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The Project Gotham Racing Conundrum

It's a racing game… No that's not it. Wait! it's a street racing game… not quite that either? Okay, how 'bout this: It's a white-knuckle, adrenalin-frothing, addictive pursuit of the 25 fastest, most stylish and most desirable cars around in a romp through four major metropolises. The goals are speed and Kudos, a style scoring and risk-taking system that makes cornering on two wheels, e-brake sliding, and excessive air time pay off big time.

London, New York, Tokyo, and San Francisco are the host cities for this unorthodox brand of street racing with over 200 race circuits—and not all of them are on established streets. So you get to race in places that would get you a little more than pinched in the real world.

Grab "rare mileage" like up the steps in London's Trafalgar Square and down the paths of New York's Central Park. Doing well on your time? Turn around and jump the steps at Trafalgar Square for great air time to earn extra Kudos. Mess around too much and you lose the Kudos. Got it?

The 25 performance cars in Gotham range from the easily obtainable Volkswagen's New Beetle RSI to the ultra-exceptional Ferrari 360 Modena. Each car starts its race looking like it just got back from the detailer. How it looks when the race is over is up to you.

The reflections in the car's metal skins are spectacular almost to the point of distraction.Just for fun, stop over a steam cloud escaping from a manhole cover and watch how it wafts around the curves of the car.

Finally, there's the music with introductions by real DJs from the four cities you're racing in. Project Gotham Racing isn't like any racing game I've played but all of the elements come together to make a game that's hard to pigeonhole—a true conundrum, the good kind!

By Don Schifter