Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3

"Great game, but not without its flaws."

This was my introduction to the Tokyo Extreme Racer series. As a result, I didn't feel as if I could review this fairly without at first getting TXR0 to test out the series. So I did, and now I feel I'm ready to give my opinion on the game.

Graphics: 8/10

Where TXR0 looked more like a polished Gran Turismo 2, TXR3 looks more like a downgraded GT3, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing. The roads are much less pixilated than they were in TXR0, but we lost all of the dash details that you could see in TXR0. It's not a major loss, but it does hurt the detail level of the game slightly. Also, while the rain and snow effects themselves are not spectacular, the wet pavement effects are.

Gameplay: 10/10

The cornering problems that you may have encountered in TXR0 are gone. It's much easier to take corners in this game, and you won't be wishing that corners didn't exist so that you could keep your Speed/Spirit points. As for the concept of tracking down rivals and racing them, that remains intact. Nearly 200 miles of expressway were added to the game, but most of it is just a single track all the way around, and Nagoya and Osaka don't match the feeling of Tokyo's highways.

Car List: 7/10

It's impressive, but it also strays from the series' roots by including such exotic cars like the Gembellas (a Romanian Porsche tuner), the GT40, and the DeTomaso Pantera. The game has always been about affordable cars (exception for the Viper) being made into monster racing machines, and the inclusion of these cars hurts the game feeling a bit.

Car Customisation: 6/10

It's great - for the few cars that permit complete customisation. However, the introduction of licensing to the series has curbed the practice of aero parts on every car. An example would be almost all of the American cars (except for the Viper). The only aero customisation that they permit is the purchase of dry carbon parts to replace existing parts and a spoiler (in the GT40's case, not even a spoiler). A less serious example is the Nissan 350Z. There are very little aero parts for this car (maybe one or two parts per category), and so the car basically looks the same. Being that part of the appeal of the game is the aero parts, this hurts it a lot.

Final Score: 8/10

This is indeed worth a buy, especially considering the $20 price for what you're getting. Just don't be expecting what you expected of TXR0.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/30/03