TOCA Touring Car Championship was a game by Codemasters released in 1997 for Playstation and PC.
I first played TOCA Touring Car Championship on the original Playstation and it was the first game that I owned on the console. It contains all the drivers and circuits (Silverstone, Donington, Thruxton, Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Croft, Knockhill, Snetterton) from the 1997 RAC Auto Trader British Touring Car Championship season. It also contains varying weather conditions and some quite realistic damage.
The highlight of this game has to be the championship mode.
It contains qualifying sessions and the sprint and feature length races as was customary in the BTCC at the time. You can race as any driver from any team and the championship takes you to every circuit on the calendar. And if you don’t want to race the full distance, you can even choose the amount of laps you want to race. There are also single race and time trial modes to play as well.
Another strong feature for this game is the multiplayer. It makes for some great racing with your mates.
As well as the main British Touring Car Championship, there are also many support races on the game as well. These would have been on show at race weekends in the real BTCC.
This game features
commentary from former BTCC driver and former Top Gear presenter and current Fifth Gear presenter Tiff Needell. Unlike on some other racing games it is not annoying or distracting either.
For playing the game there are 5 different camera angles to choose from, so you are not left short of options. However, my favorite is still the classic view where you look at the rear of your car. The cockpit cam does still make for an enjoyable challenge though.
Although, there have been several games in the TOCA series since this (TOCA 2 Touring Cars, TOCA World Touring Cars, TOCA Race Driver 1,2 and 3) this original is still well worth a visit.
