According to Dictionary.com, ultimate is defined (in part – more on that later) as “representing or exhibiting the greatest possible development or sophistication,” so when Codemasters assails the gaming public with an assertion that they have created the “Ultimate Racing Simulator,” they are making a heady claim indeed. A quick glance over the box does seem to lend support, though: “116 Championships. . .35 different motor racing styles. . .70 different licensed race cars.” Combine the breadth of the game with the built-in credibility Codemasters gained from creating the Colin McRae Rally series (peaking with the near-perfect Colin McRae Rally 04), and the potential within the Toca concept is staggering.

But does Toca Race Driver 3 live up to that promise? Can a developer expend the resources to make each and every component of this ambitious title live up to the high standards set by today’s racing games? Can Codemasters really show the attention to realism, physics, graphics, AI and drivability that made CMR4 and other recent titles so great, while still offering many different and diverse racing disciplines, settings and vehicles in one package?

Well, squelch your inner cynic, put on your rose colored goggles, buckle in, and take a ride with me in Toca Race Driver 3!

VARIETY, VARIETY, VARIETY

The linguistically adept reader may have already gone to Dictionary.com to check out the alternative definitions for ultimate, one of which is “[o]f the greatest possible size or significance.” That is certainly true of TRD3. The sheer number of cars, from open wheelers to sports cars to go-karts to (ack!) monster trucks and lawnmowers, is staggering without question, as is the variety of different racing styles. There are dedicated road courses, banked ovals, rally cross and motocross tracks, off road rally courses and street courses, many of which may never have appeared in a driving game before. For this, Codemasters should be commended, for bringing some absolutely fantastic European tracks into the mix.

As alluded to above, however, there can be pitfalls to any attempt to pack in as much as possible to a game, while still trying to bring it to market at a workable price point. Different cars drive differently, even cars on similar platforms (for example, front engine, iron block V8s with rear drive) can have different nuances in their handling. To genuinely capture these nuances and to present them to the virtual driver takes advanced physics modeling, dedication, and time, which obviously can’t be done in a game of this scale. Different cars also obviously have different interiors, gauges, steering wheels, and sounds, and these are all considerations ignored by Codemasters in their apparent zeal to “pack it all in.”

CHOOSE YOUR PATH

There are two “career” paths a player can pursue in TRD3, “Pro Career” and “World Tour.” Both progress in typical manner for a game of this type – compete in a series of races to advance, and to unlock cars for online play and the third game mode, “Simulation.”

The “Pro Career” mode was more interesting to me, and even though I knew I was being herded through a pre-ordained path chosen by Codemasters, it was a walk I didn’t mind taking. The mode is divided into categories like “Classic,” “GT,” “Oval,” “Touring” and “Off Road,” and in each, the player is faced with various stages, each representing different racing series within the category. Progressing through each, for the most part, opens access to faster and more capable cars.

The “Classic” category was unique in that it touched on many of the disciplines from the others, allowing the player to progress through old school rally driving (with rear wheel drive, non purpose-built vehicles) up to the sheer madness of Group B Rally, dominated in the 1980s by turbocharged Audi factory supercars. Back on the tarmac, the player drives classic sports cars, as well as 60’s and 70’s American GTs (Corvette, Buick GS, Firebird) at tried and true European courses like Brands Hatch and Nurburgring, as well as new stuff like the modified short oval at Nashville Super Speedway and the permanent road courses at Bahrain and Shanghai. “Classics” then moves on to ancient Mercedes open wheel formula cars, then to “Grand Prix Legends” era Lotus GP cars, then finishes up with Williams/Honda and Williams/Renault modern F1 racers.

The other categories then march through mostly modern versions of their genres. For example, the “GT” category starts at small “Global Lights” cars, the entry level for closed wheel road racing, then progresses through faster and faster cars, all the way up to 1000+ horsepower Cam Am competition. "Open Wheel" lets you start with go karts, and work through Formula Ford, Formula 3 and others as you strive for an F1 seat with Williams/Renault. This is an interesting way to experience the various levels of this type of racing, and parallels the career progressions of many real drivers.

In the “World Tour” mode, however, Big Brother’s restrictions begin to get a little tired. This portion of the game progresses on a ladder, in which the player must finish third or higher overall in a series of events in a chosen category. However, the choices quickly become illusory, and the player finds it harder and harder to avoid categories that hold no interest (British GT cars again?), and at the top of the ladder, the choices dissolve, and you are forced to compete in only one category to move on. Adding to the tedium, loading screens before each track give a short blurb about what makes that track unique – but there is only one blurb per track, and lots of loading time to stare at the same sentences, over and over again (“Hockenheimring was built in. . .”)

GRAPHICS

Sadly, sub par graphics is the place that the wheels really start to fall off TRD3. I won’t go into the tirade that is tempting me here, let me just direct you to the screenshots I included below. Look at the gauges of the old Mercedes WS130 – one word springs to mind, and that word is unacceptable. I can think of a number of ten year old games with better detail in this area. And check out the Buick GS – what the hell is that checkered blob, and what is it doing on my dashboard? Is my car being driven by some amorphous carbon-fiber being, a distant relative of the silicone monster from Star Trek’s “Devil in the Dark?” Apparently, this heinous beast has a good thing going, because it shows up behind the wheel of many different cars, and from many different eras. Finally, look at the “curves” on this poor BMW M1. . .

“Daddy, why aren’t the tires round?” “Those are polygons, honey! Let’s count them. . .one, two, three. . .”

ARGH! Awful, horrific, atrocious crap for a game released in 2006. If we were at the pizza parlor, popping quarters in the vending machine, or playing a last-gen console, this level of graphical detail would be OK, but on my X1900XTX? No way, no how, nuh-uh.

