More PGR3 details

Now that Project Gotham Racing 3 has officially been announced as an Xbox 360 title, and shown off briefly at the Xbox 360 press conference in LA, developer Bizarre Creations has revealed more details of what we can expect from the game in an interview with the official Xbox site.

According to Bizarre MD Martyn Chudley, PGR3 marks a signficant leap forward for the series in terms of more than just visuals. “There have been things that we've wanted to do in the past, but have never had the chance, as the hardware wasn't up to it,” he says.

“But now we can really let our imaginations take us where we want to go.”

Which means not only shinier cars and roarier engine noises, but gameplay changes too - so you've got more freedom to decide how to race your way to the top.

“The game is split into unique championships - sets of themed events that the player will be able to race in any car he owns. He can complete the entire game in his favourite car, or choose a different car for every race - it's totally up to him,” Chudley explains.

“There's also much more choice over what sort of races the player wants to enter, based around different racing disciplines.”

That's not to say it's all change, though - the Kudos system remains in place, and you can still check out your collection in the Garage just as in the previous games.

Speaking of which, did we mention shinier cars? Well, obviously, says Chudley.

“The artists have been able to add in all the polygon detail that they've just had to fake in the past. And the texturing has taken leaps forward, with massive resolutions being used now.

“The programmers can smoothly push around many times more polygons, and can add fantastic programming effects such as post-processing and high-definition.” Fancy.

It's not just the cars that are getting a makeover, either - we're promised living, breathing cities this time around, with actual spectators and everything. And “not 2D flat people or angular stick figures”, either.

“We have a whole throng of people in the game, all motion-captured to produce realistic crowd movements,” Chudley says. “And it's not just the same few models dotted here and there, but literally thousands of different people!” Hooray!

To read the full interview, and learn about what it's like to develop a game for a console that doesn't even exist yet, click here.