The game takes actual loops on Japanese highways that crazy Japanese bastards actually race on, and throws you on there with other traffic and rivals. You then drive around the highways looking for rivals to race. When you find one, his info pops up and you high-beam them to start the race. At that point, a “health bar” (think fighting game) pops up for you and your rival rave through traffic trying to beat the other car. The car in the lead doesn’t lose health, but the car behind does. The farther behind you are, the faster your health drains, and once one car runs out, the race is over. Beat enough rivals from the same team, and their “leader” challenges you. Beat enough leaders and bosses challenge you. Beat all of the bosses and a ridiculously fast end boss shows. It’s street racing genius.

One of the other highlights for the game is that you can upgrade body parts and exhausts that actually change appearance. They have 5 body kits for each car, and you can upgrade parts individually. That’s good because if you like one front bumper from one body kit, and the rear bumper from another, you can have both. It’s an element that most car games are still lacking, and in my opinion, no one has done it better than TXR.

There are problems (of course) but there not as bad as they could be. First, the handling is a hybrid between sim and arcade. It’s unpredictable and very drift based. Another problem is the amount of driving you do not racing. Once you leave your garage, you’re dropped off on the highway and you drive around looking for rivals (they’re indicated on the map). After you race, you then go looking for different rivals to race. At first, it’s good practice. You get used to the sketchy handling and you get to know the small highways layout, but as the game advances, it becomes tiresome. The highway itself is very small. You can lap the whole thing in under 5 minutes using a stock car. You can either race the inner loop, or outer loop, so there is a little variety, but not much.

Finally, the upgrading process is nothing but stages, and you can’t skip them. Want to buy stage 3? You have to buy stage 1 and 2 first.

As the series continued, reviewers kept giving the games lower and lower ratings, citing it was the same idea, just rehashed. Yet, ironically, the praised games like Turismo for doing the same thing. It’s a shame, because as the series went on, a lot of the problems were addressed and the highway became insane in size. They even added other cities. That being said, the original is still a damn good game. If you’re looking for a game to beat within a weeks timeframe, it’s perfect. If you’re in to driving games at all, I recommend it as almost a must.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment