Taking an eccentric turn in a series as acclaimed as Project Gotham Racing is a tricky endeavor. Even if the developers create a sound game, it’s bound to alienate someone – see: Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed. The third release in the PGR series goes for something similar, but with a bit more variety than a one-car-only release by having nothing but dream cars. Going by the manual, the rule is that if the car doesn’t go at least 175MPH, then there’s no point in including it. Well, I would say that there is a point, and that would be that it makes the game feel like a more fleshed-out experience as opposed to a somewhat lengthy end-leg of a longer title.

Project Gotham Racing 3 certainly has the more appealing aspects of its predecessors, from the fluid controls and tight handling to the incredible Xbox Live integration. Of course, the series’ signature Kudos system makes a return, in which points are accrued through the performance of stylish tricks and linking said tricks, which are tracked on Live and on the system for each course. Right off the bat, you’re allotted enough credits to pick one of several 85,000-credit vehicles. Oddly enough, you can actually keep the vehicle chosen here and make your way through all the courses with it, as the online lap scores attested with several players sticking with my beloved GTR. Your first ride goes in your new garage, with more garages unlocked as more cars are purchased through credits accrued from winning races. The cars are limited to their real-life characteristics, so there’s no tuning or customizing; this isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it keeps everything streamlined, and the cars are pretty snazzy from the get-go.

The game is laid out by circuits, with the ability to attempt the races within a variety of difficulty modes (Hardcore, Hard, Medium, Easy, and Novice) with more points being allotted to the completion of the harder difficulty levels and their more stringent requirements. The courses are in a variety of locations, including Tokyo, New York, London, and Las Vegas, and the runs are tweaked throughout the various circuits so that they are varied enough to offer a challenge. The course layouts are outstanding for the most part: the way corners are aligned works great with the Kudos system as well as the intricacies of each vehicle. Even though the cars are all high-end, they have the kind of subtle differences that require practice and patience to become good with. There are plenty to collect and try out, although some of the car inclusions are questionable because of online play being so predominant and Live being dominated by the F50 GT and its lesser-class counterparts.  In other words, that Cobra you really like will be useless online.

The courses also have different requirements. Some might require a specific amount of kudos earned in a set amount of time while others will trade kudos earned for time spent racing. There are also more traditional races, one-on-one challenges, and elimination events that knock out the player that is in last place. Some of the more challenging ones are the cone events, which require you to race through a course in-between cones within a set amount of time and also raking up Kudos from doing tricks in the small spaces available. For those that are so inclined, there is also a feature to make custom tracks to share with friends.

Multiplayer is really the second half to Project Gotham Racing 3. I beat every course with silver in two or so days, which isn’t that much time all things considered. Yes, I can and have gone back to better my score by beating the game on Gold and Hardcore, but I would’ve liked a few more circuits to round out the experience. There are a variety of badges that can be earned in the circuit, races, and online, and those do provide an incentive to continue to play, as does the climbing up in rank from 10^th to 1^st, with each new rank unlocking a new concept car for use. But many will finds their first go-around nearly enough, after having put up with a computer AI that makes the races very trial-and-error. PGR3 is the type of game that requires you to restart a race if you flub up out of the gate because the computer most likely won’t make mistakes throughout the course, constantly leaving you behind. Also, for some strange reason, they tend to become the most aggressive when going over 150MPH, which doesn’t make sense, but it can lead to some seriously aggravating moments as you watch your lead slip past as you slide around a track and have to throw the car into reverse as all the stragglers past you by. So after your first solo playthrough, you’ll want to jump into the multiplayer portion, which is set up similarly to single player.

But again, multiplayer is dominated by the F50 GT and its lower-class counterparts. It doesn’t matter if you like that car or not or however many cars you have in your garage, and the F50 GT bespeaks the same for all top-of-the-line cars in every class, because the class-specific cars used in the races all have one that dominates. Even if the cars seem relatively similar, it’s rare to find a player get first when they aren’t using one of a handful of cars. In single player, the game accommodates for the selected car by altering some of the victory requirements, but multiplayer tosses you out with the wolves and lets them tear you apart. And tear you apart they will, because there are some fantastic players out there. This would make sense in a regular car game when the range of performance would be so drastic, but it feels out of place in a game with nothing but top-of-the-line vehicles.

There is also a fairly major inconvenience, and that is that the game does not tell you what cars you have already purchased. Since cars don’t sustain damage, there’s no need to have more than one around to have as a back-up if repairs become too expensive at some point, so it makes no sense for the game to not inform you at the time of purchase. Since you’ll be using the same handful of cars as online, it’s easy to lose track of what has or has not been purchased, and the way to see what you own involves leaving the screen and matching car names, which is not handy whatsoever.

The approach to go with nothing but dream cars is also questionable. As I mentioned earlier, it limits the appeal of the game. There is no real uphill battle to the game, which is arguably the best part about racing titles: the struggle to win with the lowest car and eventually win with one of the cream of the crop. By around the mid-way mark, you’ll be able to afford the best car in the game. There is something to be said about dangling a carrot out in front of the player to entice them, and letting them get the best car that early on makes the game feel very strange. It really does end up feeling like you jumped in on a more thorough racer in the last leg of it and are enjoying the fruits of hours or months of hard labor. Instead, you get this very anticlimactic feeling of, “Eh, here you go. Enjoy.” These are dream cars, after all; I’m supposed to aspire to get them for my collection one day, not wonder about a sales floor and purchase willy-nilly. To get the badge obtained by having all cars, I just went back through and purchased these bad boys en masse. There is just something wrong with that.

At least the cars get the intended reaction, because they look great, though some might dislike the super shiny aesthetic. There is also a great sense of speed when using the in-car views, particularly the cockpit view that has the car move independently of the driver’s view, creating a more realistic look that shows the wear a hard race does on a car via dirt and cracks on the window.  It also works really well with the blur effect used when looking left and right. The outside views don’t give such a great sensation of speed, but I found that it’s handier to handle the cars that way and serves that purpose well. Even though the soundtrack is busting at the seams, many of the selections could’ve easily been left out. While I was surprised by how much I enjoyed hearing classical music during races – it certainly gets the adrenaline going – stuff like a live performance by Deathcab for Cutie made me wonder what Michael Stipe was up to more than how I was going to take the next corner going nearly 200MPH. Also, for every catchy Queens of the Stone Age tune, there are about a dozen generic techno tracks that are the opposite of enjoyable.

The integration with Live is as stellar here as it was in PGR2. The stats of each race are uploaded and your rank is shown against other players whenever you win, providing such information as the car used and Kudos count. There are also stats that scroll across the menu screens to show how well you and others are doing against one another, as well as what good players are online for you to view on the Heroes Channel, a channel where the best of the best can be seen while playing. It’s as seamless and stylish as ever. For those who love to play online, cursing pre-teens and all, PGR3 will deliver.

Overall: 7.5/10

Project Gotham Racing 3 is, despite its niche approach, a solid racing title. The single player experience could have used a bit more oomph, but for those who prefer online play or make frequent use of it, the game will be in your system for a while. My recommendation is to get a custom playlist ready and prepare to become familiar with the same handful of cars, regardless of whether or not you would prefer to use one of the other super expensive dream cars.