When creating matches from scratch, you have three modes to choose from: Street Race, Eliminator and Capture the Track (along with team versions of Street Race and Eliminator). Using the new Xbox Live's matching capabilities, players will be automatically matched with racers of similar skill levels when they go online. Thankfully, PGR 3 has an extensive online component which can extend its natural play life. There's a decent amount of racing to be had here, but with only 20 or so events to conquer, it's all over too soon. There's of course the typical first to the finish line, but there are also checkpoint events (pass through a series of flags in a set time), timed events (where Kudos earned momentarily stops a racing clock you're trying to beat), last-placed elimination (where last after every lap is eliminated) and more. To help break things up, PGR 3 offers up a healthy list of different race types.

Offline racing in PGR 3 is broken up into a series of events, with each event featuring several races which must be completed in order to 'win' the overall event trophy. The Kudos system is back in this latest PGR, which awards you points for doing impressive moves such as taking corners without hitting barriers, drifting behind opponents before overtaking, sliding around curves and more. That said, the racing mechanics are fairly forgiving in PGR 3 - in fact, the game rewards you just as much for style as it does for speed.

It's not to the level of a Ridge Racer (you won't be powersliding around corners at 150km/h, for example), but you'll still need some dextrous control to manoeuvre around some of the courses. As has become standard with the series, racing controls in the game are tight and ultra-responsive, veering more towards arcade than simulation. Of course, looks aren't the only thing going for PGR 3.

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