Lemme tell you a little story: once upon a time at some Microsoft-sponsored event, I was given a choice between a free copy of Mass Effect and a free copy of Project Gotham Racing 4 for my XBOX 360. Considering I already had a copy of Mass Effect at the time, I decided to give PGR4 a spin. I mean, I was okay at Burnout: Revenge, so this wouldn't be too hard, right?

Oh, I was so wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Compared to Burnout, every car felt like I was steering a shopping cart down a steep hill into a wall made of aluminum siding. Every biker I controlled cringed in pain at the horrible pain and suffering I kept causing them as their helmets met the cold hard pavement. TV On The Radio's "Wolf Like Me" was playing over the car's stereo, the one solace I found in this game where all my efforts to get anything better than third place were in vain. Don't even get me started on the few times I ventured online to play actual people.

It wasn't like this was a bad game. Oh, far from it. The graphics were amazing and the physics acted much like I'd expect a real car or bike to handle, to the point where you could feel the wind whipping past your face and various small flying bugs smacking into your helmet's visor. Oh the thrill of the chase, the adrenaline rush you could get from the speed as you zipped through the track...and despite all this, I could not make it past the first few stages of the single-player mode. My pride wouldn't let me go any lower than normal (silver medal) difficulty, and I still couldn't make it.



The one thing I hate about most racing games (including Burnout) is that whether you lead by a meter or a mile, all it takes is one mistake for the AI to zoom past you with a lead you will find almost impossible to get back. And if you happen to be in second or third when you smack into a wall? You might as well restart the race altogether, or Rage Quit against the uncaring AI and do something more productive with your time.

I can't tell you how many races I bumped into a wall and lost any hope of victory, or when I drifted to avoid the wall and ended up losing too much speed. Then again, do consider that even the lamest cars in this game are a hundred times better than anything I can drive with my current income in real life. I knew one guy who was nigh-obsessed with cars, to the point where the only games he would play on his (son's) PS2 were the Gran Turismo games. The few times I tried playing him 1-on-1 I'd be lucky to finish within 15 seconds of him.

I've been getting better at RTS titles when I put enough time into them, I can hold my own in most FPS's (except Quake Live 1v1...the less said the better), I can slit throats in stealth-action titles and grind it out with the best of them in RPGs from the East and the West, but I just cannot do well in driving/racing games with even partially-realistic physics.

You think NASCAR is boring because you have a bunch of cars going in a circle for several hours? Well...okay, it is. But how many of those racers would quit if you forced them to go through tracks that contained several tight turns in a row, sometimes even at near-right angles? Hell, maybe they should put in some tracks like the more advanced ones in PGR4. After all, the most exciting part of a NASCAR race is the crashing, and there would be a lot more of them. Or maybe they'd just adapt to it while I struggled with manual gear-shifting and lost more of my credibility as a Real Man.



So give me Mario Kart. Give me the Burnout series. Give me a car where crashing won't put you out of the race like in real life, and give me a car where I can smack anyone who passes me with some kind of colored shell. But for the love of God, don't let me play another "realistic" driving game again! In fact, take away my driver's license before I kill another innocent driver or cause an auto insurance agent to commit seppuku!

Now if you'll excuse me, the light's turned green, and this guy honking in the Hummer behind me is being very rude. Doesn't he realize I'm trying to write a post and drive at the same time? Sheesh.