Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT
Kaido Battle finally arrives on US shores, and at an irresistible price.
Published: April 30, 2006
This is easily the nicest looking TXR game Genki has pumped out. The shift from eternal night and long stretches of road to twisting mountainsides blanketed in snow or leaves or cherry blossoms is a welcome one. Things like thick clumps of moving mist or fog and falling petals and snow just add atmosphere where there was previously a fairly stark cityscape. The car models are decently detailed, and reflect upgrades you throw on them (though mostly cosmetically), but the detail isn't something on the level of GT4.
Still the framerate is very, very solid indeed, and the only real complaint I have about the presentation (aside from all those freakin' loading screens) is that the intro feels a little cheap. There's actually a point where the hundreds of slow-falling leaves in a pre-rendered movie actually reset for a second. Sure, it's totally nitpicking, but I'm an anal bastard about those things, and it jumps out at me every time I see it.
I see it, because I can't help but watch the intro, thanks mostly to a cheesy trance song that I like far more than I should (and because, admittedly, the intro is otherwise well done). This is in fairly stark contrast to the other stuff in the game, which leans much, much more toward the rock and even something of a nu-wave ska-type sound. It's not licensed music, nor is there a voice cast to deal with, and both are actually pluses.
Parts of TXR DRIFT do feel a little like a budget release; the translation is a little spotty in some areas (some is outright Engrish, but I think that was in the game before it ever made the leap to English-speaking countries), and the game just feels a little on the basic side. Luckily, most of this tends to melt away after a few hours with the game, and that's due almost exclusively to the fact that the game is fun. It's still TXR, but lightened up with a completely different approach to tackling races and a new presentation.
The rest of the audio is solid. You'll hear the same couple menu songs over and over again (often repeated or restarted as you back in and out of menus), but the tire squeals, the sound of rubber on snow or rain and the little chimes as your car racks up points all pop through cleanly enough. The game only supports stereo, so you won't really get a sense of surround sound, but it can be faked about as well as a Pro Logic signal if your receiver has a DLP setting.
For fans of the series, this is an instant recommendation. The same addictive properties are there, just mixed up a little. For newcomers, there's a bigger learning curve (your first car or two will likely suck, and you won't get a real sense of drifting until you can upgrade or move to a decently-muscled machine), but once the game's hooks get into you, it can suck away hours at a time. The price point just makes any of the major faults that much smaller, and I really can't recommend this enough as something to offset the sims or Need for Speed offerings out there.
