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Is PGR1 the best PGR game?

It's odd, I always see complaints about the balance in PGR3, but I'd always thought the idea of it was to be all about the supercars, and about picking just one car or favorites as your "ride" through the whole thing, if you wanted. In a certain sense, there /is/ no car upgrade progression in PGR3 at all, yet that seems to be the point.

I like the variety of cities in PGR2, but as an overall package, I like PGR3 best of the series so far.
 
PGR2 felt like a complete package, unlike 3. I really miss all those cities, like Washington DC , Sydney and all the others. Lets hope PGR4 fixes this problem.
 
Kaijima said:
It's odd, I always see complaints about the balance in PGR3, but I'd always thought the idea of it was to be all about the supercars, and about picking just one car or favorites as your "ride" through the whole thing, if you wanted. In a certain sense, there /is/ no car upgrade progression in PGR3 at all, yet that seems to be the point.
Click to expand...

Indeed, it was the point of PGR3 that you *don't* need to slug through a lot of races with slower cars to get at the supercars. I remember this stated explicitly by Martin Chudley (the founder/owner of Bizarre) in a fall 2005 interview in EDGE magazine. What we, the players, and presumably the designers at Bizarre have learned from this, however, is that we *do* need some kind of sense of progression in a game, to have a really satisfying experience...
 
Blimblim said:
PGR2, no contest IMHO. The cities were so much better than anything in PGR1 or PGR3. Edinburgh, Sidney, Moscow, Hong Kong... Awesome cities.
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Yeah but San Francsico was better than all of those. Flying Corvettes FTMFW!
 
San Francisco >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Vegas. It's not even ****ing close.
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Bah. :D

There hasn't been a San Francisco track in a street racer that has come anywhere close to what Bizarre achieved when they modeled the Las Vegas strip in PGR3. Sanfran would be pretty cool, but it hasn't been realized quite yet. Only 2 games off of the top of my head have even succeeded (tried?)...SF Rush and Crazy Taxi.
 
The thing about PGR3 single player is that if you don't achieve at the higher levels then the game is flat. I achieved platinum :D and found it to be one of my most rewarding gamer play experiences ever. In contrast I found PGR2 too limiting becuase of the difficulty I had doing the platinum cone challenges with the limited selection of cars that the game presents for each challenge.
 
BrokenSymmetry said:
PGR2, because it had:

- The most interesting cities: Edinburg, Barcelona, Sidney, etc.
- A well-balanced career mode.
- Radio stations.
- A great online mode. The poor lobbies and poor matchmaking in PGR3 destroyed the online mode of PGR3 pretty soon.
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This must be emphasized, PGR2 is the king
 
Can't start new topics, so I am forced to bump old ones to bring up something...

LTTP: PGR3!

With the release of PGR4, there are a lot of unwanted copies of PGR3 floating around. It was time to make my move.

I've barely scratched the surface so far, but it's enough to get a better impression of PGR3 (beyond playing the demo). There are only 4 cities in this game plus Nürburgring. Granted, Tokyo has always been great, but I would have gladly traded Las Vegas/New York for San Fransisco. But that's just me.

I'm pretty satisfied with the way the game controls though I would have wished for some sensitivity settings on the analog triggers. The cars are also agressive. They got me tail-spinning on my first few runs so I am more careful now. Great choice of viewpoints too though the in-cockpit one is ultimately limiting.

Soundtrack sucks. No need to dwell on this. :lol

Though I stil prefer 60 fps, I must say 30fps + blur can be better than 30 fps with no blur, if handled properly. That little sidenote comes because I've had some other play sessions with Motorstorm recently and I just can't get over how choppy it looks and feels. PGR3 seems better at it and it is faster no less. My only complaint is the blur appears to hide vital details, especially apparent in the Cone Gate challenges where these cones become visible pretty late sometimes.

Speaking of graphics, I am unsure if Bizarre wanted to achieve realism... or not. The game is definitely more colorful than real-life, but it is also darker and with less contrasts. I made sure to check the screen calibration option and my monitor is supposedly a bit too bright. Broad daylight should appear a lot more brighter and sometimes blinding, yet it sometimes looks like there's a solar eclipse. Particularly evident in 'sunny' Las Vegas. I had similar misgivings about night driving: lack of contrasts (and too much bloom lighting on some courses).

But overall, MSR and PGR1 are still better. :p
 
EDGE has PGR2 listed in the 100 best videogames of all time...and EDGE > all of GAF put together.

...and yes, PGR2 is the best by far. I picked PGR4 with the TRU deal so I couldn't comment on it.
 
Linkzg said:
Project Gotham Racing
Metropolis Street Racer

I always thought it was because Bizarre liked their DC comics
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That's a take I've never thought of before. I always thought it was called Project Gotham because the new city in the game was New York (the others were retained from MSR) and the Project part was a just a development name which stuck.
 
PGR1 has the smoothest motion because of the framerate. doesn't mean it's the most fun, but definitally the easiest on my eyes since I cannot stand racing games that are much less than 60fps.
 
Instigator said:
Can't start new topics, so I am forced to bump old ones to bring up something...

LTTP: PGR3!

With the release of PGR4, there are a lot of unwanted copies of PGR3 floating around. It was time to make my move.

