TOCA 2 (PSP) review

The podium beckons, son, keep it together . The voice of my team leader is trembling, as he talks to me over the radio, while I’m frantically trying to hold on to the third place position, which will just be enough to get me through to next year’s championship. Only two laps to go… but then, my worst rival thunders past me on the inside, in a desperate attempt to overtake me, and… wait a minute, haven’t I been here before?

Indeed I have. You see, TOCA 2 is a direct conversion without anything new on the gameplay front. And thus, if you already have TOCA 2 at home on your shelf, you will see nothing new here. On the other hand, TOCA 2 for the PSP is still a brilliant racing game. It’s very impressive to see how the little handheld manages to pull off an experience that is just about on par with what we saw for the PS2 and the Xbox. If you need a title that’ll make your mates wish they also had a PSP, TOCA 2 will fit the bill nicely. In other words, it’s time for a bit of a splitting your personality – but we’ll get to that later.

Maybe they should hire Luc Besson for TOCA 3?

The most exciting part of TOCA 2 is the inclusion of a storyline – in contrast with 99 percent of the racing games out there, this one is not simply about winning a long series of races. The story is told through the use of 3D animated cut-scenes, which actually look better on the ultra-clear PSP screen than they did on our television sets last year. Even though the story is sometimes trite and riddled with clichés, it still works, and you get a nice feeling of fighting your way up from the minor series to the ultimate rides of the Masters’ Grand Prix (which is actually Formula 1, but this is one of the few licenses which is not included in TOCA 2 – but they do have a lot of others, such as an official DTM license).

The most pronounced feature of TOCA 2 is the total of 33 championships and 15 different kinds of racing. This means that you will get the chance to try everything from rally through truck racing to Indy Car during the course of your career. The storyline stumbles a bit when it comes to explaining just exactly how you’re supposed to master all these different types of races, and why you have to change your preferred type every year, but it does lend a great deal of variety to the action. And you don’t necessarily have to win the races, which is pretty cool. You will often get specific goals such as reaching the chequered flag before a particular opponent, or finishing no more than two places below a rival in the overall standings at the end of a season. The cut-scenes support this kind of rivalry, and getting the chance to look your opponents in the eye takes the competition to a whole other level.

Forget NFS and Ridge Racer-shenanigans

TOCA 2 is not a racing sim in the PC sense, such as Live for Speed or GTR, but it remains one of the most serious offerings for consoles. You can forget all about arcade racers such as NFS: Underground. In TOCA 2, you must master your vehicle in a controlled manner, and you need to drive carefully, as you will easily damage your engine, gearbox, suspension, etc. Sadly, the damage model is slightly generic, so it doesn’t always matter where you get hit, in relation to the damage you receive. I also think the PSP version is slightly more forgiving than the Xbox version…

I wasn’t sure whether the controls would suffer in the conversion, but even though the precision level seems slightly lower than on the Xbox, quite surprisingly I still drove better in the PSP version. I believe this to be caused by the fact that this version runs a little slower than the stationary console versions, and furthermore, the clarity of the PSP screen makes it easier to brake properly and hit the entry points at optimal speed. My biggest problem was with the acceleration – the X button simply results in too much wheelspin, when you shift down to first gear.

Who forgot to clean up?

Sadly, Codemasters didn’t seem to think it necessary to improve the game for its PSP release. Thus you still can’t tune up your car, or qualify for the races in the career mode. You will always get a predefined starting position and engine setup, and this makes your career more restrictive than it should have been. Motorsport fans will find this a bit feeble, but we hear that TOCA 3 is going to be a different kettle of fish. Oddly enough, you can’t use every car on all the tracks – this might be due to some license restrictions, but it does limit the lasting appeal of the game, after you complete the career mode.

The game is a bit on the short side, in spite of all the different cars and races, and I managed to reach 50% completion during a week where I just played now and then, and brought the game for a couple of longer train rides. Sadly, I have yet to encounter anyone else with a PSP and a copy of the game, so I haven’t been able to test the WiFi multiplayer, which comes with support for up to

Quite a feat

There is no doubt that TOCA 2 for the PSP is really quite a technical achievement, which showcases the power of the console. I’m very impressed with Codemasters for bringing 20 AI cars onto the tracks, all of which have very competitive AIs, that will not only give you a run for your money, but also battle between themselves. And the game doesn’t really lack anything in comparison with its counterparts on the big consoles (and luckily, you’ll quickly get past the poor rally part, so you can try the cool series, such as DTM). The graphics are very sharp, and the view distance is huge, so you won’t really notice that most cars have lost a few polygons and details in the translation to PSP. It still looks better than NFS: Underground. The only disappointing aspect is the simplicity of the roadside buildings.

I have seen several reviews complaining about long loading times, but I beg to differ. Personally, I find them to be perfectly acceptable. It’s also possible to restart a race in a heartbeat – other racing games could learn from that. And while I wrote in the introduction that there was nothing new under the sun here, gameplay-wise, the guys from Sumo Digital (the company responsible for the conversion) have after all included a brilliant little feature. You can flip the console upside down, thus placing the analogue stick at a much more convenient and accessible position than down in the lefthand corner. I hope that many other developers will copy this idea, because even though it might take a little getting used to, it yields improved control during races.

So, how do we like it?

Sadly, the sound department does suffer a bit in this version of the game – the developer obviously had to cut some corners here. You can import your own music using a program found on the game’s website, but it doesn’t really help that much. The comments from your team leader have also become terribly ill-timed – they often take too long to get activated, and by that time, the comments will be pretty obsolete. An example of this would be when you rush past three cars while braking, slam into a fourth, and then send yourself reeling off the track, and then hear an infuriating "great overtaking there". I don’t think so.

But back to the part about personality splitting. On the one hand, I’m very excited about TOCA 2 – it’s still as good as it was on my Xbox a year ago, and you won’t find a better semi-realistic racing offering on the PSP (are you calling my beloved Ridge Racer unrealistic? –Ed.). But on the other hand, there’s nothing for you here if you already own TOCA 2 – if that’s the case, you should really consider whether or not you want to buy the same game twice, or if you’d rather wait for TOCA 3.

Source: Boomtown Denmark
English version by: Jonatan A. Allin (neonwolf)