Dirty Drifting: Part Two
In "Dirty Drifting: Part One," we talked about the role drifting plays in Project Gotham Racing® 3. This time, we’re following up with some tips and tricks. Although the best way to learn drift technique is through trial and error, there isn’t a lot of description of how to use these maneuvers in the game. Now we’re ready to cover the basics of quick-and-dirty drifting.
One of the easiest drift moves to learn is the e-brake slide. It’s a three-step maneuver you can use when you’re rolling through a turn.
- As you enter the turn, use your e-brake (the green A button) as you turn in. You’ll feel the back end of the car slide out, or “fishtail.”
- As you keep rolling through the turn, use countersteering to keep control of the car. Steer lightly away from the direction you’re drifting.
- When you’re ready to roll out of the turn, keep your car pointed in the direction of your exit, and then accelerate out of the corner as you throttle out of the turn.
If that seems complex, then let’s simplify it.
- Use the e-brake going into a turn.
- Countersteer to keep control through the turn.
- Accelerate out of the turn.
After a bit of practice, you can use this maneuver to either get a Drifting Kudo or an E-Brake Slide Kudo. With a little more practice, you can do variations on this move. If you use some hard braking instead of the e-brake, for instance, you might get Kudos for a Power Over. If you jink a little away from the turn, and then turn sharply into it, sliding the back end of your car out, you might get Kudos for Feint Braking, and so forth.
Some of the game’s Drift Challenges are short enough that you may have only one turn to use for drifting … but drifting is not a maneuver you can only perform on turns. In any straightaway, you can also do smaller drifts simply by running straight, turning sharply, and using the same technique you would use for an e-brake slide, power over, or feint brake. You can even score Drift Kudos for pulling a few 360-degree turns in a tight circle, as long as you’re careful about you’re exit from that move. The trick is to not slam into a wall and waste your Kudos. Fortunately, you should have a fair amount of time to try this once or twice before a turn, even if you don’t always have enough room for it.
Once you know how to earn Kudos for a single drift, you can learn to chain drifts together, pull smaller maneuvers in the dead times between corners, and show off different types of drifts. You can even save films to your Xbox 360™ when you’re just relaxing in the Playtime section of the game. And if you’re racing on Gotham TV, of course, it’s tempting to drift a little on turns when you’re winning, jjust for the sake of style.
Now that you know the basics, we expect to see some of your drift technique on Gotham TV real soon. We’ll be practicing, too. So until the next time, if you can’t race fast and clean, have fun drifting dirty.