So second time around for most of us & we’ve all bought PGR4 again! The past few nights of playing this online with you guys has lead me to a couple of conclusions, at £14.99 it’s a frigging steal! We got rid of this game way to early last time around, thirdly RACING GAMES CAN ACTUALLY BE FUN!...and most importantly it’s been too long since we’ve had a room of us playing a game and nothing but laughs could be heard!
I’ve never been a huge fan of racing games, I like them like my women, simple & easy!....Forza was stupidly hard for me, I know many racing fans prefer that type of “realism”…but I’m just not in to SIMs. PGR is really pick up and play, and it has the kinda customisation options I like….pick your colour and that’s it!...Happy days!......
I’ve not played single player much this time around, so I won’t bother reviewing that! (Checking my achievements you can see I’ve got a few so I did play it a lot, and given what I said about racing games, it should indicate the single player is decent!)
Online is where it’s at!.....For me the games are more enjoyable when we’ve got a (private) room of 8. There’s a good few race modes & plenty of tracks to keep things fresh. A current favourite seems to be the elimination race. A really cracking mode, where everyone’s a winner apart from the first person to be eliminated!...The race starts and the clock is already counting down, in 60 seconds the car in last place will be out of the race, the driver forced to watch everyone else duke it out! – This mode is currently my favourite - the scramble at the starting line, everyone jockeying for position and then as the first corner approaches mayhem breaks out! Everyone adapts the policy of “hit or be hit!” as a chorus of “YOU BASTARD”…”YOU FUCKING MOFO” flows through the lobby. Normally the front 2 make a little get away as everyone else appears to be more concerned with stopping each other than winning. Every 60 seconds another car is eliminated until only 1 remains.
Normal race – Normal race is pretty straight forward really, enjoyable but lacks the added spice of knowing being last at any point could be the end of your race!
Team race – A good mode which adds incentive for team play, though after the past few nights the PEAs may need to review our interpretation of that! Still though it gives everyone something to play for no matter what position they are in the race!
Cat & Mouse – Totally insane and a good laugh, me and gremmo gave dags a right kicking on this mode lol…good times….This sees 1 of your team in a pish car and the others in supercars….(same for both teams) the idea is your pish car must finish before their pish car…sounds easy, but the other 6 mofo’s on the track are blocking you & doing all things nasty to stop you! Another fun mode which is enjoyable to play and helps break things up
Bulldog – Pretty much a car version of tiggy it!...1 Person starts of as the fox, and they have to capture all the hares, once a hare is caught (ie crashed in to lol) they also become the fox, and in turn as the fox’s numbers grow it because harder and harder to avoid escape…
The graphics are lovely too on a HD telly, which always helps!
Single Player - Not reviewed
Graphics – 8/10 – Lovely but have been surpassed by more recent games, still good looking though.
Online – 9/10 – Enjoyable game modes, a great laugh, easy enough learning curve!
Overall – 10/10 – A 10 score for what it is. For me the best racing game currently on the 360, it’s cheap, easy to play, a great laugh, looks great & in looking at the release line up due for the next few months it could be a saving grace for us. We’ve done shooters to death, and a nice welcome break with racing could what be what the peas need. The past few nights of everyone playing together again has been class and a great laugh. I’ll be looking to start a PGR league soon. Look out on peachat soon for the format I’m proposing
Finally the only problem I can see with PGR now is there’s about 11 of us who have it, and the lobby only holds 8 people!...