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Motorsports fans- die-hard fans- usually like watching or racing anything with a motor, from normal NASCAR races, to motorcycles on ice, to yes, even lawn tractors. If it has wheels and a motor, odds are some people, somewhere are organizing an “official” race league for whatever it is (ever see bar stool racing before?).

Codemasters has a similar mindset in their famed ToCA series. Although the series relies on its touring car namesake, it’s far from only a sedan racing sim.

The latest Codie’s project- ToCA Race Driver 3- attempts to be all things to all motorsports fans. Does it succeed? Let’s find out.


Gameplay

The key to the success of the ToCA brand, and what ultimately will set ToCA Race Driver 3 apart from its competitors, is variety. By variety, I’m specifically talking about the breadth of the motorsports experience, including event types, car classes, series, circuits, and more.





Fighting for position.


The first treat in ToCA Race Driver 3 is the ability to race on over eighty different tracks from all around the world. You’ll have the option to race on nearly every prestigious road racing course on the planet, although there’s an obvious overload of tracks in the countries whose main language is English. Therefore, you’ll have access to tracks from Australia and New Zealand, including the Oran Park Grand Prix circuit, Laguna Seca and Indy in the U.S.A., Silverstone and many more in the U.K.- you get the point. Gamers can also tackle Nurburgring, Hockenheim, and a few others in Germany, and a handful of other real courses- from Bahrain to Belgium. Codemasters also invented some of their own highways for ToCA Race Driver 3, including three UK-based rally courses, a few international rallycross arenas, dirt tracks, and even some karting layouts for the truly insane. Did I mention that ToCA Race Driver 3 features tons of circuits?

So now that you have over eighty tracks to tear up, you need to have something to tear them up with, right? The prior versions of ToCA are known for their unique blend of motorsports, from open wheel, to stock car, and just about anything else you can think of. ToCA Race Driver 3 raises the bar by bringing in even more car classes and race series which pretty much eliminates the notion that this franchise, judging by its namesake, is touring car-exclusive.

Sure, you’ll still have access to the famous DTM TC series, the Aussie V8 supercars, and the British GT Championship that’s the foundation of this franchise, but that’s not nearly all. Building upon their knowledge of rally game creation (Colin McRae is one of the better rally franchises on the market), Codemasters has included the point-to-point stuff in ToCA Race Driver 3, further adding to this series’ breadth. A bevy of open-wheel classifications are in ToCA Race Driver 3 too, including Formula Ford, Formula 1000, and Formula 3. There’s shifter kart racing (the breeding ground for top level race car drivers the world over), big-boy racing in the form of Indy and F1 cars. Add in a bit of monster truck racing (yes, like Big Foot) racing, U.S. musclecars, dune buggies (?) and you have the most complete collection of motorsports events in the gaming world.

You’ll tackle ToCA Race Driver 3 in the same formats as last year’s game, as either a rookie driver working up the ranks of the motorsports world, or as a distinguished driver in a specific class. The World Tour area of ToCA Race Driver 3 is where you’ll be schooled by your gruff mechanic on how to survive in a wheel-to-wheel environment. The cut scenes will have your trusty grease monkey either praising you or laying into you for your performance out there. Performing well will send you into different race series, since you’ll be progressing in a similar fashion of a big-time NASCAR or F1 driver (increasingly faster and more vehicles). There’s a huge amount of variance in the racing during the World Tour, so this is where most people will spend their time in ToCA Race Driver 3. World Tour also offers the most leniencies in terms of difficulty, which makes this a great area to learn about the somewhat unforgiving physics and handling models used. The Pro Career area is a bit more like a single Career Mode in a series-specific title. You’ll be asked to compete in a variety of races in a particular series with hopes of being the year-end points leader. You’ll have to complete the objectives in each series to move onto the next venue and event, so it’s important to use the practice sessions and car setup opportunities to tweak your ride.

The online multiplayer element of ToCA Race Driver 3 returns with the ability to race wheel-to-wheel with up to twelve other gamers via Xbox Live or System Link. Normal and eliminator-style races are the only match types, but gamers will have control over settings such as damage, collision detection, and the ability to used prepped vehicles. Offline multiplayer has been limited to two players in a split-screen fashion.





