OKay, I finally booted this game up and played a couple of races. I have to confess that as beautiful as it looks, I am just not liking it so far. There is nothing wrong with the game, but for an arcade racer, it feels an awful lot like a Racing Sim. I prefer the craziness of Burnout and other games, but I am trying to get into this one rather than giving it away.

Do you guys have any driving tips? In games where the handbrake has a more profound effect on the cars than this one, like Burnout, RR7, MC and others, I can easily navigate treacherous turns. In this game I find myself crashing into walls especially around "square" like turns where you, let's say three really quick left turns. I know there is nothing wrong with the game. And the truth of the matter is if I knew the driving was like this I would have never bought this game, because it really isn't my style.

But since I have it and love the visuals I want to give it a real try before just tossing it on the shelf to gather dust. Again, I am NOT blaming the game because I am not good at realistic driving physics games, just trying to muddle my way through it.

Oh I do have a few legit complaints, by the way:

1. No rear view mirror in 3rd person mode?!! What kind of crap is this? I hve NO DESIRE to use any of the FP variations, including the cockpit views, and I feel like the game is discriminating against me. Now PLEASE make me feel like a total idiot here and tell me that there is a way to get a rearview in 3rd person mode and I will admit I am an idiot for not finding it myself!

2. What kind of crap programmers DO NOT allow you to replay a race?? I finished a race second, only because I wanted the few kudos points, intending to just replay it, and THE GAME WOULD NOT LET ME!! In fact, it would not even let me go back to it, and only allowed me to play the next race in the series. Uh why???

Well most people do agree that a replay button should be there. There is another brake u know i got it a week ago and im a master in career and havent needed the handbrake once.

Well I initially gave up on the game after two races. Not because I can't beat them, but because as much as this game is supposed to be an "arcade racer" it is too realistic in terms of car handling for my taste. Nothing wrong with the game, mind you. Many people prefer their driving games to kind of feel like racing sims, and that's cool. Anyway, I played it for a couple of hours last night, and I forced myself to have more patience with the driving. lol I think that's what irks me about games like this is the patience you need to drive. I personally prefer games like GTA (before IV) Burnout and Ridge Racer 7, where the brake is strictly optional and I mostly only ever use the handbrake.

While playing PGR4 last night I found that the easiest way to beat te races was to slow down on big turns using (YUCK!!) the regular brake, because the game doesn't seem suited to drifting around corners like some more arcady drivers do. Again, not a dig on the game, just taking note.

I will say that I somewhat enjoyed the game more. But the truth is I think that PGR3 was a far better game in almost every way. Not only could you replay any race you want to try to get a higher medal or beat your time, but the surrounding graphical environments seemed far less generic.

I am a New Yorker, and LOVED the way they rendered NY, Vegas and that third European City in PGR3. The tracks all felt dreastically different. In this game, the scenery, as nice as the pure "graphics" are, seeems to all blend into some amorphous background. For instance, this is NYC, right? So where are those awesome straightaways over the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges? What about the races through different parts of the Strip in Vegas?

I went through a part of a race in Vegas and noticed the Camelot statue, but the ONLY REASON I noticed it is because I kept restarting the race trying to get first place. I would have actually NEVER even noticed it if I hadn't done that.

Whereas in the last game, the environments were in-your-face awesome and jumped right out at you, making the game feel more immersive.

I am in the so called Professional circuit, and will finish this game, and probably beat it, asuming I don't get bored. But I think this game, as well done as it is in many ways, is a little on the boring side. It all feels pretty much the same, even with the different race modes. The ONE totally different track I saw was this mammoth 9+ minute race through the snow on some long ass course. I couldn't be bothered to reset it and try to beat the time they asked me to because it was so damned long, non-descript and boring, and the snow/driving physics were WAY too realistic for my taste.

I can definitely see why a lot of people are not so crazy about this game. I am VERY GLAD I decided to play this first and Burnout Paradise is still in its wrapper. It would SUCK to play an awesome Burnout game and then have to endure PGR4 after the awesome high energy of that title.

I actually approached this game from the other side of the fence because I love sims and hate arcade racers. So I liked PGR4 quite a bit.

I think they're trying to walk a big tightrope between the sim/arcade race genres. I wonder if PGR5 with be more arcade-y. I guess time will tell.

Yeah, I gave up on the game a while ago lol. Not only am I not particularly good at Racing Sim's, I find the game itself to be somewhat akin to watching paint dry. I can hold my own in the races against the AI, but find myself bored more often than not. A shame, because I rather liked PGR3.

Not only was I disappointed in the gameplay, but the graphics seem generic and like some background fluff. The rendering of NYC, Vegas, and that European city in PGR3 was fabulous and quite varied. While playing PGR4 the scenery just blended into this hodgepodge of the visual equivalent of white-noise.

Is it worth the massive bump to answer the rear-view question? Oh well, as I've bumped anyway, it's on the right-stick for any who happen to trawl past here. Took me a while to find that out as well.

I may eventually pick this game up again and try my luck at what I left off as a frustrating exercise in tedious anger. If I do, I will put your advice to use. So, in this case, THANKS for the massive bump.