So Project Gotham is back and they've added motorbikes. No big deal since Midnight Club had it long ago, but we think motorbikes to racing games is going to be a standard feature soon. We don't know how this is going to affect EA Nascar 09, but anything is possible with EA. Unfortunately, the bikes kinda make the cars less exciting.

Anyway, getting to the game, PGR4 lets you select from over 110 vehicles (mostly cars) and over 10 cities with full weather effects. Your goal is to become the world's top racer. There's a calendar, and you'll just keep racing based on calendar dates until you earn the title. The races can be the standard time trials or track races, or it can be races where you have to drive like a maniac to earn kudos, which is what PGR games use for money. More kudos means more stuff you can buy.

The bikes handle better than the cars, but they don't really add that much to the gameplay. Sometimes, they force you to use bikes. That's it. There's really no strategy or tuning in the game. It's all about the racing. The tracks are and weather conditions are all very important since there's no tuning. But you'll notice they affect you more than the AI drivers. So these features don't really do anything but make it more difficult for the player to win the race, especially when there's fog. The AI obviously doesn't have any problems seeing. Why doesn't it have the same handicap a normal driver would? We don't know.

Graphicwise, this game is excellent. The weather details are great. The vehicles look realistic without being overly shiny. And the tracks are simply amazing, if somewhat narrow. The rain effects are especially amazing when you look from outside the car. Sound and music are pretty standard for these types of games. There's plenty of music from different genres, but nothing really stands out. The engines sound adequate.

PGR4 really shines online where it uses the Weather Channel to update the in-game weather in real-time. It's good to know that when you're racing in Tokyo, it is actually like that in real life. All the standard online race modes are there as you'd expect and the weather effects make racing exciting and challenging. PGR4 is another solid game in the franchise and it's better than the previous installments thanks to weather and bikes. We recommend replacing your old PGR games with this one.