All things Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing

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JaySevenZero
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Metropolis Street Racer

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can write up your thoughts and opinions for Bizarre Creations' Metropolis Street Racer.
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delb2k
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer

Post by delb2k »

This was the game that kicked off my PGR addiction.

Previously my racing had either involved serious SIMs on real locations or arcade handling that accentuated sideways traversal at the expense of time. It seemed that the two would never meet in a satisfactory way, never find a way to bring them both together. MSR was that marriage, that collection of style and speed where the recreations of San Fran, London and Tokyo felt real to me at that time. Driving as fast as I could round those streets, trying to mix up my kudos points while winning races or completing challenges was just exhilirating and I spent hours upon hours trying to find ways to shave seconds off my time or earn those few extra style points. There had been nothing like this in my gaming racing life up to this point, and alongside Sega Rally this is the game I credit for starting my polygonal automotive obsession.

It was just me against myself, no leaderboards, online racing or anything like that. Sure the functionality was available but all I wanted to do was drive my Fiat around fishermans wharf as fast as possible each night. The best driving games make you want to get better at them purely because speed and skill is all you want to improve. MSR, and PGR too, instilled that desire in me. I kept playing because I needed to be faster, better and mote skillful at this game. I could not stop playing.

This meant I could look over the tons of flaws, including the cut features and the bugs, because I just wanted to keep playing. MSR had huge ambition at the time that caused a ton of problems I was lucky enough not to run into. MSR is one of the fondest memories of my formative gaming years, and no doubt going back to it now would rekindle all those fantastic memories again.
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mikeleddy83
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer

Post by mikeleddy83 »

Well I came here to post something on this sublime game and delb2k once again said exactly what I wanted to say better than I could, great writeup! Kudos!
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DomsBeard
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer

Post by DomsBeard »

One of the dreamcast's best games. I've never been a serious racer fan but due the lack of a Mario Kart type game on the Dreamcast I picked this up and put countless hours into it, normally listening to this and racing against my ghost:



Fishermans Wharf was also my favourite course. Easily the best racer on the Dreamcast.
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JaySevenZero
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All things Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can leave your thoughts regarding Project Gotham Racing 3 and/or Project Gotham Racing 4 for potential inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
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JaySevenZero
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Project Gotham Racing / Project Gotham Racing 2

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here is where you can leave your thoughts regarding the Project Gotham Racing / Project Gotham Racing 2 for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Project Gotham Racing / Project Gotham Racing 2

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

I would have first got PGR 2 maybe around 2004-2005. I actually had a bit of a break from gaming at a certain point in my life, and it was after only after I came back to Australia from spending 6 months around England and Europe that I picked up an Xbox, my first new console for quite some time.

Coming in late to that generation meant there was already quite a library out by that time, and Project Gotham Racing 2 reviewed pretty positively, so I picked it up on the cheap.

Graphically, going from PS1 to Xbox with a break inbetween, I thought it looked fantastic at the time. Maybe not so good by today's standards, but a considerable jump from my time with Gran Turismo. That opening lovingly looking over that Ferrari Enzo... never had a car looked so good to me in a game at the time.

And while I love the cars, the real draw for my were the city circuits. Having actually visited places like Barcelona, Florence, Edinburgh, and Paris (DLC) within pretty close proximity to playing this game, it jogged a few memories. While I'm certain that artist liberties are taken in regards to accuracy of those city streets, they felt authentic. Edinburgh with Princess Street, Florence with the Duomo, and the streets of Barcelona, the same ones I strolled through not long before, are now free for me to race through at breakneck speed.

And as for Sydney... I won't lie: as a local, I am not a big fan of Sydney (Melbourne is much better). I think it's a bit on the expensive/overrated/filthy side, but the city circuits again feel right in this game. In real life: not a fun city to drive in. In the game: it's the ideal version of what I assume tourist expect to see when they visit in real life, and unlike the real place, it's a delight to drive through.

