TOCA Race Driver 2 review

The second offering in the TOCA Race Driver series follows the original’s innovation in creating a role-playing race title. Instead of just racing, TOCA weaves a story around the races to create a more immersive feel. The story casts you as a young, inexperienced but talented racer who is eager to become formula one world champion. You must earn enough money by entering plenty of championships to secure your climb on to the next level. TOCA 2 features fifteen different race types, from street cars to formula Ford and rallying - taking in big rig trucks along the way. TOCA 2 has to compete with the likes of Rallisport Challenge and Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox and so has a high standard to emulate.

Career Guidance

The single player campaign in TOCA Race Driver is progressed through cut scenes involving your manager and promoter. These convey the requirements for the next championship (get on the podium, earn so much money, etc.) to give a sense of purpose to proceedings. When you get to championship time you usually get a choice of which championship to enter, giving a choice between race types. With fifteen different race types in all, encompassing the main and minor types of racing, the game certainly doesn’t get boring.

Most of the championships are made up of just a few courses, often just two or three, and only a handful of laps. This helps to keep the pace of the game moving, never letting you get too settled into one racing style for too long. As you progress through your career the race styles become more familiar and the cars become faster.

Optional Extras

To be able to complete the career mode you need to stay at the top of the game, which means adapting to the differing racing styles required for the different race types. The computer isn’t going to make it easy for you as the opposing drivers are aggressive and pretty good. Your opponents aren’t infallible, as they miss the racing line from time to time and often break too conservatively - allowing you easy pickings on the harder corners. You can choose a strategy to suit you, whether it’s driving more aggressively than the computer or breaking late and accelerating hard. However you drive the game allows you to customise your car completely from the suspension to the gear ratio and the downforce.

The cars drive fine and generically out of the garage but spend a little time with them and you can really have an advantage over the computer.

Gripping Stuff

With fifteen different race types to contend with there was obviously danger that Codemasters would make them all drive the same and just vary their looks. Fortunately plenty of work has gone into making these cars look and drive realistically. Stats from the manufacturers on everything from engine displacement to structural stiffness provides around thirty-five cars with distinct handling characteristics. The lighter cars don’t stick to the road whereas the big rigs stick to the road but can’t corner at speed.

As you race over the same tracks in many of the championships (although forty-eight are included) you can really appreciate the effort in making the cars handle differently as you go through the same twists and turns.

Crumple Zone

Damage is also reasonably handled in the cars. The damage engine isn’t as realistic as we’ve seen in other games but damage does appear on the cars. Hit a wall at speed in a formula Ford car and you can expect to see the wheel rolling away behind you. Damage inflicted on the car may not appear on the bodywork completely realistically but as you damage the car it does affect performance. There are five key damage areas – transmission, suspension, steering, wheels and engine. As you damage the transmission the top gears become more difficult, affecting top speed.

TV Presentation

Aside from the slightly dodgy damage modelling the graphics are excellent. The sense of speed is well conveyed as you drive along well modelled tracks with plenty of trackside detail. The graphics on the pre-rendered cut scenes are a bit ropey although passable. The car models and track models really help to make the entire experience of the game more convincing. As the cars flash past on screen the accompanying surround sound track provides an excellent sonic backdrop.

The engine sounds are convincing for each car type, showing the amount of effort that has gone into presenting this title. The voice acting is average and can be a bit obtrusive as you get delayed congratulations on overtaking or the same motivational sentence at the start of the every race (i.e. if you restart the race). No in game music is provided, although custom sound tracks can be used to fill this gap.

Live-ing it up

The crowning glory for TOCA is the support for Xbox Live. Up to twelve racers can compete online in the same cars and courses available offline. Missing racers can be filled in with AI competition to prevent the track being too empty. The usual options are there with quick match and optimatch being available. A feature to prevent players driving the course backwards to causes pile-ups allows the races to go more smoothly. Offline multiplayer support is also provided in the form of split screen and system link for those without Live or broadband.

Evolution in the revolution

TOCA Race Driver 2 is an evolution over its predecessor. Where the original provided a real innovation by adding the career mode to the driving genre this sequel takes that idea and expands on it. Every aspect of the original has been expanded and improved upon with better sound, graphics and handling. The single player campaign still feels new and innovative even though it’s been done before. The handling and AI make this a challenging game and with loads of race types the challenge keeps changing as you progress. Online multiplayer just seals the deal here really.

TOCA 2 is an accomplished game that competes well with the likes of Project Gotham Racing and Rallisport Challenge and, by providing a unique single player element, should be able to sit alongside these titles.