Soundtrack sucks. No need to dwell on this. :lol


Speaking of graphics, I am unsure if Bizarre wanted to achieve realism... or not. The game is definitely more colorful than real-life, but it is also darker and with less contrasts. I made sure to check the screen calibration option and my monitor is supposedly a bit too bright. Broad daylight should appear a lot more brighter and sometimes blinding, yet it sometimes looks like there's a solar eclipse. Particularly evident in 'sunny' Las Vegas. I had similar misgivings about night driving: lack of contrasts (and too much bloom lighting on some courses).

But overall, MSR and PGR1 are still better. :p
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Cool bit of info. That more colorful art style has a lot to due to the HDR.
Play in 3rd person mode & than switch to in-car view & the colorful style is gone.
The windshields sorta act as protection from the sunlight/HDR that cause the vibrant colors.
The thing your seeing from being blinding bright to a solar eclipse is again HDR.
Trying looking towards the sun in real life, it's blinding light, then turn away from it & your vision will dim significantly.

Soundtrack doesn't suck either, Bloc Party ftw :D

PGR3 is the most under rarted in the series, gets a lot of hate just because it didn't dumb down or restrict the gameplay compared to PGR2.
 
PGR4 is the only PGR game I've ever really liked. Less stupid cone bullshit, refined Kudos system that actually seems fun, and more focus on actual racing. Plus it looks balls out amazing to boot.
 
MobiusPigeon said:
pgr4 is the best PGR for the single player experience. I havent played online yet.
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A lot of PGR fans think it's the worst.
You can not re-play any of the races after you finish them, you can't switch between cars in any of the events etc...
 
dankir said:
PGR2
PGR3
PGR4
MSR
PGR

/thread
Click to expand...

I didn't enjoy 4's demo, still ordered it. I've been having second thoughts, I enjoyed 3 but 4's demo felt very similar. Maybe I'll send it back.

Edit: I loved 1 and 2 actually, 3 as well. Sounds like 4 didn't meet expectations.
 
dankir said:
PGR2
PGR4
MSR
PGR
PGR3

/thread
Click to expand...
fixed...

I'm sorry, but San Francisco, Radio stations, Day/Night cycles, and fun beat out the mess that was PGR3.

And Diet Tango...because you're weak.
 
FTWer said:
A lot of PGR fans think it's the worst.
You can not re-play any of the races after you finish them, you can't switch between cars in any of the events etc...
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that you can re-play events the next season? Or do you mean "re-playing events after you have won them" (which I'm not sure if you can)? In that case, why would you even want to? Switching between cars is something that has annoyed me a bit as well, but I understand why they did it. It forces you think a bit more about what car you pick, instead of just taking the fastest one for the challenges that require speed, and the best one for drifting in the Kudos challenges.
Also, I haven't had time to try Arcade Mode, but isn't that basically Classic-PGR, with different medals and all the shit that we had in the previous games?

I for one am glad that they decided to do something new with the single-player game, it's been the weakest part of all the past PGR's (and maybe still is, but atleast it's improved now).

PGR4 is in my opinion easily, EASILY the best PGR yet.
 
dankir said:
PGR2
PGR3
PGR4
MSR
PGR

/thread
Click to expand...
Pleast tell me why you think PGR3 is better than 4?
Let me guess, it's because it has more garages, right? Or is it the worse graphics? Less tracks? Less variety in cars?
Less interesting single-player? Worse online? No weather effects? No bikes (well, I like 'em) ? It can't be the longer load-times, can it?

Suburban Cowboy said:
no, geometry wars is the best pgr game.
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Yes, but that is one of those unspoken agreements, you don't even have to mention it.
Sort of like how when I say "Halo 3 is the best looking game I have ever seen", I really mean that it's second, after Crysis.
 
Rhazer Fusion said:
Wow, alot of people must not like PGR4.
Click to expand...

I think most just like another in the series more than PGR4.

FTWer said:
A lot of PGR fans think it's the worst.
You can not re-play any of the races after you finish them, you can't switch between cars in any of the events etc...
Click to expand...

You're partly correct. The arcade mode is about the same as the career mode in PGR3. The career in PGR4 mode is crap indeed.
 
This series makes me buy consoles, but PGR2 is far and away my favourite. On the other hand, I was quite upset by how PGR3 was ruined by the lack of difficulty.
 
I remember reading that Project Gotham was the code/beta name for MSR back in the day, once they moved to the xbox they went with the old name.
 
PGR2 just worked, wasnt cluttered, great selection of cars and tracks and was very polished. I spent so many hours playing that game online and its the first xbox game to actually intergrate single player with online stats properly.
 
Ryudo said:
PGR2 just worked, wasnt cluttered, great selection of cars and tracks and was very polished. I spent so many hours playing that game online and its the first xbox game to actually intergrate single player with online stats properly.
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Yes, and lets not forget the soundtrack. Even the title theme was very fitting and memorable.
 
Linkzg said:
Project Gotham Racing
Metropolis Street Racer

I always thought it was because Bizarre liked their DC comics
Click to expand...


Actually you hit the nail in the head. I actually thought the same thing and afterwards I read a Bizarre interview about it being the reason behing the games' naming. So, yes.
 
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