Nowadays the cut scenes are more likely to dwell on sound driving advice than flirty agents and TV crews, but the light-hearted tone helps keep your interest, while the occasional clash with a monkey-faced rival is pure comedy gold on the rare occasions that they occur. Codies has sadly toned down the 'plot' elements that were such a welcome part of TRD2, and as such the game's now a more serious affair than it was. Once again, you've got the guiding hand of Rick behind you (the thistle tongued ageing Scot) barking instructions to you when you're on the track and giving essential driving tips prior to races.
In particular, it's this ability to try another discipline and progress via another route that takes a lot of the potential frustration out of the TOCA Race Driver, while also giving you more of what you do want. So, for example, you might decide you're better at Rally driving than Indy Car or Monster Trucks, meaning your path through the game will very much be dictated by your own personal gaming preferences, which you'll appreciate more and more the harder the game gets. Just like before, there's the familiar World Tour mode to wade through, giving racers the choice of at least two (but mostly three) racing disciplines to master in each tier before they can progress on to the next.
But you knew that already, didn't you? Decisions, decisions Pat would be good at this. It really is an all-encompassing pot pourri of contrasting vehicles and driving disciplines, and is basically brilliant at making the idea of mastering every kind of four wheel driving discipline around seem hugely entertaining. Just as before, it's a game that covers all bases but never dilutes the experience. You'll know already that the handling's consistently excellent, that the damage modelling is among the best around, that the graphics are about as good as they get on current gen systems, and what a vast beast of a game it is. Easy.Īs such, that makes our job of explaining what TOCA Race Driver's about that much easier, because most of you'll know the drill by now. So what do developers do when they can't wow the public with amazing new physics techniques and flashy next gen visuals? Refine the successful formula that got such a critical back slapping last time out and throw in an eye-watering amount of content to make the whole thing last even longer. Finding itself with practically an entire sub genre all to itself, it suddenly finds itself under more scrutiny than ever - especially given its simultaneous release across three formats - but no one expected Codies to fail after its last magnificent effort, and it hasnt.īut like most 'difficult' third releases, its progress and evolution has stalled slightly, most evidently thanks to the decision to stick to current generation platforms.
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Bridging the gap I wonder if the extended warranty covers this?Įvidently realising the vast gaping chasm that existed in the market, Codemasters' TOCA Race Driver series - by accident or by design - has plugged that divide remarkably well. No bad thing, but not necessarily for those of us wanting a slice of fun to go with our wedge of authenticity. On the other extreme, most arcade racing games seem determined to be as ludicrously unrealistic as possible, with handling and damage modelling based entirely on providing fun and thrills to literally anyone. Often hiding their complete lack of accessibility behind the po-faced claims of "realistic" handling, they were almost always blighted by the kind of learning curves that made scaling Everest seem eminently doable by comparison. Upgraded damage engine - now every car component has a weight and an aero-dynamic effect.Before TOCA Race Driver came screeching along, the world of racing simulators was a pretty bleak landscape.