I loved how in the first one if you have music saved onto your xbox hard drive you could play it and it would blend it in like it was part of the radio stations.
Yeah, MS really botched that feature from the 360 forward. On the OG Xbox the personal tracks really replaced the ingame tracks, but on the 360, it was basically an extra app that just played the music without any integration in the games.
Evolution Studios is another. DriveClub released too early and it killed them. Same goes with Codemasters Cheshire after Onrush disappointed shareholders, that incidentally were made up mostly of the folks who made DriveClub. 😮💨
We well never forget you Bizarre Creations! I still play PGR1 and 4 to this day! Edit: Also, you forgot Metropolis Street Racer, it's literally PGR1 but on the Dreamcast.
Oh yes I absolutely love the PGR series. I have so many memories of playing the second game with my dad and brother as a kid. It’s a shame that the closest thing to the PGR series we’ve gotten since the fourth game is Driveclub and even that game is dead now
PGR games were all really good, although for me they also really stretched the content in the campaign. Their system allowed for lots of different track combinations, but while the locations themselves always looked great, the main focus being on city tracks meant most of the time you just prepared for another 90° turn. When I finally got to the Nürburgring races late in pgr2s campaign it was such a breath of fresh air, even though I already know the track very well its just much more fun for me to drive on a race track and have all kinds of different corners to deal with. What really made good use of the city tracks were the cone challenges, the score requirements for platinum were tough on first playthroughs and the cone placements made for more interesting track design.
Loving the content, Sam -- thanks for another super video! Honestly, I'd rather have PGR5 or a Blur sequel over Forza Horizon 6. It does suck how little variety we have in racing games these days. Jeremy in the FM4 intro video was right in more ways than one, unfortunately.
Recent sub here, within the last month. Must be fate because I loved these games. Born in the late 80s, i played all these upon release. (Released 01, 03, 05 and 07 i was a teenager mostly). I've since gotten a wheel and enjoy sim racing. PGR was great and the second best title. My main memory was finishing the one final cone challenge plat, with Gorillaz' 19/2000 playing constantly. PGR2 was by far the best, i agree. The tracks were great, and Still Frame by Trapt was looped on this one. I could not talk enough about how fun this was on the early days of Xbox Live. Many fond memories of this and Midtown Madness 3. "Cat and Mouse" on Nurburgring, 4 teams of two, one Enzo and one Mini. The first team's Mini to cross the line in one lap wins. Als, in PGR2, another online popular game we did was "Progression Racing," where we all start in Focus's (Foci?), and anyone that didn't win moves up a class. Usually, one East Edinburgh track or a DC one we liked. Which, in PGR3, the third best title, wasn't possible. The change from car classes to the DCBAS system really took a lot of variety in a game lacking variety. You basically only drove 3 cars online. I enjoyed this game a ton, still. In PGR2 i had a few top 10 times, but in PGR3 I had a whole slew. My dad would watch me pass cleanly while everyone else smashed into each other online, and this game will also hold a special place in my heart getting me really into proper racing, but the revised car class system puts it behind PGR PGR4 i guess I just moved on to different things, so maybe age is a factor. I did like the bikes, and maybe thats why id purchase my own a couple years later, but the magic of early Xbox Live was gone, and I didnt play it nearly as much as the earlier titles. I guess ill end with a Midtown Madness retrospectove request. The Prowler in Chicago MM, and the excellent DC/Paris MM3, which also might be extra nostalgic for the early Xbox Live, like PGR2. The open world of MM3 playing tag/Stayaway in downtown DC with Minis or Lotuses, to hide and seek with Crossfires and flame paint job TTs, so much fun. Loved the video!
I preordered the original Xbox along with Halo, PGR and DoA3. I just spent all my time on PGR but then I was a huge MSR fan. Still own all the PGR games and their respective hardware. My favourite era was the Ridge Racer vs Sega Rally days though. Sega Rally just edged it for me.
I can’t believe you didn’t mention Metropolis Street Racer, which basically is the first PGR game except in name. Or Blur, which is essentially the love child between PGR and Mario Kart. And lastly, the real reason why PGR2 is the GOAT, Geometry Wars! That’s right in PGR2, enter your garage, and approach the arcade cabinet to be treated to gamings greatest easter egg. Also, if you play PGR4, and the first Forza Horizon back to back, it’s very evident that former Bizarre Creations staff brought their talents to Playground Games.
