Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT
Brake. Hard Turn. Accelerate. Wipe out?
Tags: Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Christopher on May 20th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT (title page) | 1 - 2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Racing | No | ||
Apparently we have a very bleak future ahead of us. Well at any rate, the Japanese do. Drift racing has gained in popularity over there the last couple years. It’s a sport where pure speed and power aren’t necessary like traditional or even the underground street racing most American fans think of when they hear about a Japanese racing game. Rather it’s precise control and a steady hand that is needed to get a car to slide nearly sideways through a bend in the road. Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift tries to replicate the subtle nuances of the sport and ends up on the guardrails more often than not. And no, that’s not just a clever jab at the game.
 |
A racing game with a story? Perish the thought! There’s not much of a plot to speak of here, so you can take your foot off the gas if you were ready to peel out of here. In 20XX, the mountainside passes in Japan are covered with pavement but otherwise abandoned by the locals. In a stroke of genius, the Japanese government decides that the best way to help its citizens work off stress and unwind is to open the narrow winding roads to a decidedly dangerous form of auto racing. In a way that’s never explained in any detail, they’ve set up measures to prevent anyone from injuring themselves while they float through the curves. With this set up you’ll guide your racer as he tackles rivals in each area and gains sponsorship for his car.
 |
The day/night mechanic used could have been a lot better. By day you’ll cruise around trying to beat high point challenges by scooting your car thru turns as smoothly as possible. At night you go one on one with another driver and basically do the exact same thing, just now with cheap AI added in. With all of the rivals in an area, it can take quite a while to actually make any headway and you will feel every turn along the way. As you progress through areas racking up wins and upgrading your car, you really won’t notice an improvement in handling. The upgrade system, in addition to being woefully overpriced, is also pointless and in effect, broken.
To put it bluntly, the controls here suck. In a game where the ability to exert such fine maneuvers, you’d think the first thing the designers would nail down would be the controls. Analogue sensitivity is hit or miss with delays before your car will actually move. You’ll frequently over steer or under steer, usually the opposite of what you want to do at the moment and end up spinning out.
The in game physics don’t help matters at all either. Aside from the random controls, you also get seemingly random results each time you race. You can approach a turn, decelerate as you always do and end up slamming into a guard rail. The AI racers you’ll go against rarely are affected by whatever invisible forces batter your car. Nothing is quite as infuriating as a turn that should have happened smoothly only to end up rapidly grinding to a halt and your opponent zipping by through no fault of your own.
 |
For a budget title, Drift has somewhat manageable graphics. The environments you race in are actually kind of pretty, even if they do get a little repetitive after a while. Car models are a little on the boxy side with mediocre textures. They look decent from far away, but if the camera drifts close enough you see some major pixels and jagged edges. The only high point graphically is there’s no slowdown present. Probably because of the lack of any special effects in the graphics department, but at least that’s one less thing for the game to worry about.
Drift does have one highpoint going for it. The soundtrack is surprisingly good. There’s an eclectic mix of stuff here, with a little bit of rock, blues, ska, and even a little bit of Jpop tossed in for good measure. The sound effects in game are a little less impressive though. Engines sound muffled as if you’re playing with the windows up, but at least they get the screeching tires right without it bordering on annoying.
You could do a lot worse than Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift. It has its faults, but it doesn’t completely fail. By that same token however, this late in the PS2’s life cycle there are literally handfuls of other racers out there that do the job so much better. The tacked on multiplayer modes might be fun with a friend for a day or two, but even that doesn’t save Drift from feeling like it’s late to the finish line.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| + Awesome soundtrack | 4.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Random controls - Dated graphics - Cheap AI |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Only for the hardcore of racing fans or if you find it for $10. At least then you won’t feel completely cheated. | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT
Posted by Christopher on May 20th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
