Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2

"Good, fun game, but far from perfect"

Concept:

Instead of racing on a circuit like most games, TXR2 puts you on a Tokyo highway with your customized hotrod. You drive amongst the traffic as well as other racers. You can challenge other racers by flashing your high-beams at them. Then you race your opponent down the highway until one of your life bars drains to zero. How does this work? Well, for every second you are in second place, you lose life. If you hit a wall, you lose life. If your bar reaches zero first, you lose.

Losing gives you a small amount of money. Winning, gives you a lot. You use the money to buy parts for your car. And later, to buy better cars. The internals mods for the car are simple. Just engine packages, and better suspension set-ups. You can't buy individual engine parts such as turbos or intakes. The cool part is making you car look the part. You can dress it up with stickers, wings, body kits ect...

Graphics:

Like candy. This game is very smooth and colorful. It doesn't look realistic, but it's highly stylized. Slowdown is it's only real problem. There is also some draw-in, and a lack of detail (compared to newer racing games), but the effects make up for it.

Presentation:

It takes a long time for each car model to load at the selection screen, but aside from that, it has a nice menu system and save system.

Sound:

Some good music, some bad music. The cars sound ok, but nothing memorable.

Control:

Weird.... plain weird. It feels like driving on ice. Tuning your car can help, but it never really feels like you're connected to the road.

Gameplay:

Sometimes luck is better than skill. Before each race the AI takes over your car for a mini cut scene showing both cars. Sometimes the AI will send your car into a wall before the race even starts. Race over. Pretty sucky.

Also, the collision is very buggy. If you hit a wall, you slow way down. But you can watch your opponent hit the same wall and continue on. Sometimes, the wall even makes the AI go faster.

The bad control and horrible AI (which sometimes purposely knocks you into incoming cars and walls... smart, but annoying) make this game very frustrating.

Replay:

There are tons of rivals to race. And tons of rivals/cars/parts to unlock. If you want to beat every rival, you have to beat the game many times. This is good for those who really get into the game. But I doubt many will actually go this far.

Overall:

I personally don't like ''rice rockets''. I think they look stupid, and are usually more show than go. But this game isn't all about ''rice''. There are Supras, NSXs, and even a Viper. It's fun to build cars that would look goofy in real life, that I wouldn't be caught dead driving, and race against other laughable cars. Despite it's flaws, it's very addictive to buy better and better cars, more and more parts ect...

Even if you don't have an interest in import cars, you might find this game enjoyable. Like I said, even if ''rice rockets'' look goofy to you, making them in game can be fun. And if you do like import cars, then you'll like this game even more. It will make you scream in frustration, but come back for more. Because, you just HAVE to beat that big bad boss rival... you just need to win a few more races to get that muffler you've had your eye on. Then you'll show him a thing or two!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/01, Updated 01/10/03