Downloadable content is a prized nugget we all not-so-secretly hope awaits us after taking any game home, but like the midday sun on a carton of fresh milk, it also has us spoiled. However, with Bizarre Creations now parking its ride in Activision's garage, the developer stated that it's closing the books on last year's Project Gotham Racing 4, adding that it will not be releasing any more new content for the stylish Xbox 360 racer.

According to a recent post on Bizarre Creation's official forums by a dev calling himself "Ben," the studio has washed its hands of the game. "Bizarre Creations won't be adding anything more to PGR4 in the future," he wrote. "We've completed the hand-over to Microsoft, so any further add-ons will come from them and not us I'm afraid." The news probably wouldn't sting so much had the last update not been so incredibly cool, leaving us now waiting to see what else the British studio has up its racing sleeves.

Project Gotham Racing 4 (or as we like to call it, the meaty, primitive husk which envelops and safeguards Geometry Wars: Waves) is going into the shop for a shiny new coat tomorrow, as Bizarre Creations is releasing a free update for the title which will address the concerns of some of their valued vehicular veterans.

A major feature of the update is the Cat and Mouse mode's change from a linear race to a free roam chase around the city of your choice. Now, each team will have only one "mouse" car, which must be at least one class lower than the other "cat" cars on its team. Teams earn points by keeping their mouse alive, by having their mouse perform style moves, and by hitting the other team's mouse.

Also scheduled for the update are four tournament modes: Daily Tournaments (Mon. through Fri.), Super Saturdays, Simulation Sundays, and the Global Cup (a grueling, 512-man event which takes two weeks to complete). Rumor has it that, for a fortnight, the winner gets to sit high upon a tower crafted from the bones of their fallen competitors, and declare supreme dominance over all of Xbox Live. Let us all hope for a merciful and benevolent ruler.

Read -- Cat and Mouse mode details
Read -- Tournament mode details

Update: Apparently, the newly renovated Cat and Mouse mode was late for the morning train, and will not be featured on todays update. However, a Bizarre Creations employee has assured us that the new mode will be "rolled out in a separate update in a few weeks."

Welcome to another wonderful edition of X3F Achievements 101. Today's topics of discussion include Major Nelson's warning about gamesaving, sludging through the online multiplayer Achievements of Fuzion Frenzy 2, my experience thus far with Project Gotham Racing 4, and the rather annoying list of Achievements found in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Anyway, all the goodness that you've come to expect is included after the break.

Sure, we're all sad that Geometry Wars Waves will be forgoing Xbox Live Arcade in order to be an exclusive mini-game in Project Gotham Racing 4, but we all have the same nagging question: why, Bizarre Creations, newly acquired subsidiary of Activision, why? In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Bizarre Creations community lead Ben Ward gives this answer, "It's because we had plans for Live Arcade, but Waves isn't it." According to Ward, Geometry Wars Waves isn't really being designed as a full featured sequel to Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, but more as a simple mini-game. Waves is "an Easter egg" as Ward puts it, "not a full retail product." So there you have it folks, Waves may be an exclusive to PGR4, but Bizarre isn't done with Xbox Live Arcade. Hey, maybe when they create their next XBLA game, they can slip in a little mini version of PGR.

[Via XBLArcade]

Do you think a lean, green electric sports car can take on a noisy gas-guzzler? In discussing the invitationals planned for Project Gotham Racing 4, developer Bizarre Creations used "Electric vs. Petrol Showdown" as one example, where you in the Tesla Roadster face off against a Ferrari Testarossa.

Can full, unadulterated speed be met without exhuming fossil fuels? It should make for a fun, philosophical monologue while you maneuver around corners. We do warn you, though, that beating the Ferrari in a race may lead to an excess in smug emissions.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

Our partners in crime at AutoblogGreen -- just like Autoblog, only with more miles per gallon and fewer emissions -- have discovered that Project Gotham Racing 4 is set to feature a very interesting racing challenge. Part of the game's invitational series of races, the challenge is called "Electric Vs Petrol Showdown" and allows players to "take the wheel of a two-seater, silent, electric sportscar (the Tesla Roadster) and face-off against a gas-guzzling, noisy, mean machine (the Ferrari Testarossa)." For those that don't know, the Tesla Roadster is reportedly a damned impressive piece of kit, boasting the ability to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about 4 seconds. The environmentally friendly super car can also travel 200 miles on a single battery charge. The best part, thanks to PGR4, is that you won't have to spend $98,000 (base price, mind you) to try one out.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

A demo from Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 4 should be hitting Xbox Live soon, according to the developer (via Eurogamer). In addition to five playable vehicles (cars and bikes) that presumably will be in the full game, there will be an Arcade mode exclusive to the demo set in Macau, featuring exclusive challenges.
We're a bit perplexed about the exclusive content. If it's good, why not include it in the full game. Conversely, if the content is not good, or not on par with the full game, why use it to promote the title?

A time trial for Nurburgring Snow will also be in the demo. Project Gotham Racing 4 (with Geometry Wars: Waves) is due out October 2 in North America.

