TOCA Championship Racing (PlayStation)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.8 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Ryan Donald
• Reviewed on: 08/14/1998
• Updated on: 05/02/2000
• Released on: 07/31/1998
• Originally published on GameSpot: TOCA Championship Racing (PlayStation) Review

TOCA Touring Car Championship is basically a mix of Gran Turismo and Destruction Derby. It has the amazing control and physics of the former, while also having the realistic car damage of the latter.

TOCA features the eight official cars of the British Touring Car Championship: Volvo S40, Honda Accord, Audi A4, Vauxhall Vectra, Ford Mondeo, Nissan Primera GT, Peugeot 406, and Renault Laguna. You have eight tacks to race on that have been modeled after real-life courses. You can pick three different modes of play: the single race, time trial, and full season mode.

TOCA is one of the few racing games where the cars take damage. If you hit the wall a bit too hard, your hood might pop off. A really hard collision between two cars could flip a car over and put it out of the race. After a while you'll learn how to spin the other cars out of control with a little shove on their rear quarter panel. This, combined with 16 cars on the track, adds up to a lot of collisions.

The game's control works really well. You can use a regular PlayStation controller to play, but to really get your money's worth you have to play the game with a Dual Shock controller. The game controls are extremely precise. The physics model rivals that of Gran Turismo. The cars squat on one side when going around turns, cars spin out of control, and they have realistic reactions to collisions. Also, weather conditions like rain or snow affect car handling.

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