Project Gotham Racing 3 is nearly everything I expected a 360 game to be. It has amazing graphics, fantastic game play and introduces some new elements to gaming that you never would have imagined.

The first thing you notice about PGR 3 is its insane graphics, I'm talking slit your throat and put your head in the fridge insane. The cars are liquid, shiny things that move around like they have some real weight behind them.

PGR3 Is loaded with 80 cars, but getting them is just as hard as ever. You still have to earn kudos through stylish driving and by winning races.

Actually, almost all of the play mechanics are unchanged for the bulk of the offline portion of the game. But those stunning graphics and robust physics more than make up for that.

Online play is another story entirely. Bizarre Creations devoted a lot of time to turning PGR3 into a showcase for the Live experience, and they delivered.

Your online career uses cars from your solo career garage, but that's about it. To play an online game in career mode you have to choose a themed event (it will only let you choose the ones that you have cars for) and then wait for people to join you for the race.

The online career mode will automatically match you against players of similar skill, which is likely why I had such a hard time getting a race up I suck. All career races are broadcast live on Xbox Live. That's right, people can hop in and just watch you suck or pwn newbs.

It may sound silly to think that a stranger would want to watch you play a video game, but after hopping onto Gotham TV through the game I was a believer. You can switch between any of the cars racing and a multitude of camera angles. The game supports up to 30,000 spectators per a race, so you can bet Microsoft is a believer too.

If you're not up for the challenge of ranked and viewed races, you can go into a mode called playtime which allows you to play what amounts to quick pick-up races.

At first glance Project Gotham Racing 3 may seem to be a prettier, more robust version of its predecessors, but once you pop the hood you come to realize this is a game that has been redesigned from the ground up around the concept of online competition.

PGR3 is truly the first game designed for pro-gaming, I can't wait to see how the gaming world reacts.

I gave Project Gotham Racing 3 four and a half out of five.

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