Earlier today, Bizarre Creations decided to share Project Gotham Racing 4's achievements with everyone and give a little back story to how they were decided upon. Learning from their PGR 3 days, Bizarre opted to make PGR 4's achievements a little more varied, less focused on difficult to obtain achievements and more fun in general. Our favorites include "Buy an Achievement", "Back it Up!" and "Beat Bizarre" where you have to beat a member of the Bizarre Creations dev team in an online game or someone who has already done so. Also, there are a few secret achievements thrown in for good measure like the "3CZV657" achievement, DeLorean anyone? Complete list, explanation and attached Gamerscore for all of PGR 4's achievements is available after the jump.

Eager to show off their pretty new camera effects and in-game car models, Bizarre Creations decided to shed some light on Project Gotham Racing 4's new and improved Photo Mode. First off, Bizzare has added a few new photo filters and effects including tunnel, vehicle blur and an odd little filter that turns your photo into a 3D image when using a pair of red / blue glasses. Wicked odd, yet utterly nifty. The other Photo Mode improvements come from how a racer's photos will be shared with the rest of the PGR 4 community. Using PGR on Demand, gamers will be able to upload their photos, search others, share and rate eachother's photos with ease. It's like a mini PGR 4 Flickr account.

There's no denying that Bizarre is focusing on creating more of a tight knit PGR community this time around and with the enhanced Photo Mode options we think they're headed on the right track (pun intended). Also, don't forget to check out preview photos of the types of images you'll be able capture in PGR 4 after the break.

Talking with Pro-G at the Leipzig Games Convention, Bizarre Creations confirmed that a new Geometry Wars game will be exclusively bundled with Project Gotham Racing 4. The new geometry shooter will be called Geometry Wars: Waves and will not be available on the XBLA like it's older brother Retro Evolved, instead it'll stay attached to PGR4 for the long run. Bizarre Creations also mentioned that the new Waves is based off of Retro Evolved and is not officially considered to be the next game in the series. Whatever that may entail or mean, we know that we're getting a new Geometry Wars on October 2nd. W00t!

MS just sent out an announcement that Project Gotham Racing 4 will be arriving on October 2nd for the MSRP of $59.99. To sweeten the deal, the also announced some more vehicles in the game, both those with two wheels and four. Personal favorites at X3F Towers in the most recent bunch include the Ariel Atom 300 Supercharged, making a return since being introduced in PGR2, and getting "High Def'd" in PGR3. Since it would be boring to use some stock PGR4 logo as the image for the post, we're grabbing the Ariel's segment from Top Gear and spreading the love. Full list of announced vehicles after the break.

After recently commenting on the constraints of DVD, Project Gotham Racing 4 developer Bizarre Creations has a new post on their company website providing some clarification as to their opinion of ye olde disc format.

Citing the much larger number of environments (10 in PGR4, vs. five in PGR3), the article lauds the new lighting system over having two "fixed" times of day (and therefore two sets of textures). "DVD size is absolutely not [their emphasis] a factor that we consider when designing our games ... and PGR4 is no exception. DVD9 gives us more than we need to create a fabulous experience for you guys," it said, later adding, "we've never had to cut content to fit on the disc, and we probably never will." Maybe it wasn't cut, but we're pretty sure they would've planned for more environments on a larger disc.

The original comment, which sparked the discussion, was, "Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD." While we applaud the ingenuity of a new lighting system, they did say the data for two textures could not fit.

Should the extra content situation ever arise, we're sure they could make it downloadable on Xbox Live, possibly for a fee. Bizarre's biggest concern right now should be including a new Geometry Wars onto the disc -- if it's not there, there's going to be heck to pay. Heck, I tell you.

Rumors have been circulating the internet lately telling of Bizarre Creations being constrained by the DVD format's storage capacity and therefor not being able to implement day/night textures into Project Gotham Racing 4. But today Bizarre put such evil rumors to rest telling everyone that no, they have not been limited by DVD for PGR 4 in the slightest.

Commenting on the issue, they said that the facts got spun out of control when certain fanboys commented on the day/night feature stating that there was no room on the DVD to hold all the textures for both day and night in the game. Instead, Bizarre says that not only are they NOT constrained by the DVD format, but they actually opted for transitioning day/night textures in the game instead of two sets of "fixed" textures.

So, PGR 4 was not nor ever has been limited by DVD's storage capacity, it was never an issue and PGR fans will be treated to transitioning day/night textures as proof. Case closed.

[Thanks, IncredibleBulk92]

Today, in their latest Studio Update, Bizarre Creations released the names of all ten locations you'll be driving on when Project Gotham Racing 4 hits retailers in September. A complete list of all the locations is viewable after the break, but highlights from the ten location set include Las Vegas (sin city baby!), Quebec (Canada in the house), and Macau, China (China FTW!). Bizarre also talks about "racification" and the subtle changes they made to PGR 4 tracks that make them oh-so-sweet. Enough reading of our commentary already, the complete list of PGR 4 locations is posted after the break.

[Via TeamXbox]

While filming a commercial for the upcoming Project Gotham Racing 4, a Ferrari F430 drifted too wide out the corner and bumped into a concrete barrier. Did a massive explosion ensue? Screams of concerned mothers from the crowd echo in our ears? Well ... not really. Very little damage was done to the car, but considering that repairing the vehicle probably costs more than we make in a year, it kind of puts things in perspective. No Gizmondo executives were harmed in the crash.

The commercial is scheduled to appear in mid-August with PGR4 coming in September. Check out another video after the jump.

[Thanks, JimeneX]