Your Car’s Stereo
No car is complete without a really good sound system. Sure, maybe it’s more responsible to avoid buying a state-of-the-art stereo system, an MP3 player, as many speakers as your car can hold, a kickin’ sub-woofer, and a 10-disc CD changer for the trunk, but there’s nothing quite like driving your new car with hard-driving music. It’s even more essential when you’re driving a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, or one of the concept cars included in Project Gotham Racing® 3. A stylish game needs stylish music, so you should know your way around all the features on your PGR 3 sound system.
Gotham Music
The game itself comes packed with an award-winning soundtrack (check out our PGR 3 Awards for more information!). In addition to the great driving music you’d normally expect from a racing game, PGR 3 includes a diverse assortment of music from around the world. Different styles of music in the game are featured on our Gotham Audio page, but if you want more than just a sampling of tunes, there are ways to add more tracks to your car’s stereo. First, we’ll show you how to customize what you’ve got so far; then we’ll show you a few tricks you can use to add music to any Xbox 360™ game, along with a few tricks particular to PGR 3.
At any point during an offline race, you can pause the game to adjust the sound. With a few clicks, you can adjust the music’s volume, making it louder or softer than the game’s sound effects. When a new track of music starts, you’ll see a pop–up window with the name of the current artist and title (even if you’ve turned the music off). If you don’t care for the current selection, push left on the D-pad to skip to the next track.
Control Your Queue
For greater control over what’s in your queue, from the Main menu, select the More menu, select the Options menu, and then select the Sound or the Music menus. In the Sound menu, you can adjust the PGR 3 volume levels, your preferred audio output mode, and your sound system’s settings. In the Music menu, you can adjust your Virtual CD Changer to choose which of the six “discs” you want to hear. Alternatively, you can mix things up a bit by choosing the Shuffle option or the Random CD option to hear a random selection of tunes.
Because this is an Xbox 360 game, you can also jump outside PGR 3 to make even more adjustments to your music. If you haven’t already tried this out, go to your Xbox Dashboard and select the Media option. The Music section can help you find the songs you’ve stored on your system's hard drive (if you have one), or compatible music from your PC (if you’re using a Windows Media Center or Windows Media Connect).
Note: If you don’t know how to connect an Xbox 360 console to a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, visit http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb for more information.
Be Your Own DJ
Want more? One of the best features to use with PGR 3 is your system’s ability to rip CDs and transfer music from portable devices, such as an MP3 player, onto your system’s hard drive. You can select music from your system’s hard drive to listen to while you’re playing PGR 3. This means you set aside the game’s music and play music from your own library. You’ll still be able to hear the game’s sound effects (including engine noises) while you’re playing, but you can choose your own soundtrack for your car’s stereo. Remember that pop–up window we talked about earlier, the one that lists your current title and artist? When you have this feature enabled, PGR 3 and your Xbox 360 will attempt to display the titles of your music while you’re driving!
Note: For more information about streaming digital media from a portable device to an Xbox 360 console, visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/howto/media/xbox360/intro-digitalmedia.htm for more information.
Like the Xbox 360, Project Gotham Racing 3 has an astounding array of custom features. The game comes with its own diverse, eclectic selection of music; however, by adjusting your PC, you’ve got a sound system as changeable as any you’d expect from a new car off the showroom floor. If your finances aren’t quite good enough to buy that new Ferrari you’ve got your eye on, rest assured that when you drive one in the virtual world, you can play whatever you damn well please on your car’s stereo!