Since finding my Xbox 360 I have been playing a lot of games. Never before (since the RTCW incident) have I been so into gaming, I blame achievements and gamerscore for that. But is the system truely next gen? I am going to review some of the games that I have been playing and compare them to the current gen games.

Project Gotham Racing

Let me preface this review by saying that I have never before been so into a racing game, other than Mario Kart that is. Since buying Project Gotham Racing 2 to hold me over until I bought a 360 I have been truely hooked. That said the jump between the two versions, outside of graphic presentation, is not that big.

What’s next gen about it?

• Graphics and presentation
• In dash view renders each car’s interior for a really immersive experience
• Even better Live! integration
• Gotham TV
• Achievements

What’s not so next gen?

• No force feedback steering wheel
• Load times are terrible and really take away from the entire experience. You even have to wait for the menu to load after finishing a race.
• No significance to leveling up. I would like to see a training mode that is required for online play, something where you qualify for each level of racing by learning how to drive properly.
• Create a course tracks are hard to race, the turns are marked with faded back markers that are difficult to see. Why are these courses not uploadable and ratable on Live?

Besides the graphics there is nothing in the game that they couldn’t or haven’t already done on the Xbox.

PGR3 is a really great game and I can not wait to see what they can do with the next version when they have more time to develop it for the 360 hardware.