With the launch of the Xbox 360 there's quite a good selection of games available and one of the main questions friends and family are continually asking me is "which game should I pick up with my new Xbox 360?" Well it's not really an easy answer as there are at least one or more games from each of the main genres and they all range from fairly solid, to great to awesome. In my opinion while Project Gotham Racing 3 (from now on PGR3) is an incredible looking racer, many people may look at it as suffering from a lack of "next-generation innovation", it's a quality racer through and through with some of the best graphics out of all the launch titles and a few great new features as well.

PGR3 is, obviously, the third game in the (now) long running Xbox Project Gotham series. Featuring incredibly detailed cars, plenty of fun and challenging tracks, intuitive and responsive handling, the series goes from strength to strength. PGR3 continues the fine form of its predecessors which have been one of my favourite series on the Xbox and features some great new additions just begging for, and worthy of your attention. It's hard for me to pick a 'best launch title' but for racing fans, PGR3 is definitely the one to grab and as a clue to its addictive qualities, it kept me hooked until I had completed all the trophy events. Sure, not all on gold, and a few bronze medals here and there, but I found it hard to turn this game off.

Thankfully the gameplay in PGR3 remains pretty much unchanged from PGR2 which is a good thing. Fans of the series will feel right at home once they settle in, complete the first few events and re-familiarisation with the newly tweaked Kudos system takes hold. The main Career portion of the game is spread over 23 events that take place in New York City, Las Vegas, Tokyo, London and the mighty Nurburgring (the scene of many a lengthy PGR2 Xbox Live race). Unfortunately one of the main drawcards for me in PGR2, the Sydney level, is noticeably absent this time around which is a real shame. Hopefully a reworked-next-generation version of Sydney or another Australian City (crosses fingers for Melbourne this time), or even some of the classic cities from past games such as San Francisco or Paris will be made available either for free, or as Marketplace content in the future.

As in fine PGR tradition it isn't merely enough to get to the finish line first, you've got to race hard, put the pedal to the metal, meet the objectives but at the same time, do it with the style and grace of James Bond in his Aston Martin. Every win rewards you with cash to purchase new cars but your ranking is solely dictated by the amount of Kudos points you can rack up during each race. Points are awarded for performing drifts, power slides, getting air or up on two wheels or drafting and overtaking to name a few. It's also possible to link Kudos rewards together for combos and you'll need to master these if you want to rank well online. You see, thanks to the new 'Persistent Xbox Live' on the Xbox 360, your Solo Career is ranked and at the end of every race, your Kudos score is compared to other racers around the globe. The game can be played offline if you choose, but you'll miss out not only on bragging rights, but the Achievements that contribute to your Gamerscore.

The A.I difficulty throughout the solo career felt easier for me than in PGR2 and throughout the whole career mode I only had to resort to bronze medals 3-5 times. Silver or Gold were fairly easy to achieve on the majority of events but every single attempt at a Platinum medal resulted in tears I'm afraid. The A.I does take a noticeable jump in difficulty on the harder settings which will present quite a challenge to fans looking to squeeze every dollar out of the game, of course this isn't a bad thing and I was expecting Platinum to be next to impossible for me and no doubt there are already gamers overseas that have probably completed the whole game at this level just like there was for PGR2 so the challenge has been laid down for the first Australian to do so as well. The great thing about the medal system in PGR3 is that even if you're bad at the game, you're able to progress just by selecting easier medals and completing the game with all bronze is possible if you so choose to. There will never be a point where you get hopelessly stuck in PGR3 as in a lot of other games.

The Kudos system deserves another mention as it's obvious that quite a few tweaks have been made to it. You're no longer penalised for smashing into other cars as much as you used to be and just about the only way you'll lose your combo'd up points it to take a corner too fast and smack into a barrier on the side of the track. Cars can slam into each other at almost any speed and your Kudos points will remain intact. The downside to this is that it becomes easy, when in traffic, to use the car in front of you to assist with your braking as it's possible to hit them from behind with no penalty at all when screaming around the corners. It's here that the damage system stands out as well as there almost isn't any in PGR3. Well that's not entirely fair, sure, the cars show some superficial damage, tail lights might pop out, scratches appear down the sides, some minor dents may appear over the body work, but the handling never suffers and therefore damage is purely cosmetic.

