Downshifting: Dangerous Curves Ahead
Beginning drivers should have no trouble at all leaping into competitive challenges in a Gotham Career. The first available cars in the game handle remarkably well, easily reaching (or exceeding) speeds of 170 miles an hour. The game’s physics make remarkably flashy driving moves much easier. Playing the game on an Easy level of difficulty with an automatic transmission is a great way to practice. However, for the higher levels of difficulty, a beginning driver will need to make a few changes to racing strategy and technique.
If you’re not used to racing with a manual transmission, you can use a few basic tips and tricks to drive down your lap times. This week, we’re going to show how you can take turns more effectively. In Project Gotham Racing® 2, you could sometimes score a “Great Line!” Kudo with the following approach. In Project Gotham Racing 3, you’ll drive up your “racing line” percentage on time trials… but more importantly, you’ll overtake more of your rivals in races, both online and offline.
One of the benefits of driving with a manual transmission is the ability to accelerate faster out of corners. The best way is with a “textbook” approach—it may sound a little academic, but mastering this technique will make you a better driver. It works like this:
- As you approach a turn, look towards the inside corner. We’ll call this the apex.
- Aim for the apex and shift to a lower gear. You may need to brake when you’re downshifting. If you listen to your engine, you’ll hear the extra power it gets when you downshift.
- Accelerate as you come out of the turn. Because you’re in a lower gear, you’ll accelerate faster, particularly if you were near the top speed for your last gear going into the turn.
Drivers have a saying for this technique: “slow in, fast out.” You want to decelerate before that inside corner (the apex) and accelerate on the way out. The opposite is “fast in, slow out,” and it can slow you down in a competitive race. When you take a corner too fast, you’ll have to fight to recover from the turn—which admittedly can earn you some Kudos in the short term, but may eventually cost you time or the race.
Some folks take this strategy a step further with an “outside-inside-outside” line. Before the turn, they move toward the outside of the track. (You don’t have to move all the way out, but giving yourself a little more room certainly helps.) Moving through the turn, they move inside to the apex. Exiting the turn, they accelerate again moving back towards the outside. By moving to the outside of the track on the way out, they have more room to accelerate in a lower gear, and that way, they’re at a higher speed immediately after the turn. This works particularly well if there’s a long straight section—like the Brooklyn Bridge—after you exit the turn.
Before you jump into a competition, whether it’s online or offline, changing your gearing from automatic to manual is pretty straightforward. From the Main menu, select the Options menu, select More, and then go through your options for setting up the game. Gearing is one of your options, where you choose whether to go with an Automatic or Manual Transmission.
The physics in Project Gotham Racing 3 are rather forgiving, so this isn’t a game where you need to stress about “geometric apexes,” increasing and decreasing radius turns, tire grip, or other factors. With a little bit of practice, though, this downshifting technique should make you a little faster and deadlier than folks who don’t know how to use it. It isn’t a substitute for fast reflexes, but once you’ve got these moves down, you’ll be more effective on dangerous curves.