ToCA Race Driver 3 impressions

Those bloody flags...

Run wide and onto the kerbing going through a tight left hander at Hockenheim and you'll get a warning flag.  Take too much kerb on the inside of the turn into the stadium and the same thing will happen.  Run wide and clean off the racetrack, with the entire car in the tarmac run off going through the final two corners, and absolutely nothing happens.

It's actually not a huge issue once you learn which parts of which racetracks are problem areas and start to run within the limitations of the system, but the system is screwed up whichever way you look at it.  Also screwed up, it seems, are Bathurst (some very incorrect cambers in evidence) and Oulton Park, whose layout is exactly as Oulton Park's would be if it was 3 times wider, opened up the radius of every turn dramatically and modelled at least 3 corner entries on the north face of the Eiger.  It's a bit much when you're following a British GT field into Old Hall and every single one of them takes off over the hump on the way in.

However, even despite all that it is a lot of fun.  Reading through the impressions you'll notice I've devoted a lot of time to a small number of complaints, and if the balance seems off that's only because as with Pro Evolution Soccer, it's not that easy to convey in words exactly why ToCA is so entertaining.  It feels right, in general, and where it doesn't feel right I've mentioned it in here and tried to say why.  The only other series I have any complaints about are the off-road ones, where you're apparently driving through treacle in every corner since no matter how hard you throttle on, the revs refuse to increase.  Even those classes are fun, though, because whatever limitations you're subject to don't disadvantage you against the CPU, and as long as you play fair you can really have a race with them.

Believe it or not, I reckon there's more mileage in this thread yet, so I'll probably have some more in a day or two.  As always, questions, comments and brickbats are welcome.

Cheers,
Adam

Zep, this is the first game I've played in a good couple of years that's had me throwing my pad to the ground in frustration.  The flag penalties are really getting to me - at Donington in the British GT series last night I put my outside wheels onto the kerb and absolutely no further coming out of the Old Hairpin and got penalised for it.  There should not be a penalty for maximising the available track, that's absolutely ludicrous.

I agree completely with the assessment of the main game modes - World Tour seems more like a chance to see what the game has to offer in terms of cars and tracks.  A display of wares, if you like.  Pro Career is more like the sort of thing you'll keep coming back to.

Speaking of Pro Career - Ted, I played through some of the Oval career to get to the IndyCars for you, and there's no way I'm advising you to buy the game just on the strength of those.  Played on normal settings there's not a whole lot of difference between the ICS and the American 1000 cars (I think that's what they were called, the blatant ICS copy) in TRD 2.  Put the Pro Simulation settings on and it's better, with more of the feeling of weight I referred to in my first post, but still not massively removed from the American 1000.  Certainly there isn't as much depth in the handling model and the transitional stages of the car during a long run, and in the name of accessibility some of the details are left out - for example, 6th is a racing gear, not an overtaking one.  At least in this mode, there are only 20 cars with some big players missing, and only Nashville, Indy, Gateway and Dover to race on.  I have to say that it's still enjoyable.  It just bears absolutely no resemblance to the Codies Indy games you enjoyed so much.

I wouldn't want to dissuade you from buying - in fact, if you got any mileage at all out of TRD 2 then this game is a must have - but don't buy it just for the IndyCars.

Something that I thought was nice is that while there have been a few developments in the physics engine - on XBox, since PS2 and PC owners got Pro Sim last time around - you don't have to use them if you don't want to.  If you're like me and enjoyed TRD 2 but wished the cars had a bit more heft about them, switch the Sim settings on and you're away.  If you're after more of the same, leave them off.  It might be a bit of a stretch to say the game caters for everyone in how it handles but there won't be too many who can't find a nice balance.

I do like this game.  I like it an awful lot - it gives me a competitive race, it feels good to drive and more often than not it gets the fine details right.  I don't love it just yet - there's not a lot in it that annoys me but the few things that do are really, really hacking me off.

Cheers,
Adam