A couple of other modes have been included in PGR3 which are fun to play around with. Gotham TV lets you watch other online races featuring people around the globe! The new Heroes Channel lets you watch the top ranked racers online at that moment and it all feels a bit voyeuristic as I don't think they know that you're watching them! It's an excellent feature though and will come in handy for online tournaments. The other cool feature is Photo Mode. In any of your races you can hit pause and enter Photo Mode where you can save photos of your favourite PGR3 moments. It's possible to swap camera angles, rotate, zoom and even add camera effects such as blurring, depth of field or exposure and then save them to the Xbox hard drive. They can be then viewed at any time from the Gotham TV menu or watched in a slideshow. My only complaint is that for a series that's always tried to bring new features and redefine the Xbox Live experience, the inability to share these images is a real let down. It's easy to create amazing looking photos but all they're good for is looking at on your television. It would have been fantastic to be able to email them to yourself to use as wallpaper or publish them online somewhere to share with the rest of the world.

The Photo Mode is so much fun to play with and this is mostly due to the fact that the graphics in PGR3 are incredible. Most of us have seen the test/teaser images that Bizarre Creations released online over the past year or so and usually images such as these are a 'development target' (such as that Madden 360 trailer from E3 2005). Well, PGR3 does not disappoint. The cars are so detailed that it's possible to create images in Photo Mode that actually look like photographs of real cars, they look that good. Each car also features a complete interior this time as well and switching to the interior camera view creates a sense of immersion rarely felt to this level. My favourite car in PGR3 is the supercharged Ariel Atom, an open wheel, open roof 300 horsepower absolute beast of a machine. Switching to the cockpit view in this (or some of the other open tops) car while hurtling around corners at insane speeds is truly something to experience and a highlight of the game.

Reflections are all real time and ultra smooth, the cities feature amazing amounts of detail from everything to the buildings right down to the crowd that even reacts to what's happening. After hitting the wall in once race I was amazed to see the crowd shy away from the impact, which no doubt you would if a sports car hit a wall at 200kph only 3 feet away from you! The images in our PGR3 screenshot gallery are fairly indicative of what you'll experience in the game and on top of the extreme detail in the tracks and cars, the lighting just tops it all off perfectly. After going through a tunnel in New York there's even a quick lighting adjustment as you go from the darker tunnel back outside into the outside part of the track that simulates how your own eyes would react. At night in Las Vegas the ritzy Casinos are lit up in all their neon glory and if you've ever been there you'll be able to identify the key landmarks immediately. While another city or two would have been welcome, the amount of detail in the included cities is outstanding and apparantly there's more polygons in the Brooklyn Bridge in PGR3 than in the whole New York level in the original game.

As you progress through the game and purchase cars, garages become available as you fill them up. You start with a lowly barn and eventually open up other garages such as a cool desert home being my favourite. At any time you're able to walk around them in first person mode, take photos, and if you like, take them for a test drive. All up there's about 80 cars including 9 unlockable concept cars so there's plenty to aim for. While the car count might seem low compared to other racing series you end up not using most of them anyway and they're merely eye candy for your in game garages. If you rack enough cash to purchase all the cars from particular manufacturers you even unlock Xbox Live achievements such as the 'Ferrari owners club' which contributes to your Gamerscore, and of course it looks pretty cool walking around a garage filled with nothing but Ferrari's or Lamborghinis.

To go with the great graphics Bizarre Creations have successfully included all the unique engine sounds from each of the cars and power sliding around the tracks while hearing your Enzo Ferrari wind out sounds absolutely fantastic. I've never been that interested in going out and buying larger speakers for my TV system but PGR3 and other next-gen games are going to see my bank account severely depleted in the near future I'm afraid. Even if its just a simple 2 speaker and subwoofer set up, these games, and PGR3 in particular, are just crying out to be played as loud as possible as you will want to hear every gear change and tyre squeal. If there's one complaint to be levelled at the sound in the game it's the soundtrack. Gone are the radio stations from each different country (a great feature of PGR2) and in their place we just have a series of generic rap, rock, hip-hop and even some classical scores but you can stream your own play lists through the game if you prefer to.