Around the time of the first two Project Gotham Racing games in the early 2000s Bizarre Creations also developed two other games. The first was Fur Fighters which was a third person shooter with cute animals. I haven’t played it myself but it looks like some good, silly fun so I’m putting it on my wish list. The second, which seems even stranger to me, is Disney’s Treasure Planet. I’m a little curious as to how and why Bizarre Creations ended up working on this but I don’t really have any interest in playing it.

This was also a time when the competition for Project Gotham Racing was so high. Racing games of all types were incredibly good with so many great options like Gran Turismo, Burnout, Ridge Racer, V8 Supercars, WRC, Need for Speed, Midnight Club, F-Zero, Wipeout and so many others. Typing this out really makes it sink in about good things used to be and how many games there are that I still need to check out for the first time or go back to. I consider that both the first and second Project Gotham Racing games still easily rank among the best from this time, even with so many high quality choices available.

Project Gotham Racing 2 is almost exactly what you want from a racing game sequel. It aims to be better and goes bigger with a lot more content and features. I believe that some things might have been lost in the process though.

There is quite a lot to like about this sequel and a lot of what was great about the first game carries over. First of all it looks fantastic. The graphics here are really impressive. The amount of content is just as impressive and is a big jump from the first game. There are so many more cars including some extra diversity like SUV, wagon and pickup choices. They all look top notch for their time and have great visual damage too. The amount of locations has more than doubled and all of them are still detailed, accurate and look excellent. There are now 8 cars in races up from 6, although all this did come with the cost of a drop from 60 to 30fps.

There are more ways to earn kudos, a bigger soundtrack and heaps of events including some new ones. Kudos have been changed a bit as you now also have a Kudos level, so it works a bit like experience points. When you level up you get kudos tickets which you can trade in for new cars. Giving the player the choice over what cars to unlock was the right call with how much bigger the car list is here. Xbox Live is now a big part of the game with online play, ghosts and leader boards. They added a showroom and garage where you can walk around in first person looking at the cars, which feels really ahead of its time, and in the garage you’ll also find the Geometry Wars game. However despite being a much bigger game and looking like an excellent upgrade I don’t think it is the better game in many ways.

The car handling is slightly different; the cars now feel a little lighter and stiffer. Driving is still excellent though and sliding around corners feels a little improved. AI of the opponent cars has changed too. I would describe the first game as having crazy, dangerous opponents while here they are just stubborn and might bully you a bit. Track design seems a bit worse here but this could just be a symptom of more content causing me to not get as familiar with each course. I prefer the first game’s style, menus, UI and soundtrack too. Little things like this can matter more than you may expect and this game does just feel blander than the first. They removed the way difficulty worked a little bit and got rid of the Joker concept too. I also think this was the beginning of a shift in the wrong direction away from being a pure arcade street racing game.

Project Gotham Racing 2 has a more standard career like mode called Kudos World Series. This mode is big but linear and drags on too long especially the final few series. There is still a mode here called arcade and it is quite good as the challenges on offer involve using a specific car. It feels like a good change of pace and forces you to use a lot of different cars. The countdown timer, that people familiar with arcade racing games would know, is gone impacting the feeling of urgency. They also added the Nürburgring track which is not a city streets location. This is the start of shift towards Project Gotham Racing being a more general console racing game.

Project Gotham Racing 2 is a bigger, more enhanced game. But the first Project Gotham Racing is a better experience in some ways and I just slightly prefer it. Even though I prefer the first I still love this and Project Gotham Racing 2 is still a very special game. It’s a fun, highly polished, content rich racing game, in which you can slide a smashed up Ferrari through the streets of Moscow or Sydney while music blasts in the background and that makes it definitely worth playing even more than 20 years after its release.

8.7/10

I wouldn’t recommend trying to play the first or second Project Gotham Racing on Xbox 360 because they just do not work properly.