What is Gotham TV?
Want to watch some racing? If you’ve got Project Gotham 3 and Xbox Live®, you can watch high-speed motorsports around the clock. PGR 3 broadcasts live virtual racing year round on Gotham TV. Log on, and you can choose from a list of online races in progress. You’ll even find some features on Gotham TV that aren’t available in most televised races—and you’ll never have to watch a commercial.
How It works
Select Gotham TV in the game’s main menu, and scroll down to the Heroes Channel. Once there, you can select a “televised” feed. The channel gets its name from the highest ranking drivers in the game, called Gotham Heroes. They’re expert drivers who frequently show up on Gotham TV.
At any given time, the Heroes Channel is busy figuring out who it wants to feature. It’s designed to pick “one of the best likely races,” usually based on the ratings and rankings of drivers online. While you’re busy between races on Xbox Live, keep an eye on the ticker on the bottom of your screen. You’ll be getting updates and announcements about the drivers being chosen.
Elite drivers who want to become Gotham Heroes can compete to raise their TrueSkill rating when they’re playing in Online Career mode. TrueSkill is the same system the game uses when it uses its matchmaking feature to put an ideal room of racers together. A Gotham TV race typically features several gamers with high ratings, so it would make sense that elite drivers who regularly compete against other folks at the top of the leaderboards would improve their chances of being featured.
If you are being featured on Gotham TV, you’ll know it. In fact, you’ll earn a Badge for being broadcast on a channel. If the folks on your Friends list are also playing PGR 3, they’ll get a scrolling note on the broadcast ticker with your gamertag: “Your friend, gamertag, is on the Heroes Channel!” You don’t have to be one of the elite drivers in the game to show up on a broadcast, but if you race with the best, your chances of being featured improve. When that happens, you’d better be racing clean because the world will be watching!
As you’d probably expect, it’s harder to get chosen for Gotham TV during a peak time with plenty of drivers online—and PGR 3’s worldwide audience does all it can to keep online competition busy around the clock. Technically, the channel can support up to twenty races at once, although again, the number of races in progress depends on how busy things get on Xbox Live.
The number of drivers in a race can also vary. Some races feature a full room of eight drivers, but some of the most dramatic only have a few experts at work. After all, there are moments when a handful of Gotham Heroes drive onto the track to figure out which one is the best … at least for that day. Over time, you’ll learn the gamertags of the top drivers online, because you’ll have a chance to watch them at work. Look for those same names on the leaderboards, including the Overall Ranking scoreboard, because drivers that good are worth watching.
Spectator Sports
When you’re a spectator, you can decide at the start of the race whether you want to watch it from the beginning – even if the race has already started – or whether you want to watch it live, seeing it the moment it occurs. During the race, you can change the car you’re watching or change the camera angle. For anyone who’s wanted to jump into a cockpit view of a car at any time during a televised race, your wish has been granted. Whether you want to observe through a series of cameras around the track, follow one car from a fixed camera angle, or look over the hood is up to you.
Want to watch with your friends? You can use the Private Chat function of your Xbox Live account to talk to the folks on your Friends list online. That means you could easily arrange to watch a race while talking to other spectators when a race between Gotham Heroes starts.
During the race, you can pull up a Gamer Card for any one of drivers, so you can take a closer look at other games he plays, read through the background information he’s posted, or send him an invite to your Friends list. And if you get a chance to race against him, there’s a chance you’ll be on the Heroes Channel, too.
PGR 3 isn’t just for people who love to drive. There are plenty of features for folks who watch racing, too. Competitive gamers and new drivers alike can learn a lot about racing strategy by watching Gotham Heroes at work. For anyone who wants to watch more motorsports, Project Gotham Racing 3 has endless racing footage on tap year round. Better stock up on chips and dip now, because there’s always a race to watch on Xbox Live.