Take a common or garden production line two-litre car, tinker under the bonnet until the engine is primed for racing and let it loose on a Formula One circuit. Presto, you’ve got TOCA. Design a racing game that demands you treat your virtual car as if it were the real deal and you’ve got the previous two TOCA games. Genius.Well, it’s third time round in the acclaimed series and all the stops have been found, chained to the rear of a juggernaut and pulled out in a shroud of blue smoke.What we’re left with is a quality racing game that will give realists plenty to get their teeth into, without alienating those who prefer to play an actual game, rather than a glorified engineering exam.

Not an easy trick to pull off, so it’s a good job that World Touring Cars has decided to ignore previous TOCA rules and has made a fresh set of its own. Everything you could possibly want is on show and ready for your inspection: 42 cars from the world’s top manufacturers, polished up and ready to race on 23 realworld tracks over five continents, 12 cars on track without any noticeable frame loss and handling that’s convincing without pushing you into a spin-out at every Godforsaken opportunity. Unless you’re Ayrton Senna’s ghost-made-flesh you’re not going to steal pole position on your first race, but you’re not going to end up as a gibbering wreck, with hands full of torn hair and a living-room wall caked in joypad imprints either. Anyone who was shocked by the previous toughness of TOCA is in for a real treat – or shock, depending on how much they actually enjoyed playing the racing equivalent of tightrope walking. This time round there’s a gentle welcome that progresses into the most frenetic pack racing action you can get on a PlayStation.

World Touring Cars not only buffs up the handling of the TOCA series, it adds new features that guarantee it equal footing with its contemporaries. There’s now the chance to sacrifice some pop-up for a bit of four-player action, as well as a very classy Career mode. By passing competency tests you can join a team and enter national, international and world championships. Earn enough career points and you can raise your credibility, and find yourself head-hunted by rival teams.

Go Speed Racer!
Gran Turismo treated its cars with a reverence previously only seen in Shinto shrines and public libraries. Flip like a pancake and crash like James Dean, it made absolutely no difference to your chassis whatsoever. Not so with TOCA World Touring Cars; if you insist on squeezing through a six-foot gap from behind the wheel of a Lotus Elise 340R at 98 miles per hour, you’re in for a sparkriddled flaying. Bumpers get scraped off, wheel arches ripped from their supports and the steering column of your previously shiny new car will receive a wide-arc slap in the face from a steel gauntlet. Don’t think that cuffing up your ride will go unnoticed either. All the time you’re careering round the track you’re chatted to by an eagle-eyed team member. If someone’s hot on your tail, nipping into the lead, or you’ve just pulled off a move that could shame John Travolta circa the late Seventies, you’ll be told about it. Chip paint off your wing and you’re in for an ear-bashing.

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