PGR4 was the first game I played on Xbox 360. Abolutely loved it, finished a game at least once every 2 years since then. Now that drive in my console died, so I'm setting up emulator to replay PGR4 once again. On the topic of Arcade vs Sim - it's a huge spectrum and there's huge place in between both ends that's usually reffered as "simcades" - games that kinda "emulate" racing instead of simulating it. E.G. cars are not 1:1 recreations when it comes to kinematics or dynamics but share a lot of components between each other and use simplified numbers instead of accurate values, hidden assists etc. Don't get me wrong - "proper sims" also "suffer" from simplifications etc. but to much lower degree. I'd say that Gran Turismo Sport/7 sit on a far "sim" end of a "simcade", Shift sits somewhere in the middle and I'd count PGR as "Arcade" end of "simcade". And when it comes to quality of games, previous console gen (Xbox One/PS4) was one that killed most of racing games IMO. End of Xbox 360/PS3 was a highlight that will propably never go back - you could get any title from popular franchise and expect to have a blast. It felt like there were multiple amazing games releasing every few months. Sims somewhat bounced back with prolonged support of many older games (iRacing, RF2, R3E) and arrival of stuff like Assetto Corsa series or BeamNG, but arcades and simcades are in awful place outside of few gems and indie/AA titles (well, I guress you can still get enjoment out of uninspired and bloated GT7 and cookie cutter Forza Horizon games).
God i miss the PGR series. PGR 2 and PGR 4 are some of the best racing games ever imo (neverplayed 1 and 3). PGR 2 had incredible graphics for an OG Xbox game, and the driving physics was superb leaning towards simcade but pure fun. The tracks were just amazing as well.. PGR 4 was almost as good, the cars being alot more detailed and unique in handling characteristics, but I didn't like the tracks nearly as much in PGR 4 as in PGR 2. The tracks in 4 was alot less technical and fun, and there were fewer locations. PGR 4 still today though, has some of the best car sounds ever in a game, it's so impressive. The Callaway Sledgehammer might by my favorite game ever in a video game though from PGR 4. Why don't more racing games have cars like that? Anyway great video and I agree that the handling in PGR 4 is less fun that PGR 2. The cars feel alot more planted and less lively when driving in standard weather conditions. As mentioned, PGR 2 runs way better on the OG Xbox sadly, it just laggy on the 360.
Great video, man! I really love the PGR games (yeah i know, suprise suprise). Having just pretty much finished PGR4 i was really disappointed to find it definitely way too easy, career and also arcade, arcade had some decent difficulty which genuinely challenged me but overall the older games really nailed it if you wanted to get platinum in all the events you had to sit the f*** down to get them but not in PGR4 sadly. Great to see someone cover these games, just disappointed the difficulty wasn't mentioned which i think is a topic way more should talk about in racing games.
12:53 you definitely hit the nail on the head there. Plus in an ideal world we would have Project Gotham Racing on Xbox competing with Driveclub on Playstation. Imagine what could have been.
Holy shit the day has finally arrived. Beautiful video about a beautiful franchise. And with the Activision purchase, who knows what the future could hold for PGR...
We play the PGR games weekly, and I literally made a video on PGR4 yesterday! Perfect timing on this release of the PGR series, Wimp - love the editing and scripting as always! 🙏 These games are absolutely fantastic and still great to play in 2024! My favourite quote from this video was, "mixing the sim racing chocolate sauce with the arcade racing ice cream." The Batman reference and montage were great. Keep up the stellar work! 💯
Great stuff as usual Matthew newton, regarding the pgr series please refer to my thoughts on the forza series (As a sony born and bred human I would rather play on a drum kit made from land mines than play an xbox exclusive racing game). In regards to future videos I would still like to hear your thoughts on the f1 braking point story modes (yes I will just keep asking) and also an analysis of the old ps2 afl games would be coolio too. Keep up the stellar videos!
Dear Wimp … man I loved this series. For real! And they managed to get better with each instalment. I even liked the motorcycles! The Blur thingy they did afterwards was okayish, but sometimes I wonder if there is still a market for another part of it. To be honest: I think that PGR (the first one) was the kickstarter to my love for racing sims 🤔
After that, Bizarre Creations made Blur which was a commercial failure. The studio got shut down and some employees created Playground Games (with some Codemasters employees) to create the first Forza Horizon game.
omg I played Project Gothan 4 soooo much that one of my friends stole it so I wouldn't play it anymore then he lied about it 10yrs later he admitted to taking the game because it had me in a daze! Ima gran tourismo guy but I couldn't get off this game
Ah another banger of a series and just like Forza Motorsport4, PGR4 is seen as the best installment, but PGR stopped after that. PGR4 runs good on Xenia, except theres sadly no ingame OST playing... PGR tries to be serious in its presentation but the grip is atleast twice of normal. Cars handling and braking distances feel more natural and easier. But you are right, dry racing in PGR4 is so arcady...
