12 Days of Midas (and other Budget games) - Day 3: Tokyo Road Race

Game: Tokyo Road Race
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Taito
Release Date: 22nd November 2002

Most Midas published titles I play have very few game modes to experience, but I think we may have reached a new low with Tokyo Road Race. It's bad enough that the only gameplay options are Arcade mode and Free Run mode, without even the option for a two player experience, but to top things off, playing in arcade mode only allows players to drive single races before being given the option to retry the race, no matter what position they finish. There's very little incentive to do well in the game, as the same result occurs once the race finishes, whatever happens.

With four tracks to choose from initially (one being an oval, and the others getting progressively narrower and badly designed), players can unlock up to 10 tracks in total, but actually winning races in order to do so is challenging enough thanks to the handling and general design of most courses. Added to the lacklustre racing experience, there's not a lot of reason to attempt unlocking more tracks.

The game seems to be attempting to emulate the success of titles such as Gran Turismo by including a choice of licensed cars from 6 manufacturers. The cars themselves aren't modelled too badly and there's around 40 to choose from, but as the AI cars are matched to the performance of yours it's a no-brainer to go for a slower car that handles more predictably, over some of the faster options. Having said this, even the slower cars appear to try and steer themselves at times, veering to the right or left as if magnetically attracted to the barriers.

Design-wise Tokyo Road Race seems to take the worst elements of arcade and simulation games and combines them. From arcade racers it takes its time limit, despite AI cars not being affected by a timer (one of my arcade racing pet hates), and a general lack of a 'bigger picture' or goal to work towards, besides unlocking a few more tracks, and from simulation games it takes its car choice which is strangely limited, despite featuring 40 cars, and heavy handling which doesn't fit the arcade style at all.

Graphically the game isn't noticeably bad, though there are points where backgrounds and crowd effects are pretty blurred. Additions such as tire smoke and fireworks look particularly 2D when compared to the rest of the game also. Musically the game is utterly forgettable with generic rock being the main accompaniment to gameplay and menu screens.

Overall Tokyo Road Race feels like the bare bones of an arcade racing game, hastily thrown together for the PS2. With racers being so prevalent on the system, this isn't a great approach to take, since it's easy to name at least 50 games that are better in every way. While I wouldn't say that Tokyo Road Race is awful, there's certainly no reason for anyone to play it for more than an hour.

Rating: 30/100
Grade: E