In an arena currently flooded with games what can anyone offer that is new and refreshing? Added realism, better handling, more gameplay options, better and more accurate cars, more tracks and bonuses to unlock. The list is practically endless. Empire Interactive have decided to put their offering into the melee. But how will it fair against the mighty or TOCA race driver?

This is very much a no frills racing game. You have all the normal modes of play from career mode, to quick race and multiplayer. The layout of the career mode is very similar to that of TOCA as at the beginning of your career you are presented with just two racing teams, BMW and another, prepared to take a risk on you. You can accept either, and depending on your difficulty level (easy, medium, hard) you should soon be able to become pretty proficient.

It’s a simple concept of win and progress, win and progress, which does get quite tedious at times but this game fortunately has some neat little extras. It has a few famous tracks like Silverstone and Monza but most are created for the game, but by far the most fun thing is that you get to race with all the other classes. You are only actually racing with the drivers in your class but you can still have a hell of a lot of fun smashing off drivers of other classes to make them lose. This is where another of the neat little extras comes in. As you progress through the seasons you build up hatred between you and fellow drivers as you continually ram them off the road in the closing stretches of a race. This hatred is visible above each car and different colours correspond to the different emotions of those drivers. Beware if you decide to pick on someone, as their triangle will very soon become red and they will be hell bent on taking you out in every subsequent race.

The graphics are crisp but without damage being taken to your car you almost feel that the car is superimposed onto the track. The handling of the cars at times is also quite unrealistic. The tracks too, are occasionally lacking in the graphical department with very basic background scenery.

What now of the sound? Well, this at least is quite appealing. It is nothing new, but you get help given in races from your manager and the between race is pleasant if sometimes slightly unmemorable.

The option is good too, but nothing original despite the obvious fun of racing your mates in a Z3. Who wouldn’t want to get involved driving a car like that? Anyway, I drift from the point. I feel I am being a tad harsh as TIR has all the elements of a good racing game and the multiplayer options go a long way to increasing the game play time.

If it seems that I dislike the game, this is not the case. The problem I have with it is that it is nothing particularly new. If this game had come out a year ago I think everybody would be more impressed by it, but because of the current flood in the market of racing games this game has only a few real elements that differentiate it. The driver aggression thingy is a truly new extra, watching those usually placid computer drivers flip and quite literally come after you definitely adds to the driving experience, the first case of computer road rage! The realism of driving on a track with all the other classes too is a welcome bonus but I really can’t help thinking that I might as well just dust off my copy of TOCA, with its unintentionally comic sub-plot and extensive tracks and cars, to get back to grips. Slightly disappointing, a definite case of too little and rather too late.

65%

By Chris Monk