I also think PGR" was the best in the series but I had way more fun playing PGR3 than PGR4 on xbox 360, things like collision physics made online racing a lot worse in the 4th game
I mean, i get grip should be varied, but grip has a kick irl that makes understeer so... its not innacturate. Justnos fun. Tbh, driving cars with lower control ratings can also fix this.
Have you played Metropolis Street Racer Wimp? It’s the spiritual predecessor to the PGR series released on the Sega Dreamcast. To this day it’s one of my favorite racing games of all time. Comfortably in the top 3, and I’m old enough to have had a Dragon 32 in the house when I was a kid. There have been a lot of games since. 👍🏻🍻
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [1/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vLGjxFL6U_I/mqdefault.jpg)
you missed the true first entry. Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast.
beyond that, loved this.
I was just about to comment the same.
Ha, I forgot that one. What a shame!
I loved how in the first one if you have music saved onto your xbox hard drive you could play it and it would blend it in like it was part of the radio stations.
Yeah, MS really botched that feature from the 360 forward. On the OG Xbox the personal tracks really replaced the ingame tracks, but on the 360, it was basically an extra app that just played the music without any integration in the games.
It’s such a shame we lost Bizarre Creations after Blur. So many great dev teams are gone and I just wonder what we’ve all missed out on without them.
Evolution Studios is another. DriveClub released too early and it killed them. Same goes with Codemasters Cheshire after Onrush disappointed shareholders, that incidentally were made up mostly of the folks who made DriveClub. 😮💨
We well never forget you Bizarre Creations! I still play PGR1 and 4 to this day!
Edit: Also, you forgot Metropolis Street Racer, it's literally PGR1 but on the Dreamcast.
MSR was racing Nivana for me. Tokyo at night in a Toyota Supra ❤
MSR to this day is so good!! It’s great to read appreciation for it. 🍻🍻🍻
Oh yes I absolutely love the PGR series. I have so many memories of playing the second game with my dad and brother as a kid. It’s a shame that the closest thing to the PGR series we’ve gotten since the fourth game is Driveclub and even that game is dead now
We play the PGR series weekly, with leaderboards and multiplayer sessions. Driveclub was fantastic!
PGR games were all really good, although for me they also really stretched the content in the campaign. Their system allowed for lots of different track combinations, but while the locations themselves always looked great, the main focus being on city tracks meant most of the time you just prepared for another 90° turn. When I finally got to the Nürburgring races late in pgr2s campaign it was such a breath of fresh air, even though I already know the track very well its just much more fun for me to drive on a race track and have all kinds of different corners to deal with.
What really made good use of the city tracks were the cone challenges, the score requirements for platinum were tough on first playthroughs and the cone placements made for more interesting track design.
Loving the content, Sam -- thanks for another super video! Honestly, I'd rather have PGR5 or a Blur sequel over Forza Horizon 6. It does suck how little variety we have in racing games these days. Jeremy in the FM4 intro video was right in more ways than one, unfortunately.
I want a BLUR sequel so bad!
great vid, you deserve so many more subs
Recent sub here, within the last month. Must be fate because I loved these games. Born in the late 80s, i played all these upon release. (Released 01, 03, 05 and 07 i was a teenager mostly). I've since gotten a wheel and enjoy sim racing.
PGR was great and the second best title. My main memory was finishing the one final cone challenge plat, with Gorillaz' 19/2000 playing constantly.
PGR2 was by far the best, i agree. The tracks were great, and Still Frame by Trapt was looped on this one. I could not talk enough about how fun this was on the early days of Xbox Live. Many fond memories of this and Midtown Madness 3. "Cat and Mouse" on Nurburgring, 4 teams of two, one Enzo and one Mini. The first team's Mini to cross the line in one lap wins.
Als, in PGR2, another online popular game we did was "Progression Racing," where we all start in Focus's (Foci?), and anyone that didn't win moves up a class. Usually, one East Edinburgh track or a DC one we liked.
