Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII FQ-400, you make my gaming life complete.

Project Gotham Racing 3 was an incredible launch title for the Xbox 360 and I was fortunate enough to have been given a copy by my wife's best friends when I first got my 360. Usually great games in the racing genre are quickly eclipsed by new games with new cars. All racing games are getting to be pretty much the same.

There are two schools now, the sims and the arcades, and within those two categories you'd often be hard pressed to tell which game you are playing if it weren't for the gimmicky crap they throw in to make the arcade racers unique. In the sim racer category it's even harder to tell. Except for the raw graphics you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a Grand Tourismo title and a Forza title.

So what do you do if you're game is an awesome arcade style racer with near sim-level controls and amazing graphics? Well you sell a whole shit load of games is what you do. But how do you keep selling? How do you keep people playing? Well, Xbox Live of course. Tournaments for real prizes, online play, ovservation capability that looks damned near like you're watching a race on speed network except there aren't breaks every seven minutes to plug the latest dvd release from Larry the Cable Guy.

Most important to me, though, are the game updates. Some are free, some you pay for, but all are worthwhile. Cadillac sponsored a Caddy pack which had some decent cars in it for free but for a couple of bucks I also picked up the Speed Pack which included a number of incredible cars such as the Viper SRT-10 Coupe, the RUF RT-12, and the Nissan NISMO R34GT-R Z-Tune. But, eclipsing all those in shear driving thrill (both in the game and in real life) there was this:

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII FQ-400. Don't let its understated "late model honda with a cheap sport kit on donuts" styling fool you. This affordable family car outperforms the Lamborghini Murcielago 6.3 on the fabled Nürburgring Nordschleife. I haven't tested this in the gaming environment but I did see it proven on TLC. It leaves corners like sprung rubber band and is nearly impossible to throw out of control.

It's lack of drifting ability and normal (very wide) high speed turning radius make it a car that takes some learning to drive. No matter how fast you are going, no matter how hard you crank the wheel this car will not power over. Sometimes, like when powersliding, you want to lose control (If you want to learn why go see the movie Cars). It might sqeak a tire or two. It might slide a little but I am convinced that there are invisible rails programmed into the racetracks that allow the wise driver to dart through every turn like a coked up cat chasing a 3 legged shrew on a unicycle. It's amazing.

P.S. Why the fuck is this still up?