I quite enjoy the structure of the game, where if you just want to rush through you can aim for the "steel" medals, knowing that you can come back later to improve. And I always did come back to aim for those platinum medals. Achievement points and trophies wouldn't become standard in games until the next console generation, and those medals felt a bit the same way, where you felt a sense of pride when you achieved those higher challenges.

Again, when it comes to the structure of this and future Project Gotham games, the way the challenges are divided up was very different to traditional circuit based racers. There were bite-sized challenges, like Speed Camera and Overtake challenges, and it created variety, certainly more variety than most racing games at the time.

This is probably not my favourite in the series, but playing this game before others made it an easy sale for future instalments. Like I said, the games real strengths for me were the recreation of real life locations, and how, vicariously through this game, I could revisit those holiday spots I had experienced not too long before. And I could do it all while driving fast cars very recklessly through those city streets (as opposed to murdering my way through the city streets of the Assassins Creed series). Good times.
Bakers_12

Re: Our next-but-two podcast recording (23.3.17): Project Gotham Racing / Project Gotham Racing 2

Post by Bakers_12 »

I'm not a big fan of racing games and when I do get into one it's usually something like MARIO kart or wipeout and not a traditional driving game. I tend to find them boring , once I have won a race on a track I feel like I don't want to do the same thing agien

PGR games are the big exception for me I love them all. A Big part of this is the kodos system that rewards you for driving skilfully and not just being first to cross the line. I added so much to a type of game that I would not normally pick up.

The city's where at the time amazing to speed though. The promise of exact recreations of the city's was quite amazing at the time. London being a stand out to me as I know the city and at speed you would catch a glimpse of a angs staek house or Burger King where one would be only to slow down to see the real nondescript assets used but it did work! One curiosity in the london tracks was that the Posters at on the cinemas around lester square seemed to be for Lost in space, how long was this game in the making for?

My memories of the three PGR games I played are now a bit mixed up , but as the stature of the games changed i.e. Progression, how to unlock cars. I found that each game had things I liked and things that I liked getting dropped in the next game. This lead me to think that there was never a definitive PGR as I would think that a little something was missing.

Saying that they were all very good.
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jbtheskater
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Re: Our next podcast recording (24.3.17): Project Gotham Racing / Project Gotham Racing 2

Post by jbtheskater »

I played a lot of PGR on the xbox. I have fond memories of racing around London in a mini and being blown away by the visuals and the handling model. The Kudos system seemed like an extension of the old arcade racing systems which encouraged you to drive fast, but more importantly, drive with style. Fond though my memories are of PGR, my feelings for it are utterly eclipsed by my feelings for PGR2.

For me, PGR2 was arcade racing at its best. The car handling was great. Some cars you could drive with precision and no braking (the Radical) others required a bit more nuance (the Speed 12). All of them felt fun and individual. The kudos system was more rewarding than in PGR1 and encouraged even more aggressive driving. The track list was fantastic - again capturing the arcade feel of an "around the world" journey. It was the first game I played which featured the Nürburgring.

Not only was it a great arcade racing game, it was a perfect online arcade racing game. It was the first proper xbox live game for me. A group 8 people racing around some fantastic locales, talking, joking and having fun. This was xbox live in the golden era. Great people playing online for fun. I made friends playing this online in 2003 that I still play online with today.

Sure, you could race on the Nürburgring, Moscow, Edinburgh etc.and this was fun. I spent a nonsensical amount of time luanching cars off of another car's roof on one of the Moscow circuits.

The racing and fooling aroound was all good fun, but the real fun was in the homemade games of cat and mouse. My god. I spent hundreds of hours playing cat and mouse online with frineds. One player in the Cerbera Speed 12, the other in the mini. The first speed 12 and mini combo over the line was the winner. It was incredible fun. Homemade, unnofficial, self-policed fun! Incidentally, I never cared much for the formal cat and mouse in PGR3.

I tend to gush when i talk about PGR2 because it came at the perfect point in my life. Younger, freer and without responsibility. Adjectives which also describe this game quite perfectly. This game captured everything I loved about racing games and online play. It was a perfect blend and will always have a place on my shelf.
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