Which, in PGR3, the third best title, wasn't possible. The change from car classes to the DCBAS system really took a lot of variety in a game lacking variety. You basically only drove 3 cars online. I enjoyed this game a ton, still. In PGR2 i had a few top 10 times, but in PGR3 I had a whole slew. My dad would watch me pass cleanly while everyone else smashed into each other online, and this game will also hold a special place in my heart getting me really into proper racing, but the revised car class system puts it behind PGR
PGR4 i guess I just moved on to different things, so maybe age is a factor. I did like the bikes, and maybe thats why id purchase my own a couple years later, but the magic of early Xbox Live was gone, and I didnt play it nearly as much as the earlier titles.
I guess ill end with a Midtown Madness retrospectove request. The Prowler in Chicago MM, and the excellent DC/Paris MM3, which also might be extra nostalgic for the early Xbox Live, like PGR2. The open world of MM3 playing tag/Stayaway in downtown DC with Minis or Lotuses, to hide and seek with Crossfires and flame paint job TTs, so much fun.
Loved the video!
How has this channel only got 5k subs? It's criminal.
100%. Been playing racing games on a wheel for nearly 30 years, love arcade and sim, and Project Gotham racing is easily a top 5 of all time
I preordered the original Xbox along with Halo, PGR and DoA3. I just spent all my time on PGR but then I was a huge MSR fan.
Still own all the PGR games and their respective hardware.
My favourite era was the Ridge Racer vs Sega Rally days though. Sega Rally just edged it for me.
Greatest racing franchise of all time… I can still hear the cone challenges bell
I can’t believe you didn’t mention Metropolis Street Racer, which basically is the first PGR game except in name. Or Blur, which is essentially the love child between PGR and Mario Kart. And lastly, the real reason why PGR2 is the GOAT, Geometry Wars!
That’s right in PGR2, enter your garage, and approach the arcade cabinet to be treated to gamings greatest easter egg.
Also, if you play PGR4, and the first Forza Horizon back to back, it’s very evident that former Bizarre Creations staff brought their talents to Playground Games.
A much simpler time of racing games! Keep up the good work mate sensational videos 👌👌
PGR4 was the first game I played on Xbox 360. Abolutely loved it, finished a game at least once every 2 years since then. Now that drive in my console died, so I'm setting up emulator to replay PGR4 once again.
On the topic of Arcade vs Sim - it's a huge spectrum and there's huge place in between both ends that's usually reffered as "simcades" - games that kinda "emulate" racing instead of simulating it. E.G. cars are not 1:1 recreations when it comes to kinematics or dynamics but share a lot of components between each other and use simplified numbers instead of accurate values, hidden assists etc. Don't get me wrong - "proper sims" also "suffer" from simplifications etc. but to much lower degree.
I'd say that Gran Turismo Sport/7 sit on a far "sim" end of a "simcade", Shift sits somewhere in the middle and I'd count PGR as "Arcade" end of "simcade". And when it comes to quality of games, previous console gen (Xbox One/PS4) was one that killed most of racing games IMO. End of Xbox 360/PS3 was a highlight that will propably never go back - you could get any title from popular franchise and expect to have a blast. It felt like there were multiple amazing games releasing every few months. Sims somewhat bounced back with prolonged support of many older games (iRacing, RF2, R3E) and arrival of stuff like Assetto Corsa series or BeamNG, but arcades and simcades are in awful place outside of few gems and indie/AA titles (well, I guress you can still get enjoment out of uninspired and bloated GT7 and cookie cutter Forza Horizon games).
God i miss the PGR series. PGR 2 and PGR 4 are some of the best racing games ever imo (neverplayed 1 and 3). PGR 2 had incredible graphics for an OG Xbox game, and the driving physics was superb leaning towards simcade but pure fun. The tracks were just amazing as well.. PGR 4 was almost as good, the cars being alot more detailed and unique in handling characteristics, but I didn't like the tracks nearly as much in PGR 4 as in PGR 2. The tracks in 4 was alot less technical and fun, and there were fewer locations. PGR 4 still today though, has some of the best car sounds ever in a game, it's so impressive.
The Callaway Sledgehammer might by my favorite game ever in a video game though from PGR 4. Why don't more racing games have cars like that? Anyway great video and I agree that the handling in PGR 4 is less fun that PGR 2. The cars feel alot more planted and less lively when driving in standard weather conditions. As mentioned, PGR 2 runs way better on the OG Xbox sadly, it just laggy on the 360.
Great video, man!
I really love the PGR games (yeah i know, suprise suprise).
Having just pretty much finished PGR4 i was really disappointed to find it definitely way too easy, career and also arcade, arcade had some decent difficulty which genuinely challenged me but overall the older games really nailed it if you wanted to get platinum in all the events you had to sit the f*** down to get them but not in PGR4 sadly.
