“Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 is a great way to teach the responsibility of running a business in a way that everyone can enjoy,” said Todd Thorson, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at NAMCO BANDAI Games America.  “Its fun mini-games, distinct art style and atmosphere will bring a smile to anyone’s face.”

Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 is rated “E” for everyone by the ESRB and carries a suggested retail price of $29.99.

Project Gotham Racing 3 was a launch title on the Xbox 360. No details were announced about the upcoming Project Gotham title, but it will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360.

“The Gothic brand has a large and loyal following who appreciate the great variety of action and adventure that the series offers players,” said Ted Staloch, VP of Aspyr Media. “Gothic III lets players continue their adventures in the game’s endless world, which features countless side quests along with varied characters, spells and weapons.”

The game is developed by Germany’s Piranha Bytes/Pluto13. Gothic III will be released in the first quarter of 2006 for the PC at a SRP of $39.99.

The Project Gotham Racing series, having originated on the Dreamcast in its earlier iteration as Metropolis Street Racer, has been revamped for release on the Xbox 360 as a graphical achievement that claims to sport the most photo realistic graphics yet on a home system. 

The original Project Gotham Racing was similarly a launch title for the original Xbox, quickly garnering praise from fans of racing games who (may or may not have suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder) appreciated racing simulation games but felt that Gran Turismo’s levels were too lengthy and repetitive.  Its Kudos system was heralded as an admirable innovation in the racing genre, awarding driving skill and style points rather than blind speed needed for traditional arcade racers like F-Zero, Daytona, and Ridge Racer. 

Project Gotham Racing 2 was released two years later and received more critical praise than its predecessor, expanding upon its Kudos system and offering extensive Xbox Live support.  Featuring downloadable cars, real-time leader boards with viewable ghosts of record setting races, and the ability to simultaneously compete against eight other players, Bizarre Creations has taken these novel functions and completely re-designed them to create an even better experience in PGR 3. 

Project Gotham Racing 3, by far the most ambitious entry in the franchise thus far, relishes in its intentionally less-than-perfect driving physics by delivering astounding graphics to create a representation of real world locales like New York and Tokyo in a fantasy-like street racing atmosphere.  Differing from Project Gotham Racing 1 & 2, PGR3 makes any of its scores of licensed vehicles immediately available from the get go. Expect to choose from high-end cars like Vipers, Ferraris, and Porches and popular street racing mods like the Ford Focus.

Much ado has been made over the polygon count in this game, which even by buzzword hype generating standards, is worth noting.  The number of polygons in the Brooklyn Bridge alone is equal to the number of polygons used to represent an entire city in Project Gotham Racing 2.  The insides of the cars are also meticulously created to add an in-cockpit mode that packs more innovation then one could expect.  Depending on how accident prone you are and your ability to keep your car off dirt roads, your windshield will collect dirt and scratches, impairing your vision.  The right analog stick commands the camera to move the viewing angle to a side view, permitting complete awareness of your surroundings.  For example, if you’re in a heated straightaway with another racer, you could “turn your head” to the right and see the other players car barreling forward directly next to yours.  Windows can also block your vision with the advent of rain or glare.

As a side note, wouldn’t it be amazing if Bizarre Creations could configure Xbox Live races to mirror the weather conditions as they really are in the cities tracks represent?  For example, if it’s snowing on November 24 in New York, it’ll be snowing in PGR 3 New York on November 24.

Play modes this time around include a career mode, which presents completely offline objectives.  Furthermore, other modes that single players can choose to play include a Street Race (Time Attack), or Eliminator Race (AI Match).  The meat of the innovations this time around is in multiplayer and Xbox Live play, including team eliminator, team street race, and capture the track modes.  Capture the track mode is comparable to king of the hill and capture the flag in first person shooter games.  Whether you go it solo or join up in a ream, racers play to get the best score in a given course section.  The winner with the best time can be beaten by an opponent, which would require a player to attempt to attain the highest score on the same section or acquire the best time on another part of the course.  To totally win a matchup, you have to get the best score on the most sections.

A less conventional mode, Photo Capture, provides more possibilities than the name would suggest. Accidentally inspired by a tool that was created by Bizarre to take screenshots of tracks, the development team realized they had the potential to create a functional mode that would be much appreciated by the set of people who love watching replays of their cars.

The mode works like a digital movie editor application.  Using ghosts of races as videos, Photo mode allows players to create cinematic replays of their races to showoff in their galleries and on Xbox Live.  Using tools as simple as you’d find in Paint and as complex as Photoshop, you can stop your replay at any point and alter a number of different graphical features to create a professional looking movie of your race, which you can then set to music.  In Photo Mode, you can use its tools to change the brightness, sepia, contrast, color, exposure, aperture, shutter speed, zoom, and angle.

The inventive create-a-route mode allows racers to view any of Project Gotham Racing 3’s cities from a top-down perspective with all possible routes highlighted and starting and finish points ranked by difficulty.  Once you choose a starting point, the game shows you all available routes you can choose to have your course take from that point on.  You can take your designed courses online with you to play against a friend, or race alone against the game’s improved AI at customizable difficulty levels and laps needed to finish.

At the very least, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a graphical and Xbox Live achievement that all first generation Xbox 360 games will be compared to.  The meat of the gameplay, e.g., the quality of the track design, vehicle control, and AI - if it lives up to the precedent set by PGR 2 - makes this game a must-have title for any early adopter of an Xbox 360 this fall.  Out of all the games in the respectable launch line up, Project Gotham 3 looks set to deliver what is overall the best experience on the new system for new visual standards, multiplayer options, genre innovation on Xbox Live, and replayability.
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