Randy is one of my favourite reviewers. His article at
http://www.digitalsports.com/mine/dsports/pc2/toca/review.html is good
but not up to his usual high standard.
Where Randy says, "But there is a very sharp peak at which you go from
turning and feeling totally in control to snap-spinning the car. Theres
little or no chance to catch these kinds of spins, and little sense of
understanding what went wrong, or what you did in the cornering sequence
that was wrong. Theres no sense of a slide coming on that you can
correct for. Control is there one second, and gone the next."
I would disagree with this. I can almost always catch the cars, I
couldn't to start with but I can now.
I would be much more upbeat than Randy about TOCA. I love this game -
it's about the only realistic sim of a series where paint is exchanged.
The AI drivers are rather aggressive on the straights but about right on
the corners. You should watch the real thing if you get the chance -
these guys must really hate eachother. The driving model and physics
leave NFS for dead in the realism stakes. The sense of speed is
alarming.
The graphics are a bit of both - the cars have been laser scanned in so
are very close in shape and paintwork to the 1997 BTCC, but, yes, the
res is not as good as some of the best around. Framerates are, however
very good on highend boxes.
Network play is a bit of both as well. It is easy to get up and running
but there is a lot of warp on internet play though LAN and Modem-Modem
is where this title really excels - rubbing door handles down the main
straight and into a late breaking corner - wow! This is the nature of
Touring Car Racing - F1 is okay but they break too easily, you need
closed wheeled cars to get this kind of racing.
The damage model is TOCA is completely missing (except for graphically)
- this is a serious flaw with TOCA. Setups aren't there either - you
have to make do with the factory setups - I don't mind this but of
course it's not realistic.
The weather model is great - driving Brands in the rain is a real
challenge.
The championship has a problem in the early stages because it is set on
easy mode. Only towards the end do the drivers get any good. I tend to
do individual races in hard mode, though I did like Tiff Needell
commentary before each race.
Many people from across the sim to arcade spectrum enjoy this game,
though the simmers oftem complain that it's a setup and damage model
short of the real McCoy and the arcaders, that it's too difficult - well
you can't please all the people.
But all this is just my opinion. I love BTCC and I love TOCA. TOCA2 is
out soon and promises to be even better.
Paul
> Hi,
> I just found that one of my local store finally got TOCA !
> How's the game ? How good is it ? I heard that it's very
> realistic, but how about graphics ? Can it be on par with
> NFS 3 hot pursuit ?
> Thanks. Oh would anyone point me to some reviews ?
> Janus
