August 17, 2007 - Welcome to part three of our five-part series of articles from Bizarre Creations, the developers of the upcoming
Project Gotham Racing 4. In this series of articles we'll be unveiling some of the details behind the new cities heading to the PGR series, showing you some new screenshots, giving driving advice, and generally letting you know what it's like to drive your car or bike around these circuits in the game. Let's get on with it!
St Petersburg is the third new city in PGR4, and possibly the most unusual of all the new locations. Why is this you ask? Well I've got two words for you: humpback bridges. The city itself actually spans several islands, with canals and rivers criss-crossing between them. This not only sets a suitably impressive scene, but it also allows some daredevil racing across raised bridges and arches. There has never been an opportunity to catch so much air in the PGR series since San Francisco way back in the days of Project Gotham Racing 1!
We selected St. Petersburg for a number of reasons. First, the bridges were just too good an opportunity to miss. However, there are also some really nice landmarks around the track to provide the necessary eye candy, such as the Church on the Spilled Blood and the Winter Palace. There's also a giant courtyard section outside the latter which we've used to full effect; numerous cone challenge events take place in this open space in another first for the PGR franchise.
There's nothing scarier than driving a Caparo T1 at 200mph, only to see a humpback bridge ahead of you followed by a devastating left hand hairpin. It's going to take quite a few practice laps to fully understand and remember the corners in the canals area, but when you've put the effort in you'll find it even more satisfying to navigate the course without clipping the barriers.
The city will definitely test your knowledge of the new bike dynamics to its' limits, given that it's made up of huge long straights on the outskirts and tight corners and narrow streets by the canals. Play safe out there kids and brake more than you normally would. That's the key to driving motorcycles when you've been brought up on four-wheel machines in earlier Gotham games.
St. Petersburg is the second Russian city to be featured in the series, after fan-favourite Moscow in PGR2. There are similarities between the two Russian cities, but also some major differences too. Personally I'd say that St. Petersburg is half Moscow, and half Stockholm (both from PGR2).
Given that Moscow has been loved by the online crowd since 2003 (
KGB CORNER!!!), St. Petersburg has a lot to live up to! Many community members have already speculated as to whether this will be the new city of choice in the Xbox Live racing world… However, here at Bizarre we're just as eager to see how this plays out. We don't design a particular city or route to be the best or most loved; we make all of them as good as we can. That said, it's inevitable that some of them will bob to the top of the pile. We'll just have to wait and see!
1 http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/813/813567p2.html
Thanks to http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/813/813567p1.html for sharing the news with us, and you can discuss the news
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