Great to see someone cover these games, just disappointed the difficulty wasn't mentioned which i think is a topic way more should talk about in racing games.
12:53 you definitely hit the nail on the head there. Plus in an ideal world we would have Project Gotham Racing on Xbox competing with Driveclub on Playstation. Imagine what could have been.
"wish it felt little more dangerous" got me lol perfect clip hahaha
I still don't know who this guy is, but I'm all here for this series.
The snow in PGR4=yes
You content is always so constantly crazy good. keep t up please
I love all the piano riffs you insert into your videos
Holy shit the day has finally arrived. Beautiful video about a beautiful franchise. And with the Activision purchase, who knows what the future could hold for PGR...
We play the PGR games weekly, and I literally made a video on PGR4 yesterday! Perfect timing on this release of the PGR series, Wimp - love the editing and scripting as always! 🙏 These games are absolutely fantastic and still great to play in 2024! My favourite quote from this video was, "mixing the sim racing chocolate sauce with the arcade racing ice cream." The Batman reference and montage were great. Keep up the stellar work! 💯
Great stuff as usual Matthew newton, regarding the pgr series please refer to my thoughts on the forza series (As a sony born and bred human I would rather play on a drum kit made from land mines than play an xbox exclusive racing game). In regards to future videos I would still like to hear your thoughts on the f1 braking point story modes (yes I will just keep asking) and also an analysis of the old ps2 afl games would be coolio too. Keep up the stellar videos!
Your drum kit gag got me. 😂😂😂😂
Let’s freaking get our guy WAY MORE VIEWS! These videos are so good
It's such a small detail, but I really like how in PGR4 the Tachometer/instrument cluster is unique for each vehicle, and is accurate
Hope someone makes spiritual successor to this.
Though these days neither publishers or general public want it
Ayyyy! I've been waiting for you to check these out!
Another great video man, Kudos 😉
Great video :) I loved PGR2
I live in the same general area as the Chicago track in PGR 2. It’s accurate
Dear Wimp … man I loved this series. For real! And they managed to get better with each instalment. I even liked the motorcycles!
The Blur thingy they did afterwards was okayish, but sometimes I wonder if there is still a market for another part of it.
To be honest: I think that PGR (the first one) was the kickstarter to my love for racing sims 🤔
After that, Bizarre Creations made Blur which was a commercial failure. The studio got shut down and some employees created Playground Games (with some Codemasters employees) to create the first Forza Horizon game.
Tim Shaw from demtel @ 4:29 , Damn that’s a blast from the past
omg I played Project Gothan 4 soooo much that one of my friends stole it so I wouldn't play it anymore then he lied about it
10yrs later he admitted to taking the game because it had me in a daze!
Ima gran tourismo guy but I couldn't get off this game
batman did not showup 😞
Ah another banger of a series and just like Forza Motorsport4, PGR4 is seen as the best installment, but PGR stopped after that. PGR4 runs good on Xenia, except theres sadly no ingame OST playing...
PGR tries to be serious in its presentation but the grip is atleast twice of normal. Cars handling and braking distances feel more natural and easier.
But you are right, dry racing in PGR4 is so arcady...
I also think PGR" was the best in the series but I had way more fun playing PGR3 than PGR4 on xbox 360, things like collision physics made online racing a lot worse in the 4th game
I go all the way back to MSR, still love this game and gave the way for RGR. I do hope Microsoft brings it back though.
When are we gonna get the apex racing review?
I only played 3 in depth, but I did enjoy my time with it!
I mean, i get grip should be varied, but grip has a kick irl that makes understeer so... its not innacturate. Justnos fun. Tbh, driving cars with lower control ratings can also fix this.
Thanks for the vid, these games really need more love.
along with ridge racer its a crime we dont get these games anymore
Still play pgr2 and 3 every so often, they really are forever fun. also geometry wars.
Have you played Metropolis Street Racer Wimp? It’s the spiritual predecessor to the PGR series released on the Sega Dreamcast. To this day it’s one of my favorite racing games of all time. Comfortably in the top 3, and I’m old enough to have had a Dragon 32 in the house when I was a kid. There have been a lot of games since. 👍🏻🍻
hey wimp i really like your videos, keep it up 👍🏼
Great video as always ❤
Before PGR there was MSR...
Any game similar to PGR series? Arcade style feeling / urban evironments?
I really miss these games....
have this game sitting next to me right now, still paly it on theregular
pgr so beautiful
Hey Wimp what mic do you use?
Dirt series next?