and can make them feel like real, living, breathing cities! We have (at last!) got crowds - but not 2-D flat people or angular stick figures with the odd arm waving here or there that you're used to in games. We have a whole throng of people in the game, all motion-captured to produce realistic crowd movements. And it's not just the same few models dotted here and there, but literally thousands of different people!
Xbox.com: If you had to choose one feature to call out for PGR 3, what would it be?
Chudley: The main thing we're most proud of is the way that the entire package seamlessly works together, with the online and offline modes all encapsulated within what we call GothamTV. It's all much more user-friendly - it's almost non-game-like in its style and simplicity.
But if there was one particular feature to pick out then that would be the - well - we can't talk about that yet! Let's just say it's a whole new way to play racing games! And we're not just talking about letting the A.I. do the driving for you!
Xbox.com: What has the crunch time leading up to E3 this year been like, and what have you prepared for the show?
Chudley: Ahhh, the wonderful time leading up to E3! The smell of sweaty developers! The bins full of empty Coke cans! The stacks of congealing pizza boxes! The gray shadows under everyone's eyes!
It's been busy, as usual, but this time it's been made even more complex by the fact that we're trying to get a game ready for launch, and E3 has come at just the wrong time in our development cycle. Now if they'd postpone E3 until Christmas, we'd be just fine!
With a new hardware launch, especially one timed when Xenon is, it's always a stressful time juggling marketing and PR commitments and the game development. Just as you've got to the stage when it's starting to come together, but is full of bugs and looking ropey, you need to show off what you're doing!
So, unfortunately, you might not see as much as we would have liked for E3, as there just isn't enough time to get everything we would have wanted together and working in time. But hopefully there's enough to give a nice little taster of what the finished game is going to offer.
Xbox.com: Has the basic structure of the offline career mode changed, and if so, how?
Chudley: It's changed quite dramatically, as our ambition for PGR 3 has always been to really drive forward the whole idea of style, speed, daring, and Kudos. The premise of this advance is to make sure that everyone is catered for, whatever their skill and however they want to race and progress. There are so many different ways that gamers want to take on a racing game that we needed to make sure that everyone can pick up and play the game, and enjoy it the way that they want, whatever their preferences.
PGR 2 was focused around car groups, as the player raced through one set of cars and then progressed onto the next group. The major change this time 'round is the game is split into unique championships -- sets of themed events that the player will be able to race in any car he owns. He can complete the entire game in his favorite car, or choose a different car for every race -- it's totally up to him. There's also much more choice over what sort of races the player wants to enter, based around different racing disciplines.
Ultimately, the player's main goal is still to reach the top rank. But in PGR 3, players can now do that however they wish - whatever their driving style - buying whatever cars they would like and racing them in whatever championships they like along the way.
Obviously, the old favorite elements like Kudos and the Garage are still there, but with the whole experience now tuned to make PGR 3 a personal experience, however you want to race.
Xbox.com: Damage modeling on cars has always been a popular feature. Can you go into detail how the damage modeling works in PGR 3?
Chudley: Well, with the power of Xenon, it's all about everything - including the damage - being bigger, better, more realistic, and in your face! The effects will look lifelike, with the actual car mesh being realistically distorted as well as having just simple texturing effects.
And as for when you crash, we've been studying real crashes to make sure the effects and dynamics are spot-on. But with the cars looking so much more detailed than on [the original] Xbox, you're not going to want to damage them, are you?!

-Xbox.com


som stuff you might have not known mixed with stuff you do.

[Holic]

Good post man, I'm hearing it's going to be delayed til late December/Early January. Has anyone else heard this?

[FordGTGuy]

Originally Posted by Holic

Good post man, I'm hearing it's going to be delayed til late December/Early January. Has anyone else heard this?

i've heard a rumor of delay for every game thats launch I think its just people who don't know anything trying to start confusion on no base. Don't worry theres still a month.

[Ecliptic]

No i dont think that is true. I have a paper from EB games and it says its coming out before the 360

[FordGTGuy]

Originally Posted by Ecliptic

No i dont think that is true. I have a paper from EB games and it says its coming out before the 360

great news thanks.

[cablekiller]

Originally Posted by Ecliptic

No i dont think that is true. I have a paper from EB games and it says its coming out before the 360

I don't know what to believe... I called EB today, and they assured me that as far as they know, PGR3 is still on for 11/15. However, if it is delayed, they said that they would e-mail us and give us a choice as to what game to replace PGR3 with.

[FordGTGuy]

Originally Posted by cablekiller

I don't know what to believe... I called EB today, and they assured me that as far as they know, PGR3 is still on for 11/15. However, if it is delayed, they said that they would e-mail us and give us a choice as to what game to replace PGR3 with.

i think its still coming out on time. nice posting dude.

[I AM Bones]

This game seems much more realistic than most wanted, and if you go 4 realistic games, it is perfect for you, but I will have much more fun on most wanted, I might get this game later on, as it seems to be spoken of very highly.

[Jay2984]

Great post, a lot of good info. I'm really looking forward to this game. I do believe that PGR3 will be the most realistic driving game that comes out for the 360 until PGR4 or i hope to god Forza Motorsport 2. NFS will be a good game because it will have a few different aspects to it that will be entertaining in other ways than PGR3. Ive just found by the first 2, this game can be so addictive and i'm sure the 3rd one will be a thousand times better.

[FordGTGuy]

Forza II will be coming out hell it was the #2 xbox live game fore like 5 months behind halo 2.

[G-ram]

I'm assuming 49.99 translates into 59.99 cdn?

[bennyboo03]

Originally Posted by Holic

Good post man, I'm hearing it's going to be delayed til late December/Early January. Has anyone else heard this?

nah its not delayed. they have the case for it at gamestop and EB Games