Tucked away in the outskirts of Liverpool, Bizarre Creations has been working away on Project Gotham Racing 3 for the last two years. Sixteen-hour days have become the norm, as has the delivery of various take-away foods to quell the hunger of many an employee in an effort to bring you an offering of gaming goodness; to bring you this sequel to the numberone selling PGR2. Heart and soul has been poured continuously over this game, which is evident from the offset. Watching friends and onlookers drop their collective jaws as we began playing the review code for PGR3 has got to be enough to tell you that this is a system-selling title.

A mere six pages isn’t enough to impress upon you the importance of this title to Microsoft, nor are they enough to assure you of how much Bizarre has delivered. Critics will, of course, question how different it is from PGR2.

A quick recap: PGR2 was probably the most successful racing game on the original Xbox, and for good reason too. Perfectly weighted between the arcade and simulation, the game defined the Xbox Live experience with the most comprehensive use of online play and community, before the likes of Halo 2 stole its crown with the two little words, “Killing Spree”.

How could Bizarre Creations improve in a way that would avoid the critique of only updating the graphics? The game speaks for itself on so many levels, it’s extremely difficult to find one area that hasn’t been improved, or doesn’t rock like Gene Simmons in his glammed-up prime.

Each car is made up of between 85,000 and 105,000 polygons – that’s eight times the polygon count of the cars in the previous iteration. It also means there are more polygons in the lowest detailed car than in the whole of Prince’s Street from PGR2. The Brooklyn Bridge stage in PGR3’s New York circuit has more polygons than an entire city from the last game and it is only a small part of a few Big Apple circuits. Suffice to say, this game packs in the detail. With over 20,000 pictures taken at each locale over a threemonth period, painstakingly recreated with the equivalent of one year’s work on each city to make the environments as lifelike as possible, this level of detail is only possible on Xbox 360. New York, London, Las Vegas and Tokyo are recreated in near-photorealistic quality, allowing you to drive the most exclusive supercars at speeds most of us Punto-owning gamers can only dream of.

The McLaren F1 LM, Koenigsegg’s CCR – the fastest cars in the world are in here. Then there are the Bentleys, Jaguars and anything listed as drool material by avid car fans, which are all available to drive in-game from the outset. There are no more car classes; no more playing 200+ hours to unlock the Enzo. Every single car is available from the off, letting you tear up the competition either offline or on Xbox Live, which has to be said, is where this game is going to shine.

We’ll touch on Live later, but firstly, there’s something very important about this game that smacks of next-gen appeal. Every engine of every car in PGR3 has been recorded from multiple areas of the cars. If there was only one edition of a car in the world, Bizarre and Microsoft worked their best schmoozing tactics to get that car in a test tunnel to record the sound from under the wheel arch. They even travelled to the owners' homes to record the car, and you’ll hear that in the game. Whichever camera angle you choose by the newly appointed left shoulder button, you’ll hear a different sound from the same engine, painstakingly modelled to perfection. Bizarre’s sound team has really pulled out all the stops for PGR3, and when you feel like you’re in the game without knowing it, they’ve clearly done their job.

Immersion is what brings us onto the graphics. Just look at one of the screenshots on this very page. However, one thing we’ve learned from the Xbox 360 is that screenshots will never do it any justice. Every screenshot you’ve seen of PGR3 to date has been an in-game shot. Using the best motion blur effect we’ve ever seen, the sense of speed and sheer beauty of the game cannot be conveyed in motionless form. Quite simply, this will be the most eye-catching and beautiful racing game you’ve ever seen. The little touches, such as the way the camera moves as you take the apex of a bend. The high-speed train overhead as you race round Tokyo’s financial district, only noticing it as you’ve hit a wall again because you can’t believe how good this game really looks.

