[Munkey Boy]

So, what did you make of PGR4 then? Post your impressions, and please leave a vote in our poll (be aware, it will leave your name next to your score - if you've already voted, you can see who gave what scores by clicking on the numbers to the right of the bars).

A 10 should only be given for a landmark game that sets new rules, a 9 for a truly excellent game without a fundamental flaw, and an average game that does things right but nothing special should get a 5 (not a 7 like some reviews would have you believe).

[nick501]

Not a bad game by any means but i felt they relied on the weather effects a bit too much to shake things up. I found them annoying overall and spoilt the races.

The Achievements could've been distributed better and made less gimmicky. ie there is no recognition or motivation for completing career on the harder difficulty setting, as for gimmicky achievements i'm refering to the ones like 'strike a pose' and 'back it up' etc

I also think it came out at the wrong time too. IMHO pgr3 was the only decent racer around till forza 2 and with both these games getting a hammering PGR4 felt tired even before kick-off.

[ADC]

I'm quite liking it. But its still to easy to spin people out or be spun out, the shift glitch is still there, the bumper cam is too low and not that different from the bonnet cam.
The on-line side i'm quite liking if you get a decent lobby and i like the pick up and play aspect which wasn't there with forza2.

Not seen any wallriding as yet but if the glitch is still there and the easy spin out are i'm guessing the wallriding is as well.

A big fat 7 from me.

[featherhall]

I gave it an 8. Its still a superb game, but for me the following points make it lose marks

1) Tracks. For me they could have chosen new cities instead of London, Tokyo and New York again. Theses are boring in my opinion, and if they were going to go back to previous cities they should have at least included Edinburgh which was by and large alot of peoples favourite.
2) Career Mode. The Majors are a major pain for me, as if you choose the wrong vehicle the likelihood of winning the final is non existent. I would have preferred to be able to choose a different vehicle for the final, as you are left with no option but to play through the final with little or no chance of winning it
3) Bikes - at first they were a novelty, but now I find them a major pain and very frustrating to drive. Probably my bad driving though
4) The Cone challenges - the cone gate ones. These are boring beyond belief and hurt my eyes
5) Achievements - ok, a minor point, but they are given away like candy to start with, and the points given for gaining all golds or all platinums are ridiculously low.



The great points are - online, the cars, the graphics, the sound, Shanghai, weather effects, and funnily enough Career mode (apart from my above criticism).

To be honest, I think the series has probably run its course now, although if they were to go for completely new cities next time it may yet have something to offer.

I'm glad I bought it, but felt it could have been awesome instead of very good.

For me PGR2 was and still is the best in the series. That rocked when it came out

[D J C 197]

I like it. Very 'pick up and play' which is good for me since you don't need to invest loads of time to be competitive online.

I enjoy most aspects of the game but there are a negatives: Achievments are not brilliant with some silly ones as mentioned above. Collision detection is also abit poor. The inclusion of weather seems to have been over done as also noted with a lot of ranked races having some rain or snow. Ranked games can sometimes seem to take forever to find when you have a few in your party.

Overall, I can see me playing it for quite a while yet providing the online doesn't dry up which I hope it won't. I'd also like to see some tourneys again.

A 7 from me.

[SportiveUK]

A voted an 8 for this even though I still think it is my favourite racing game. It strikes the right balance between arcade and simulation and although it is unrealistic regards how fast you can drive the cars etc, driving the best racing line still gets the best times and you can "feel" when you get it right. (That's with cars, bikes are just for fun for me).

I think the offline modes are better as I enjoyed working my way to rank #1 but whether I will bother trying to complete arcade on Platinum for only 10 achievement points is another matter! I still hate the cone challenges. It's just too hard to see them coming up with all the blurring effect, especially in bumper cam. Get rid of the cone challenges!

I think the AI is dodgy (more so than PGR3). Sometimes, on the same difficulty level you can walk events and other times you get totally taken out and on the harder settings, that's race over.

Also, it does not happen much but it is annoying nonetheless.... there is slowdown with some of the weather effects. In my opinion if the game can't be made to run at a rock solid frame rate with effects in place, then the effects need to be reduced or removed. It makes me mad Having said that the weather does change the dynamic of the races although I was led to believe the effects would be rather more random.... the puddles always seem to appear in the same place so I guess it must just always rain in the same parts of the track!

However, a great game and I think the best so far on 360 for the overall experience of fun racing.

