Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3

"A good game...I think"

I personally liked Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero, so please forgive me if I make a reference to it. I suppose you should expect it, however, since this IS the sequel.

TXR3 is sort of the first street racing game to get japanese street racing right. Ever since the Fast and the Furious, everyone seems to think that racing is about neon and ''blingin''' paint jobs and nitrous. In real life, however, you'll see that this is rarely the case. Or at least it wasn't.

In TXR3, you'll find no neon, no crazy paint jobs. The idea of the street racers is that the police WON'T notice your car. You'll have a basic one or two-tone paint job, which can still look nice. But on to the gameplay.

Let me set this up for you: the roads in Japan are amazingly well tended, and are very straight in many cases. This sets up some seriously fast driving.

Graphics: 7
The graphics are pretty good, and the feeling of speed is definitely there. You'll also find many suttle touches in the background, which is usually the Tokyo skyline.

One problem is that pretty much every non-racing car is a police van. You'll run into them and they'll do nothing.

The cars look great and accurate, as well. There are no bugs to report.

Sound: 6
There is very average sound. The sound upgrades a bit when you get different exhaust upgrades, but there is never enough bass, and it hurts the sweetness of a car a bit. Meh.

Gameplay: 8
The gameplay here is pretty great. The basic principle is you go around looking for opponents, and compete with rival groups to show yourself as the superior racer.

When you race them, two bars come up resembling health, and it goes down bit by bit when behind or when you crash. When one person's bar runs out, that person loses.

The actual racing is very good, and most of the time you can win on skill, but in some of the areas, it really requires a fast car or a crash by the other person.

The AI is very good and varied. It says in their profile how they race, and they really do have different personalities. Some will get ahead then block you, some will just ram you hoping for a crash.

There are three tracks, and they're really huge. Some of them have a bunch of turns, and some are pretty much all straightaways, but in all tracks you'll have to turn a lot to avoid traffic at 150 mph.

There are some ''cut-scenes'' when certain stuff happens, but they're translated directly from japanese so it really makes no sense.

There are some 3-way battles, which adds a bit since they often use teamwork to block you, but in general they just crash into each other and mess each other up.

The game's goodness is increased and then decreased again due to licensced cars, but there are no hondas. Crud.

Final verdict: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/18/04