“What was that? What exactly was that?”
The crew chief on TOCA Race Driver 2: The
Ultimate Racing Simulator is less than impressed with your efforts behind the
wheel of a finely crafted racing machine – the one you just put into a wall
trying to sneak past the competition on a corner that was a little too much for
the speed you were carrying into it. His rich-English accent admonishes and then
encourages.
But there is hope for you; all you have to do
is prove your worth through a series of grueling races against some very tough
competition. If you can do that, you may – one day – win his praise.
So, it is off to the courses, traversing the
globe on a path to racing greatness. Think you can handle it?
TOCA Race Driver 2: The Ultimate Racing
Simulator is the October release for Codemasters on the PlayStation2 that
continues the hot-selling series. Real damage, to the point of being unable to
continue to race, powers the visuals and challenge of this game, but it also has
a terrific options package following in pursuit.
The game sports 33 championships and 35 of
some of the most powerful street machines ever converted to racing. Cars include
three types of Jaguars (XJ220, XKR and E-Type), classic American cars like the
Mustang Cobra R and Ford GT, the Subaru Impreza WRX, Opel Astra V8 Coupe, Aston
Martin V12 Vanquish, the ABT-Audi TT-R and AMG-Mercedes CLK – to name but a few.
There are 15 different motor sports in this package and 52 tracks with 21 cars
on the track simultaneously.
The story follows the tried-and-true line of
finishing at the top to advance, but finishing well enough in the money to
continue to feed that nasty auto-upgrade habit. The game also incorporates a new
engine that yields 60 frames per second. Multiplayer mode will allow up to eight
players to compete.
All that is well and good, of course, but how
does the game handle? We’ll get to that in a moment.
The preview build that GameZone received was
very tight and the controls follow the standard variety of accelerate/brake and
steer routines that many games have.
First off, there are four modes of play – free
race, time trial, multiplayer, and network. There is also the standard array of
records and replay that you can view.
Control options allow players to adjust the
gearbox from automatic to manual, and there are two handling modes – simulation
and pro simulation (the latter comes with a warning about its difficulty).
Forget the default opening race, there are
others you can jump into and compete in. Take the ’68 Mustang Challenge for
example. You are given a 1968 Ford Mustang and turned loose on the track at
Leguna Seca. Twenty cars on the track, with wide gravel-spinout areas flanking
the tracks and hot little turns that will have the pack slowing down
unexpectedly are just part of the challenge.
Another part is not getting caught up in the
sterling graphical elements.
There are four views: behind the car and
slightly above (3rd-person perspective), through the windshield from
the driver’s side, through the windshield from the rear-view mirror and off the
front-bumper – no true cockpit vantage point.
While some of the damage is unrealistic (the
cars tend to start to go into an inverted V shape way too fast from a front-on
collision), the game does sport damage that affects performance. The cars all
handle differently, and what you may get away with on one vehicle may well prove
your undoing with another. But take that Mustang race for example. The default
‘Stang you drive is black and red. The hood of the car is a glossy black, and
should you pop the game into the windshield viewpoint, you will be treated to
dazzling environmental reflections off the hood – clouds and overpasses that
look very realistic.
As mentioned, each car handles a little
differently. In some cases, the nuances are almost imperceptible, until you hit
a corner faster than you should be going, or try to recover from a spin in the
gravel. This game is about surviving without a lot of damage, knowing the
tracks, and coaxing your machine through the twists and turns. It appears that
most of the cars, initially, are equal in power, so skill has to take over to
win the races.
The AI is not overly bright, but – if anything
– errors in that direction on the side of caution. You can read what it will do
and with a little ‘devil-may-care’ attitude you can pass them, rub them and cut
them off to your heart’s content.
TOCA Race Driver 2 is about finesse, and
winning, of course.
This is a terrific racing experience that
players should check out. While the game does have a few minor areas that are
not quite realistic, the overall experience is intense, and challenging.
