Project Gotham Racing 4 (Xbox 360)

This time around you have weather effects affecting your driving and riding. Yes, there's motorcycles as well. Dense fog, ice and snow and lots of rain each affect your vehicle in a different way.

The cars

PGR 4's car handling while sim-like it still treads the fine line between arcade and simulation depth. You can hop into a car right away in the game and begin turning laps without fear of spinning out or locking your brakes in a tight turn. It also helps that the car list is more varied than the "all exotics, all the time" roster of PGR 3. This time around, the list has opened up a bit more to include everything from the pokey Mini Cooper S to F1 replicas, and even a pickup truck.

Then there are the motorcycles, which make their series debut here. As with the car list, the two-wheeled choices include everything from the relatively modest Buell RR 1200 to the frighteningly powerful MV Augusta F4 Senna. When it comes to handling, the motorcycles in PGR 4 have their ups and downs. Bikes are extremely easy to drive--there's no split between front and rear brakes to worry about--and it's tougher than you might think to get yourself thrown from the saddle. Toss in the fact that bikes are extremely quick off the starting line (due to their power/weight ratio) and that kudos--the in-game currency you earn as a result of stylish driving in the PGR series--are typically easier to rack up on a bike than in a car.

But for the most part bikes aren't much of a challenge and, as a result, aren't really as fun as we were hoping.

The looks

Visually, it's stunning; rain droplets bounce off the hood of your car, or your windshield when driving in first person view, and they'll collect into pools of standing water that become a hydroplaning nightmare for your car or motorbike. You will slip and slide and lose control. Find a way to brake early, or deal with the consequences of slamming your car into a wall after surfing across the water. As in the past, the game doesn't feature vehicular damage beyond the merely cosmetic.

Tracks are all from real life locales such as Tokyo, Shanghai, and New York City. Blast your way down a neon-soaked night track in Shanghai with the Oriental Pearl Tower looming in the background, and you'll be hard-pressed to think of a game that has done as much with urban landscapes as Project Gotham Racing 4. That level of visual quality doesn't come at the expense of performance, either; again, for the most part, the game runs at a rock-steady frame rate. Certainly, it's one of the most impressive-looking games of the year on the Xbox 360.

The game

In Gotham career, the goal here is to become the number one driver in the world by progressing through championships and invitational events strewn throughout the PGR world. The events are based around a calendar, so you'll have access to only a handful of races at any given time.

These races comprise of a variety of the challenges--including hot lap, cone challenges, eliminator, gate challenges, kudos vs. time, and standard street races. Kudos determine your overall position within a particular challenge; in addition to earning a bonus for finishing well within a race, any additional kudos you earn are added to your overall score. At the end of a championship series, you're awarded championship points based on your result and move up the ladder accordingly. In addition, you can buy items such as new tracks and cars, and even a custom Xbox Live gamer picture, with the kudos you've earned in races.

While zipping your way through career mode won't take that long, where the game really shine sis online play. You can race in single and team events through a variety of race types such as elimination, street race, cat and mouse, and the new bulldog mode.

Project Gotham Racing is back and it's bigger, more impressive with newer twists and good enough to take on Forza and Gran Turismo.