I remember when TOCA 2 came out, those some years back. With its strong visuals, and smooth Gameplay, it sure made a nice place for itself among the other titles of the time. Now, when you’re moving the world forward with a franchise, the visual element is something you can’t afford to keep the same, let alone allow to fall back a notch. It’s in that spirit, that while TOCA 3 quite resembles its predecessor, the visuals have improved dramatically. The first thing to notice about the game is just how much more slick the visuals are than once before. First of all, the vehicle models are absolutely superb, and, we’re quite happy to report, completely destroyable Gone are the days of “The right side suspension is gone” while the car looks perfectly fine. On top of that note, there’s a wonderful amount of particle effects going on, through the inclusion of vast amounts of smoke pouring from your car after it meets with an unfortunate accident (or an attempt at cutting a corner going horribly wrong), as well as the dirt kicked up by unwittingly shifting down two gears, and drifting through a pure dirt turn at 7700RPM. These particle effects are perfectly dispersed, and wonderfully rendered, with just the right amount of visibility to let you know what’s about to happen.

On a delightful note, the cars on the road with you are just as detailed, behaving in the very same manner, and reacting to crashes in this way too, with bits of plastic and glass splintering off onto the Tarmac as their liberal application of brakes shows itself. Gliding about in perfectly rendered cars is without a point though, unless they’ve got well designed tracks to play on. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the courses (after all, the only circuit I’ve been to was Mosport Park), I can vouch for the fact that in the moments where all things are right, you’d swear that you’re watching the race, rather than playing a simulation of it. All things on the track behave accordingly, in relation to their role and way within the world – after all, hitting piled tires usually results in slowing quickly and skidding past, not the dead stop of magical invisible walls. Heck, even the spectators look realistic enough to not be a problem – which is a nice step up from the usual “Let’s plaster a picture on and hope they don’t notice” approach. Perhaps the only thing “minimalisitc” and “Classic” to the game are the gauges, and indicator lights. Representing simple form over function, these fully 2D images have the slightest habit of staying out of the way until needed, at which point their presence brings you to wonder just what’s going wrong. That’s not to say it isn’t unsettling when you look down to see your engine light glowing Red, though.

Unfortunately, though perfectly voiced, the audible aspect of the game had one serious drawback. While it is indeed harder to concentrate on the road when your world has a musical backdrop, along with the fact that just about none of the vehicles within had radios, we still find in-game music to be quite a nice thing, if not a necessity. Though it may have interfered with shifting the car’s gears by ear, or the voiced in quips of your angry Scottish coach, it’s hard not to feel let down when the game starts with some incredible rock music, then proceeds to be mute during the actual races. On the plus side, while you’re never made to speak during the races, you’re rather enthusiastic coach spends a fair deal of his time in the modified film clips going over things, as well as harassing or worshipping you – dependant on your driving style. Along with this, when you cause a single racer quite too many problems in a race, then proceed to take the pole position, you’ll be paid a visit by him after the race, with a voice so delightfully full of rage, that it’s believable for once. Now if only your opponents would shave one and a while, we might be able to respect them. Bearing that in mind, the next object of audible scrutiny is the symphony of screeches, growls, and the sounding off of performance vehicles before the fresh tarmac gets torn up. Across the board, vehicles sound prompt and believable, and again, without the ability to vouch for their accuracy, the fact that they sound damn good is the best thing that we can tell you. With a clearly painted audible landscape, let’s get on to the Gameplay dynamics, and the subsequent width of classes there is, shall we?