Mrs.Bairdy

I’ve loved Bizarre Creations‘ racing games since MSR on the Dreamcast with PGR2 on the Xbox being the pinnacle of the series for me. PGR3 took a different direction in structure & emphasis, and was obviously limited by the push to be a near-launch game for the 360. Its front-end in particular was off-putting to me. When PGR4 was announced for this year, and close to the release of Halo 3, it appeared like MS was just pushing it out the door with as little promotion as they could. Not good signs, so I was going to skip it. I’m happy to say I didn’t, and that it’s only the second game this year I’ve paid $60 for.

Bizarre have done a fantastic job – they’ve stepped back, evaluated what worked, and refocused on that core feature – rewarding & encouraging skillful driving through kudos. Sure, they’ve added bikes, more tracks, weather etc, but the core is more focused, more refined than in PGR3, which is fine by me. There’s new cities, like Quebec (a return to the closed in twisting tracks of Edinburgh), and old cities like New York & London. St.Petersburg is a new favourite of mine.

I wish I’d written this article, as it’s pretty darn good, summing up some really common ‘mistakes’ we see again & again in games – simple things like turning the ‘long’ way to face a target.