TOCA Touring Car series
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- This article is about the video game series. For the organisers of the British Touring Car Championship, see TOCA.
TOCA is a racing video game series developed and published by Codemasters, initially focusing specifically on Touring car racing but more recently expanding to cover a wide variety of motorsport. Since the series began in 1997 with TOCA Touring Car Championship, the franchise has been released on PC, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, and Microsoft Xbox, with particular success in Europe and Australia where the motorsports featured are most popular. The series has different titles in different regions, most recently known as Pro Race Driver in the US, DTM Race Driver in Germany, and V8 Supercars in Australia.
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[edit] TOCA Touring Car Championship
The first game of the series was released for the PC and PlayStation platforms in late 1997 in Europe, and in summer 1998 in the United States. Featuring all the licensed cars and tracks from the 1997 British Touring Car Championship, the game was critically acclaimed by the European games press - especially on console where it was widely considered the best in its genre until the release of Gran Turismo several months later.
[edit] TOCA 2 Touring Cars
The success of the first TOCA game saw a sequel arrive a year later in 1998. Whilst mainly an annual franchise update of cars and tracks, the game did add more detailed graphics, physics, multiplayer modes and other minor features. The level of car damage possible during a race was also enhanced, which was a significant selling point compared with the likes of Gran Turismo.
[edit] TOCA World Touring Cars
As the title suggests, the third game in the series (released in 2000) made a significant advance in featuring various Touring Car championships from around the world instead of just the BTCC as before. Once again the franchise was compared to the Gran Turismo series, and once again TOCA was warmly received by much of the specialist press, most notably scoring 10/10 in the UK edition of Official PlayStation Magazine.
[edit] TOCA Race Driver
The series moved onto Playstation 2 in August 2002, with the release of TOCA Race Driver. The game took a new direction, since the main game mode featured a plot (leading to the game being labelled as a "Car-PG") where the user took on the role of a fictional race driver called Ryan McKane, trying to make a name for himself in a multitude of car championships, all the while under the shadow of his more successful older brother and haunted by the death of his father on the racetrack (as witnessed by Ryan as a child).
Despite this slightly clichéd script, the racing elements of the game continued to receive positive reviews and the game went straight to number one in the UK game charts. Xbox and PC conversions followed in March 2003, with a further Xbox version released several months later at budget price adding Xbox Live support. The game came under heavy criticism because of its inaccurate damage models, in some cases a mini was able to complete the circuit despite only having 1 wheel and no doors.
[edit] TOCA Race Driver 2
Race Driver 2 was released on Xbox and PC in April 2004, with a Playstation 2 version following six months later. 2 PSP conversions were released in 2005 and 2006; the first being TOCA Race Driver 2 in Europe and Japan and the second being Race Driver 2006 in the US. The game continued to use a scripted career mode as introduced in the previous Race Driver game, but dropped the Ryan McKane character. Story-developing cutscenes were played out from a first-person perspective, with other characters never addressing the user by name.
The career mode offered a wider selection of championships than previous games, featuring the likes of Supertrucks and Rallycross in addition to the traditional touring car formats. However, for the first time in the series, the British Touring Car Championship was not included, yet the franchise continued to license the TOCA name in the title. In addition, online play was featured heavily, with support for up to 8 players on Xbox Live. The game entered the UK charts at number one, and maintained the high review scores of the series, including a 9.2 out of 10 from Official Xbox Magazine.
"Featuring brand new content exclusive to PlayStation 2, V8 Supercars 2 will arrive with a whole new circuit, Catalunya, and an expanded Championship structure allowing 99 additional car and track combinations. There’s also a super hardcore “Pro-Sim mode” for ultimate realism - if you can handle it! Again, exclusively for PlayStation 2, gamers will also be able to save replays, and really drive that victory home.
31 (32 on the PS2) Licensed and Fictional global Race Locations offering 48 (49 on the PS2) tracks including Hockenheim from the German DTM series and Surfers Paradise from the Australian V8 series." Codemasters
The PlayStation 2 version will also allow up to 8 PS2 on-line players, without broadband Internet service being required, too.
[edit] TOCA Race Driver 3
The most recent TOCA game was released in February 2006, and continued to expand on the types of motorsport available. Open wheel, GT, Oval racing, Rallying and Offroad racing were all featured, and can be raced in either a detailed Pro Career mode or an open-ended World Tour. Up to 12 players are supported via Xbox Live and the PlayStation 2 version supports up to 8 on-line. This series is the only current racing simulator that allows PlayStation players to race on-line. It received good reviews, frequently being compared favourably to Gran Turismo 4 and Forza Motorsport, in the aspects of cars on track, damage and AI. The game has many real-life competitions, like British GT, DTM, IRL and have vintage races, some old GT and Rally Cars. One of the features is the possibility of driving F1 cars, like the '05 Williams.
[edit] TOCA Race Driver 4
On an interesting note, it has not been confirmed yet whether there will be another game in the TOCA series though most unnamed sources are claiming that Codemasters was in the middle of producing TOCA Race Driver 4, if this is true, it will probably be released in sometime in 2007 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.