Taking the turn a tad wide...


Gameplay Controls:

A signature of the ToCA series on the Xbox has been its control setup options. ToCA Race Driver 3 continues the trend of control-friendly racing by having tons of ways to change how your vehicle will react to your inputs, whether they are entered via a controller or racing wheel.

Deadzone and saturation settings for the wheel, brake, accelerator and clutch are enough to set up ToCA Race Driver 3 to just about any gamer’s liking. These options also make ToCA Race Driver 3 one of the few titles that is compatible with nearly every steering wheel peripheral made for the Xbox. Our Fanatec Speedster wheel – the Forza favorite- works great with ToCA Race Driver 3 by the way.

You’ll have a few different camera views to choose from in ToCA Race Driver 3, including the in-car look (it’s really more of a hood view), the bumper cam, and the typical third person look. These can be changed on-the-fly with the black button.

Overall Gameplay Impressions:

ToCA Race Driver 3 borrows Forza’s saying “you are what you race”, but allows gamer to become one with a less personalized automobile. Instead of building your dream car (even though ToCA Race Driver 3 does have brand-name tuner parts and car setup/telemetry), you’ll be racing dream cars that already exist. Other than a slight European/English skew, ToCA Race Driver 3 allows you to get in the cockpit of vehicles that simply aren’t offered in other sims.

The ability to race predominately race cars and not street cars keeps the focus of ToCA Race Driver 3 on the actual driving itself and less on how many HP a turbo kit will add to a custom-painted ride. The tweaked physics and handling and the crazy damage model really delivers in ToCA Race Driver 3, making it a real sim gem. Beginners may have a tough time enjoying though, as ToCA Race Driver 3- even with all assists on- is unforgiving. Turn the assists off and keep caution flags and corner cutting penalties on, and you easily have the toughest driver available on the Xbox, and perhaps any console. But this high degree of difficulty, of course, is what makes ToCA Race Driver 3 one of the best racers on the market for hardcore gearheads.

Graphics

There are areas of ToCA Race Driver 3 that look really nice, such as the vehicle models, particle effects, and track surfaces, but there are other areas which show the age of the Xbox a bit. The crowds are flat textures (hard to accept with the crowds in PGR3), and the damage bits are a little generic in instances. You don’t see any over-the-top lighting or a sense that the vehicles are planted to the road either. Instead, cars float a bit over the road surface and look a bit disconnected from anything, including the tarmac.

The cut scenes are eerily realistic looking at times (primo lighting), but what’s up with the race queens? The beginning sequence of the World Tour shows two, uh, girls that could easily pass as dudes. At least the animations scream female, even though their faces scream male.


Audio

Recording the audio for every vehicle in ToCA Race Driver 3 would be an extremely daunting and expensive task, which is why it appears that Codie’s has forgone this option. The result is a little disappointing, with digitized exhaust and engine noises trying to take the place for true audio files. There’s a real synthetic quality to many of seventy plus cars in ToCA Race Driver 3, although a few of the unibody/production vehicles appear to have true exhaust notes.





Traffic jam.


The limited voice acting is fine, but the soundtrack let me down a touch. Of course, the only sound that true racers want to hear anyways is intake and exhaust noises, so I’ll let the sub-par soundtrack (and no custom soundtrack option to speak of) slip by.


The Bottom Line

ToCA Race Driver 3 builds upon the success of the previous games of the franchise, which makes it a must have for the fans of this pretty unique series. Those that don’t consider themselves hardcore about motorsports probably won’t get the point of ToCA Race Driver 3, and will more than likely be paying money for additional frustration in their lives. Sure, there are Corvettes, Evo’s, Honda street cars and more in ToCA Race Driver 3, but for every 350Z, there are 3 dune buggies, 8 DTM touring cars, a go kart, a Group B rally beast, and Grave Digger’s worst nightmare.

If you love anything with four wheels and an internal combustion engine, then you can’t afford to miss out on ToCA Race Driver 3.