Toca Touring Car Championship PS1 Review

Toca Touring Car Championship is an iconic and classic racing game that was developed by codemasters and released for the playstation in late 1997. 

The game also got subsequent releases on the windows pc and later on the game boy color in the year 2000 and this game replicates the iconic british touring car championship but more to the point it replicates the 1997 season of the championship itself where you have a list of all of the registered cars and vehicles from all of the well-known brands from like renault, audi, honda to name what a few and you also had a list of a lot of the licensed and professional drivers that were racing at that time in the championship itself. 

But what was a pretty cool feature is the game also had tiff needell do the voice over for the commentary within the game in between the races. 

And this game primarily is more of a simulation focused racing game as at the time it was one of the first games to generally start to go for a more realistic take on racing games so this was one of the very early versions to do so and the game itself was an overall commercial success in europe selling six hundred thousand copies in its first six months upon release and stayed number three in the uk game charts for quite a number of weeks and it's easy to see why as the game has some great features and modes available. 

There's a ton of cars to choose from with loads of tracks all from the toca championship itself, anything from the likes of brands hatch to silverstone amongst other iconic racing tracks throughout the UK. 

The one thing to note with this game is that it is a really really good racing game and it's also considered to be one of the best racing games on the system only bettered by its sequels toca 2 and world touring cars that were developed years later. 

And it also has various different game modes where you can qualify for races you have time attack and you also have multiplayer modes so you can play with your friends but as this game is more simulation focused it can be for most people especially beginners playing these type of games this game can be quite difficult to master as it's not an overly easy game to pick up and play. 

It wouldn't be typical of games the likes of ridge racer or other types of arcade racing games as with this game there's very little room for error so if you do make a mistake or you go off on the track especially at the later stages in races it's very very hard to pick up the pace to try and even win your positions back. 

So more often than not you'll find yourself having to restart the race or the championship entirely. 

Now the championships are quite long because for each race in question you have to go through two different races and each race session you have to do a qualifying session in advance to try and gain a position in the ranks because if you skip the qualifying session you will automatically be placed at the very last point in the pack which would be like 16th position and from there you have to climb up to try and reach first place and that can be a task in itself in the game especially later on in the championship. 

As even though the handling is very very good it can also be a little bit on the twitchy side and because it is more realistic compared to other racers, the slightest little touch or twitch on the track or even collisions with other cars can leave you very easily spinning off onto the grass or into water even into gravel pits which will drastically slow the car down. 

What was a cool feature about this game that wasn't really seen at the time was it was one of the first racing games to ever have a fully 3d cockpit where you could see inside of the car in a 3d style environment where you could see the racer grabbing on to the steering wheel and moving it in real time and even changing the gears which was pretty cool. 

So it was technically the first in its kind and of a lot of respects, it pretty much followed on and took a lot of inspiration from the likes of the formula one game that were also extremely popular but it put it into a different setting so you can see where it got its influence from. 

I remember going back to my own personal experience with this game and i originally played it, it was on a demo disc originally you only got to play one track and i remember myself and my brothers and mates because a lot of these games were still quite new to us back then and there was a quite a big hype and build up to this game at the time especially when it was being released on the demo and i remember specifically buying the magazine to get access to the demo to play it and remember we played that demo for weeks even though you're only playing the one track. 

Now it was difficult to play because you weren't playing on the easiest difficulty the difficulty was already set you could win races but you really had to get a feel for the game and you had to anticipate when to break when to overtake and to be very sensitive with the controls because if you tried to be too aggressive going into corners or if you tried to go around corners at any type of speed it would crucify you the car would automatically spin out. 

So the game rewards you for sensitive but precision-based driving but it will cripple you for aggressive driving so that's where in terms of the realism comes into play. So you do have to be mindful of that but i remember playing that demo for ages probably more so than when i actually played the full game when i eventually got it because the championships themselves can be very long considering you have to do all the qualification rounds and the sessions in each race in the championship. 

It'll be one of those games it will take quite a few hours just to play through one championship, you nearly need to play through a few races and then leave it for a couple of hours or don't play it until the next day and then come back and play it over the course of a couple of days because it can be quite long. 

But i do remember the demo being a lot of fun, played it for ages played for weeks and then both myself andmy brothers i always tried to play with the inside the car mode with the cockpit mode even though that was difficult to master but it was really fun because it really gave you a feel of what it was like to drive a car which i've always been a big car fan myself and back then any excuse to be able to get that feel of what it'd be like to drive a car especially when you were a kid when you're younger growing up was really cool and this game definitely was one of the first of its kind to give you that inspiration and to give you that feel of what it's like to drive a car from that view especially on the console within your own living room so that in itself was really awesome. 

So toca touring car championship is a really fun game to play, it will test you i'm not going to deny that it is a difficult game it's not an easy game to pick up and play at all it will reward you for really good driving but it will slam you for poor driving and for aggressive driving. 

So it's a case of give and take with the game you really do have to put a lot of time and effort into it to really practice and to build up your skill level with the game because when you do that it is a very rewarding experience and you will enjoy the process and then when you go on from that and you want to play it subsequent sequels, especially toca 2 which is a vast improvement on the PlayStation and that game in itself is extremely underrated which is a pity because that's also one of the best racing games on the system hands down and it doesn't get the amount of love and attention that it really deserves. 

But this game in its own right is equally as good even though it is primarily more difficult to pick up and play and it has really good graphics for its time as well so that in itself is pretty cool and the fact is that it replicates an iconic championship adds to the realism and the experience of the overall game. 

So it definitely is worth playing if you're into racing games and you love Playstation one racing games you definitely have to check out toca touring car championship and I'd love to know your thoughts on this game if you have played it yourself and if so what do you think of it. 

Do you enjoy these types of racing games that were released on the system back in the day and even more to the point you enjoy these more realistic takes on racing games that were released on the system? 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this game so be sure to share it in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to Toca Touring Car Championship, you can check out the blog where we will be diving into the iconic elements of these classic video games and as always keep those gaming memories alive...