Tourist Trophy
It's like Gran Turismo with motorcycles! Oh, wait, no it isn't.
Published: April 13, 2006
Unfortunately, because of the frankly hardcore nature of tweaking and selecting bikes, and the open-ended requirements of a lot of races, there isn't really a tangible sense of progression, nor is the game especially easy for beginners. There's a mounting sense that to really enjoy things, you need to be a gearhead, which is certainly true for Gran Turismo too, but cars just feel more universal to me. Then again, I don't ride, and I'm more than happy to admit that even after 10 hours of racing, I still don't really know what I'm doing.
It's crystal clear that Polyphony Digital does, however, at least in terms of how they handle visuals. PD games are, again, able to deliver quite a bit of info through subtle visual feedback, but there's no denying that the game looks incredible. 1080i support (yes, yes, we know, it's just upscaled 480p, we'll still take it), a gorgeous framerate (though there is a bit of that weird interlaced resolution drop effect during menus), razor sharp textures, and some of the most detailed bikes you'll see on any platform are all present. Riders pitch their bodies, prep for turns, drop their legs and arms and react in an incredibly realistic way to turns.
The bikes do tend to suffer from a bit of that ultra-glossy too-perfect-to-be-real look, and every time the rider bails at high speed, you'll see some sparks, but the bikes tend to slide across terrain as if it were coated in Teflon. The riders, too, don't exhibit a ton of ragdoll detail post-bail, but this is the first time the team has tried something like this, and I'm willing to cut them a little slack because the rest of the game is gorgeous -- especially when seen through the viewpoint behind the windshield with things whipping past at 150+ miles an hour, replete with full working dials.
There's also the effect of wind whipping by, which may even be more prevalent than it was in GT4. It's still a subtle thing, but it makes a world of difference in the cockpit view. The rest of the audio is similarly nuanced, with engine noises providing just the right kind of why-are-my-pants-getting-tight aural accompaniment while throwing the other racers' sounds out to the other audio channels. You'll get your typical quasi-elevator tunes on the main menu, some more hard-rocking stuff during the races, but it's actually rather nice to not have a huge list of licensed tracks.
Tourist Trophy is by no means a bad game. In fact, it's a great game... for those that ride bikes. Sure, it has a bit of instant appeal, but the longer I played with the game, the more I realized it wasn't really aimed at me, the casual gamer that likes watching motorcycle races for a couple laps before ADD takes over. There's enough core racing here to entertain for a while, but unlike Gran Turismo, there's not enough universal appeal to make it a buy to anyone but serious riders. Everyone else will likely run out of juice in the span of a rental, but if no reason other than the fact that it's probably the most exacting motorcycle sim you'll see, it's worth a peek.
