Toca 3 game review

Drive yourself to distraction with more motor sports than you can shake a gearstick at

The Toca series of racing games has always been a bit of a rank outsider. Not as detailed as something like Colin McRae Rally or as glamorous as some of its console rivals, like Project Gotham Racing or Grand Turismo, Toca has nonetheless earned itself a reputation as a fun, realistic racing sim with plenty of variety.

The franchise’s sense of diversity reaches new dizzy heights with the third game in the series.

Toca 3 offers almost double the amount of different race types, licensed vehicles and real-world racing circuits as the previous version did, which adds up to a whole lot of racing.

With over 35 different motor sports covering everything from Formula 1 to go-cart racing over 120 championships, it’s very hard to get bored by Toca 3, whether you’re playing the Pro Career game or the World Tour game.

But if you’re imagining that the game’s wide scope results in some kind of throwaway arcade racing experience you’d be very wrong.

In fact, Toca takes the simulation angle fairly seriously. You won’t have to faff around in a virtual garage tinkering with transmissions like some racing games encourage you to do, but when it comes to the racing itself, Toca tries to stay as faithful as possible to each discipline, which means that cars handle very differently and the assorted track types all take a bit of getting used to.

Damage, too, is a key element. Not only does it look spectacular, but crashing into opponents or scenery can have a big impact on how your car behaves.

The realism never gets in the way of the action though and is backed up by some very smart visuals. Occasional pre-rendered cut scenes involving your Scottish coach seem a little unnecessary, but help to pace the otherwise excellent action. 

System requirements:
1.4GHz processor
256MB of Ram
6GB hard disk
DVD-Rom drive
Windows XP