[nick501]

Also, it does not happen much but it is annoying nonetheless.... there is slowdown with some of the weather effects. In my opinion if the game can't be made to run at a rock solid frame rate with effects in place, then the effects need to be reduced or removed.

Agreed, some of it is back to the Dreamcast's MSR in places, a real suprise considering the hardware.

[Shanks Kop]

Good pick up and play, but as polished and easy it is to get in to, there is something a little lacking with this game, maybe in parts to the plethora of racing game choices, I’m a little raced out,.

7/10

[inzaman]

I voted 8.

I have had this title for a while now but have only recently got round to playing it as i have been playing other games. The last PGR i played was PGR2 and having done all the Platinum medals on that i am glad this has also got that feature and is proving just has hard . I also really like the career mode, the motorbikes, and weather as these really add a new dimension imo. Also at the moment i like that it still seems quite arcade'y with most races seeming to last about 5 or so minutes. Forza 2 races where starting to get a bit too long for my liking I do miss the cones challanges of PGR2 though as these where excellent and great for racking up Kudos.

[Razor]

I preferred PGR3.

[WillieCocker]

9 for me.

[Pooon]

Originally Posted by inzaman

The last PGR i played was PGR2 and having done all the Platinum medals on that i am glad this has also got that feature and is proving just has hard

thats odd, if you did pgr2 on platinum, doing pgr4 should be a walk in the park, they have dumbed it down so much its laughable at times.#

anywho, #4 was an improvement over #3 but the online aspect still sucks major balls so not worth more than a 7 from me

[Tetlee]

This is a above average 6/10 for me, sounds harsh but I've really failed to find much enjoyment out of this game. The single player career has some good moments, but as soon as I started to enjoy myself the game seemed to throw into something tedious like cone challenges or time vs. kudos. As much as I wanted to enjoy the game by sticking at it I just never felt rewarded, also the car handling just wasn't to my liking and by the end of the career not one car stood out from the rest as my favourite.

Some games I can enjoy things such as time trials etc. when they're mixed into the career(Grid would be an example) but in PGR4 even those I pretty much hated. Some of the eliminator stages were fun, as were a good few of the street races, but in general I simply didn't like the way the game mixed it up and it killed all my enthusiasm to load the game TBH.

Another big critisism is the online, following in PGR3's shoes, PGR4 is once again a real stubborn so & so to get a few friends together. I have no idea what the issues are with PGR but it always seems to be s truggle to get 7 or 8 people into the lobby, hugely frustrating and usually results in one or two players being left out of the games.

I actaully quite liked the weather effects, the storms especially added a nice atmosphere and seperated the game from the majority of weather-less racing games that seem to be all we get lately(even DiRT was without weather effects which surprised me).

All in all, a decent game, but nothing more than that for me, GRiD was everything this game wasn't and for me walked all over PGR4 in pretty much all respects.

[inzaman]

Originally Posted by Pooon

thats odd, if you did pgr2 on platinum, doing pgr4 should be a walk in the park, they have dumbed it down so much its laughable at times.#

anywho, #4 was an improvement over #3 but the online aspect still sucks major balls so not worth more than a 7 from me

I havent got all the cars yet and i am flitting between Arcade and Career so losing that Arcade sharpness, hence why it feels hard at the moment. I need a good run at the arcade to get 'into it'. Dont get me wrong some of the Platinums have been easy - One on Ones, the Speed Camera challenges are all far easier than PGR2 which could be swines.
Also with PGR2 i was off work for 6 weeks redundancy so pretty much played it all day most days where as with PGR4 i only have a bit of time at night and split my time between that and COD4 online.

[FatBoysOnTour]

Having loved PGR2 on the original Xbox, I bought PGR3 as soon as I got a 360. I was impressed, but it didn't grab me the same as PGR2, I didn't think the tracks were as good as PGR2.

PGR4 still isn't as good as PGR2. It's a bit more pick-up-and-play which I like, but the tracks still aren't as good as PGR2, although they are better than those in PGR3. The game also grips me a lot more than PGR3, and I'm really enjoying working my way through it. Well worth the £9 I paid for it in Blockbuster the other day.

[zinger5]

Not sure why but I didn't really enjoy PGR4 all that much - the weather effects were really nice and there were some great moments, but I find myself playing Grid or Midnight Club LA or Burnout Paradise and never PGR4 now.

6/10

[Digiboxer]

Im a great fan of PGR 4 on 360, especially like being on Xbox Live. its such a thrill beating the other drivers (well sometimes!).