Three more words for you, in case I was being too obtuse – IN. EX. CUSABLE.

Ironically, there are a couple of neat graphical effects in the game. When venturing off-track in an open wheeled car, you can see the tires pick up dirt and grass, which slowly disappears once the car is back on the road. At tree-lined Spa Francorchamps in Belgium, the lighting changes drastically while driving in and out of the shadows cast by the forest. Now those are some very cool details, but they also represent an unpleasant microcosm of the problems of this game – there were obviously coders on the TRD3 team that had some good ideas, but equally obvious is the fact that those people weren’t given enough time to finish what they started. TRD3, like many of our college years, is a monument to wasted potential.

SOUND

Advanced sound features are controlled by a separate setup application, which gave me hope that the normally outstanding sound performance of my rig (X-Fi Platinum, Klipsch 4.2) would be put to good use. From the moment I started my first engine, I knew I was horribly wrong.

Engine sounds are flat, lifeless, and without variety, as well as sullied by the occasional crackling and distortion, regardless of what setting I chose. I was left with the impression that one or two basic sound models were used, and half-heartedly tweaked to sound “different enough.” Again, if this was the first and only racing game ever invented, it would be fantastic, but so many developers (including Codemasters) have done so much better, the sound also falls into the “poor” category.

PHYSICS

Physics in this game, like the other parts requiring attention to detail and expenditure of resources, are quite poor. Cars that are dissimilar in the extreme drive and handle with eerie similarity. Sure, some cars have varying amounts of grip and braking power, but the basic handling characteristics are too consistent. Apparently to appease the inexperienced driver, tires have too much grip, brakes function too well, and mistakes are too easily rectified. Cars have too little rotational inertia (that phenomenon that makes some spins uncorrectable) and don’t seem to suffer from loading changes. This is especially true in tricky transitional situations, like when the weight shifts back and forth in a chicane, or under heavy braking or acceleration. These are times when great care is needed in a real car, but none is needed in TRD3.

I am reminded of Pole Position’s cars and their three cornering postures – no slide, slide, and BIG slide.

A.I. OFFICIALS

In a new and interesting twist, A.I. in TRD3 can really be divided into two areas, A.I. drivers and officials, as there are a number of penalties assessed during racing. This is a great concept, and it corrects something that actually interfered substantially with the realism of Toca 2 – in that game, the fastest way past another driver would sometimes be to slide sideways into them full tilt at the entry to a corner, slowing you down and knocking them off line in one fell swoop. Sure, that’s cheating, but when you’re marching through Toca, you just want to finish!

In TRD3, the same tactic will draw careless driving penalties (sometimes), which range from a warning, to a time penalty, to disqualification. On the down side, these penalties are somewhat inconsistent, in that a hard slide into someone’s side can be ignored, while a tap at another car’s bumper is penalized. Black flags are also unfurled when a player intentionally cuts a corner, but unfortunately they also sometimes come out when the off-track excursion is an accident that actually hurts lap times.

This is really a great concept, and one that other developers need to look at. There are obviously glitches that still need to be ironed out, but the fun, fairness and realism of all driving sims would improve with accurate officiating, particularly in online competition. Based on its implementation here, though, there is a lot of fine tuning still needed.

A.I. DRIVERS

As I have written before, the task of endowing computer code with human attributes is fraught with peril, and still far from perfect in any application. Some titles have drawn closer to respectable A.I., which is important from the standpoint of immersion – nothing blows the mood in a game like having a NPC do something completely out in left field.

TRD3, sadly, is not one of these titles. Particularly in the “Classic” gameplay mode, A.I. behaviors are downright bizarre. I hate to reference Pole Position twice in the same article, but remember how the cars followed each other, lined up in two discrete lanes? Believe it or not, this happens in TRD3 as well (20 years later!). Cars will nonchalantly circle the track in side-by-side parade formation, allowing the human driver to shoot down the middle with relative ease. . .this actually brought about a moment in which I cried out, grief-stricken during a race! Another horrific AI glitch occurred at Spa, in which cars would slow to below 20 miles per hour in the Bruxelles hairpin, easily negotiable at two to three times that speed, seemingly for no other reason than to impede the human driver. . .and as I slowed to avoid them, they slowed even more! This happened in spots at other tracks as well, and call me paranoid, but there were a number of times when cars would slow very rapidly right in front of me, as if they wanted me to rear end them and either get a penalty or disable my car. Crazy!

CONCLUSION

For me, a well modeled game with just a few cars provides far more enjoyment than a poorly modeled game with many cars – my ideal virtual driving experience is about being there, in the car, seeing the sights, hearing the sounds, and getting at least some physical feedback. If I didn’t care about such considerations, I would just pop a quarter into the machine at the pizza parlor and drive Corvettes and Hummers underwater with my 7 year old son.

But I do care about the immersion. If a driving sim doesn’t feel like driving a car, why play it? One might as well play Mario Kart. And to add insult to injury, players can log onto Honda.com and Codemasters.com and exchange marketing information for cheat codes to make in-game cars faster, and to unlock new content. Aieeeeeee!

Toca Race Driver 3 has potential, but that potential is barely scratched. Remember though, I love racing games, and they mean a lot to me, so if you don’t feel the same, you’ll need to take my opinion with a grain a salt. If it were me in charge, I would delete the parts of Toca that are already done very well by other titles (Rally, Classic Formula One, Classic GT), delete the downright stupid parts (monster trucks? LAWNMOWERS?), and polish the parts that make portions of Toca truly unique. . .then the game might be worthy of some praise.

However, unless Codemasters trims this title in order to do a better job on the component parts, my hope is that Toca Race Driver 3 will follow this definition of ultimate:

Being last in a series, process, or progression. . .