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TOCA Race Driver Review
Chris Leyton
00/12/0000
TOCA Race Driver puts players in the footsteps of the young Ryan McKane with an eye on the World Championship...
Weâve been anticipating the arrival of the latest title in the TOCA series feverishly since the first details were announced. Weâve followed every minor update, and become more and more intrigued by the promise of a game to break the racing genre boundaries, whilst each set of seemingly photo-realistic visuals left us wanting more.
So has the game met our lofty expectations? Well yes and no, it had the chance to push the racing genre into unknown territories, unfortunately Codemastersâ havenât gone as far as they could have, but at least itâs a step in the right direction.
For those that havenât been following our TOCA coverage, the game is the first racing title (that we know of) to feature an underlying story and place emphasis on the actual characters; kind of like a racing title crossed with a soap-opera, think Days of Thunder and youâll be somewhere near as to what to expect.
Players assume the role of Ryan McKane, the latest in a family rich with racing heritage. The games introduction takes place 15 years before the events of the game, after winning a race on the last straight, Ryan and his elder brother Donny watch on in horror as their father spins on the victory lap crashing in a ball of flames. Cue a sibling rivalry both on and off the track, and a need to proof themselves as the greatest racer in the legendary family.
Starting into the game youâll be surprised by the lack of a conventional menu system, instead youâll be greeted with Ryanâs office where you can find all the options youâll ever want. The Filing Cabinet allows you to change the games options, the Computer allows you to progress with you career, moving to the other room allows you to select a variety of multiplayer modes and watch trailers on the TV. Itâs all part of the effort Codemastersâ have made to encompass the player in an immersive environment, and boy does it work.
The first race introduces you to your manager and ever-reliable mechanic; complete the trial and youâll gain entry into the first tier of the Championship. The Championship is divided up into three tiers; the first having seven different tournaments, gain enough points and youâll move onto the second which has five tournaments and eventually leading onto the main LOLA World Championship. After each tournament the lead racer will challenge you to a one-off race against him, completing this successfully will give you the car that youâre racing in.
This structure gives a wonderful learning curve to the whole game, to start off with youâll be screaming ahead of the competition and growing in confidence like your on-screen alias. However towards the end of the first tier and when youâre beginning to drive more powerful cars, youâll realise that this isnât going to be a stroll through the park and come crashing back to reality.
The actual racing experience is virtually second to none, each car handles wonderfully different to the last you raced in, with a very solid and weighty feeling to them. Thereâs a great sense of satisfaction as you hurl these cars round the track, whilst the âFinite Element Modellingâ engine allows for the most realistic and impressive crashes weâve ever seen, hook it up to a decent surround-sound set-up and be amazed as windscreens smash, bonnets crumple and body parts go flying off.
The game makes excellent use of the Playstation 2 analogue buttons, squeeze the brake button too hard and youâll find yourself skidding out of control as your brakes lock up. This teaches you to carefully caress the buttons using a slow acceleration from the start, and skidding on the brakes to swerve around the corners, wonderfulâ¦
During the races your reliable mechanic and close friend will keep you up to date alerting you to upcoming crashes and debris lying on the road, when to go for it and when to hold back, if your adrenaline isnât pumping during the races then you ought to check in for a visit to the quack.
As you progress through the game the cut-scenes will introduce you to a variety of characters, as you begin to develop rivalries and relationships on and off the track. This whole element of the game adds immensely to the game and to the genre, rather then racing against mindless clones, each race is filled with real characters so youâre trying to beat the driver rather then the car, which adds a sense of realism unfound in this genre to date.
Unfortunately Codemastersâ havenât taken it as far as they could have in my opinion, for starters it would have been nice for each racer to have a personality, so if you smashed one car up during a race youâd find them trying to get revenge on the following races and having arguments in the cut-scenes. The storyline appears to be very linear, so itâs strange that they havenât developed this aspect as far as they could have. For example you never qualify for races, so why not have a highlight reel of the qualifying stage that could have been used to heighten the atmosphere before the race.
It would have been nice to see Codemastersâ go down this route; similarly they could have given the player more involvement in Ryanâs actions. So that when youâre asked a question during the press meetings youâre given a selection of answers to choose from and eventually moving your own way through the adventure. Ultimately the storyline aspect hasnât been developed as much as weâd like to have seen, however itâs a good step and certainly adds something to the racing genre.
The visuals are also something of a disappointment in comparison to the high-resolution screens that have been issued before the games release. Car models are nicely detailed, however the environments and some severe aliasing problems distract from the overall image. On itâs plus side TOCA features one of the strongest graphics engines weâve seen in a racing game to date, chucking around 14 cars at 60FPS without the slightest hint of slowdown produces a very appealing game to play, itâs just a shame that our expectations grew too high.