What next PGR 5 ?? any ideas?

[ParaNoiA]

I gave this game a 9... On the merits that every night it leaves me with a big smile on my face and jaw ache after all the laughing... theres normally 6 - 8 of us that reguraly play online 95% of the time its bulldog with a few races thrown in... This game is a true winner in online fun... the career mode was ok while it lasted but got a bit tedious after a while...

But I buy games for there online abilty and this has bucket loads :D:D

[Pooon]

Originally Posted by Digiboxer

What next PGR 5 ?? any ideas?

IF there is another one it wont be made by Bizarre Creations(thankfully, since the quality has only gone down since #2). There were rumours that the next one would be made by the people who make Forza, Turn10, but even IF that is true it'll be along while yet while they work on Forza3

[Trist]

Originally Posted by Pooon

IF there is another one it wont be made by Bizarre Creations(thankfully, since the quality has only gone down since #2). There were rumours that the next one would be made by the people who make Forza, Turn10, but even IF that is true it'll be along while yet while they work on Forza3

I've seen you say that before and I was wondering if its actually worth me picking up PGR2 and playing on the 360 as its backwards compatible.

Is it actually better than PGR3 and PGR4? Or is it just that at the time it was so much better, and the others didn't evolve on PGR2?

[landwatcher]

Love this game so much. And wish to attend the WCG aha

[Pooon]

PGR2 for me was/is the best/most fun racing game ever made and both 3&4 have been othing short of disapointing. I've not tried to play it on the 360 since it became backwards compatible though, i'm not much of a 'retro' gamer so dont want to tempt fate and play it again. But if you've not played it ever i cant recommend it enough. The single player mode is nigh on perfect starting out in a Ford Focus and working upwards to a TVR Cerbera with everything inbetween, the actual events are all the proper, core events, so there are street races, timed laps/speed gate and cone challenges, thats it!!! thats all there needs to be and they are all excellent. Unlike 3&4 there are alot more cities to race in and the tracks are sooooo much better as well, especially the tracks in Edinburgh and Moscow. PGR2 is also pad smashingly difficult, thats the beauty of it for me really, made before the days developers had to worry about catering for a more social market, the game can be finished on Silver difficulty, wich most people seemed to do(which unlocked the Porsche 911 GT1, great car) then Gold which was a bit of a step up, but then there was Platinum, Satan himself must have writen the AI or set the time/score limits for the challenges as they are savage, savage, savage. Then there was the online side to the game, OMG what a great time, i wont go into it as the online is probably dead now, but it was perfection, no other word for it

[Caveman643]

I agree with Pooon. PGR2 is the best out of the lot. It's the gameplay which is far superior to PGR3 and 4. Mind you I also thoroughly enjoyed 3 & 4. In 2 there is no stupid Time Vs Kudos or Superstars. The cone challenge is about gaining Kudos by sliding your car through the gates and racking up big points. I spent many a fun hour trying to master the cone challenges. Got no where near platinum level though.The cities and the tracks were more interesting than on 3 & 4. Moscow will never be beaten on any other console or race game.

I recently had another go at it on my old Xbox. It brought back fond memories. However, the graphics are old now. Nothing really wrong just of their time. I would certainly suggest that if anyone can get hold of a copy it is well worth a go.

Hopefully, if there is to be a PGR5, it goes back to how PGR2 was in the gameplay side of things. Get rid of Time Vs Kudos, Superstars, the Michelin test track and bikes. I like bikes but they don't fit into the PGR universe. Bring back Moscow, Edinburgh, Sydney and Hong Kong. In fact just update PGR2 with modern graphics and re-release it.

[Pooon]

Originally Posted by Caveman643

In fact just update PGR2 with modern graphics and re-release it.

Amen. PGR2-HD, id buy that for £100, install it on the HDD then weld the drive shut. Job done

[simon69]

I think PGR3 was better, major dissapointment for me.

[TJP]

Bought an Xbox a few months ago, I waited for the RROD issues to be completely sorted out, and bought both PGR's 3 & 4.

PGR3 was quite a lot of fun but PGR4 blew it and all the other racing games I've played thus far out of the water.

Great graphics (the weather effects are brilliant), the sense of speed is fantastic unlike Forza 2, good balance between sim and arcade. Adding the bikes was a great idea too.

PGR2 is still the high mark of the series, although for me #4 is right up there.

A top effort by Bizarre Creations