One of the defining moments, when you really will find yourself shuddering, occurs on the New York circuit as you spin out of a bend at 120mph, the edges of the screen blur and bend, focusing attention into the centre of the screen and your perfect exit. Then, the very second you feel like you’ve nailed the game, and the Kudos points are flicking up in the corner of the screen, the Brooklyn Bridge rears into view. This is where PGR3 steps up a gear, distances itself from every other racing game going and gets real. The many struts and pylons of the bridge blur across your screen, reflections bounce off the bonnet and the whole effect looks… real. The word photorealistic is bandied about liberally these days, at one point Gran Turismo was the real deal, but with PGR3 the phrase means something. This game truly mimics the feeling of tearing under an iron suspension bridge on a hot summer’s day. Switching to the awesome in-car view and looking to your left reveals your broken wing-mirror, which now shows multiple reflections on the smashed glass surface.

The power of the Xbox 360 hardware isn’t even being used to the full extent – given that the team had only six months with finished development kits – but Bizarre is definitely leading the way when it comes to delivering next-gen graphical performance. The detail on each car, from the wheel nuts through to the reflections generated by possibly the most advanced cube map ever seen in a game, brings with it the most astonishing cars we’ve yet seen in a videogame. These cars have been recreated virtually with the love and attention that the most dedicated car enthusiasts would be proud of. It’s car porn, pure and simple.

Whether you’re playing online or offline, the gameplay is still as good, if not better than PGR2. The standard menu now greets you with Gotham Career, as well as Playtime, which includes the options to run street races, compete in more challenges, or design your own race circuit for Gotham TV. The career mode is where you play through the game as normal, with driving challenges replacing the old class section tests. Instead of starting with a Mini, you’ll be presented with a challenge from one of the cities in the game, meaning there’s no need to play through eight car classes to get to the American Muscle series again. It’s a case of pick your challenge and whatever car you wish. Rip up the tarmac and earn yourself medals for pulling off outstanding TrueSkill against the clock. Ah, TrueSkill – these points are awarded for races won, best times, Kudos scores and game completion stats. They are then transferred to your Gamertag account so the game can match you with equally skilled opponents. You’ll never humiliate another noob again. More crucially, the more points you tally by driving with style rather than luck, the more interesting tournaments will be open to you. For example, Gotham TV will be split into Heroes and Friends, everyone will be able to join a Friends game but only the best of the best will be invited into the Heroes tournaments. This means you can dip in and watch the world’s top players race, or if you are one of the world's best, enjoy life on Xbox Live in Microsoft's very own version of an airport executive lounge. Even on Live, class rules everything.

It’s also worth mentioning the differences in handling between PGR3 and PGR2. They both have an adherence to realism, but PGR3 is more liberal with the rules. If you ever picked up the pad with PGR2 and span out on the first bend or got locked into a doughnut because you couldn’t handle the braking, then fear not, as PGR3 is less severe. Before the hardcore out there slam the mag down in disgust, we’re not talking Burnout, just that this game is more lenient. You will still need to perfect the powerslide, handbrake turns and racing line to rack up the big TrueSkill points needed to impress fellow Livers and you can be sure that good PGR3 players will always end a race around two hundred points clear of a newbie.

It really is hard to point out any downfalls in what is a great and muchneeded launch title. In fact, launch be damned, PGR3 is an out-and-out must-have game. Every aspect of this racer is polished, and every effort has been made to make this game more and more accessible. The sheer scale of the custom options from circuits to car types to race modes means there will always be a challenge for someone in the game no matter what their skill level or experience. While supercars are very impressive, we’re slightly disappointed with the lack of Minis in this new tour through Gotham, but as ‘Big Lips’ Mick Jagger has often said, “you can’t always get what you want.” The soundtrack to the game is huge though, with many different styles from Mozart to the latest and greatest British bands and matches the race action perfectly.

If it’s car porn you want, or the best racing game on either of Microsoft’s consoles, you can’t go wrong with PGR3. It's all about style and accessibility. The racing is as good as ever, but thanks to some tuned handling, a streamlined challenge structure and faultless customisation, anyone and everyone will be able to find their level, and then improve; making PGR3 a game you need to own.

Gareth Williams