PGR2: PGR1: Price: £44.99 Players: 1-8 Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: No Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: Yes Xmas time, sequels to drive... Project Gotham Racing 2 is one of the most hotly-awaited titles on the Xbox and it's safe to say that no-one in that situation will be disappointed. Both the original and this follow-up are like fine wines where patience is its own reward and practice really can make perfect. Just as long as you don't go racing along as if you're playing Midtown Madness 3 then you'll find yourself getting more and more into this release the more you play. More locations, more car classes and... more cars in general here. Take your pick of several routes around Edinburgh, Moscow, Barcelona, Washington D.C., Chicago, Florence, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Sydney and Nurburgring, not only beating your lap times, but gaining Kudos points along the way.

Kudos are obtained, not only by driving faster than before and winning a race, but also by the way you drive. Negotiate an S-bend - for example - and the way in which you swerve round and exit it will depend on the extra points received. The more points you get, the more levels will be unlocked, as well as the chance to drive round in more cars. There are 14 car classes and over 100 cars such as the Mini Cooper S, Ford GT40, BMW Z4 3.0i, Audi TT Roadster, Toyota MR2 Spyder, Porsche Cayenne Turbo, Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) Nur and Lotus Elise. Not only that, but this time round they can sustain damage, which is a great one-up on the prequel.

The graphics have a perfect sheen to them. Drive about, forget about looking at the track but just concentrate on your car. Check out the different angles so you can see the design and the reflections. Lovely. Fantastic recreations of the many different locations too. Race around Hong Kong like a madman or tear up Red Square in Moscow. You know it makes sense. Soundwise, car games often leave a lot to be desired, but that's mainly because all you hear most of the time is the noise of an engine, however realistic they may have made it sound compared to the real beasts. A nice inclusion is the ability to choose your own music and my Xbox Live album of choice is, and always has been, David Bowie's 1987 underrated masterpiece, Never Let Me Down. There are, however, far more other tunes pre-programmed into the game so you won't have to look far for quality material. One problem though - occasionally during games, the soundtrack appears to stutter. This isn't down to the recorded material as it doesn't happen at the same spot each time. No idea what could be causing it though.

Xbox Live is easily where it's at. Split screen and System Link options are included, but if you don't have Live, then you'll be missing out on a large proportion of the fun. Sure, you can race against other people and have all the usual headset-wearing frantic fun, but even when you're not competing against friends and enemies there are other aspects. As you collect Kudos in regular games, you can elect to have your moments of posterity uploaded automatically to the Xbox Live scoreboard. Also uploaded are your ghosts - switch this on during repeated attempts at a level and you'll see the 'ghost' of your best previous race appear to show where you were up to at each point in that race. You can also download ghosts of other players (this didn't work the first time I tried it though) and watch replays of their races with all the usual trimmings you get for your own, such as changing which car to view and the camera angles.

There are thousands of people on Live though, so downloading ghosts is limited to the Top 10 in each of the many, many combinations of races. At first you think you're doing well, climbing the rankings on the scoreboards against everyone else linked up online. Then you see one of the top ghosts and realise you've got a long way to go... Periodically, new content will be available for download via Xbox Live and such announcements for games quickly find their way onto a newsgroup such as uk.games.video.xbox Those who are new to the series will find just what they're looking for, and this release has the additional touches that makes it an essential purchase, mainly because of the inclusion of Xbox Live play. I still feel that it's worth having MM3 as a companion piece for when you prefer some arcade racing that's more off-road.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.