Project Gotham Racing 4
Bad weather has for obvious reasons traditionally led to a market upturn in the number of hours spent playing games, but I can't remember it ever featuring quite so heavily in a game before.
New installments in well established series always needed a few novelty's to tempt punters who already own previous incarnations of the title.
The most obvious - and indeed successful - one here is the ten specific sets of environmental conditions that can see you careering through a shimmering heatwave or fighting to hold onto your back end as it careers across a treacherous ice.
As the seasons turn and you traverse the globe so the weather changes in an innovation that not only looks spectacular but adds a genuinely new dimension to game play.
PGR fans will also want to know that the developers have introduced bikes to the mix for the first time which proves a qualified success and revamped the career mode which is an unqualified disaster.
Rather than undertaking a succession of races you now effectively race for a full season and inexplicably - not to mention infuriatingly - cannot retry races after completing them.
You can abort and restart if things go badly wrong, but if you are beaten to the end by the opponent it will be a virtual year before you can have another crack at improving your ratings and medal count. This is particularly annoying because so much of your success in this otherwise brilliant game is contingent upon stunts, trickery and using the always hugely enjoyable drift effect to maximum effect while racing.
Unlocking new garages, vehicles and levels depends on brilliant performances and you will frequently feel an urge to retake a troublesome stretch of track in order to improve your overall time.
It is some consolidation that progression is not helped by second or even third place finishes and this is likely to irritate people who enjoy nailing every corner of a course before moving on. It looks awesome though, with the skylines framing city based racecourses from London to St Petersburg and the online is supposed to be great.
While it's certainly among the best available racers and equipped with just enough new bells and whistles to qualify as a genuine advance on PGR3, Sadly this does not scale the heady headlights of its predecessors.
PGR4 verdict:
Looks great, shame we can't have another go.
4/5.
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