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Written by Don Lee
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Saturday, 13 May 2006 |
 Tourist Trophy for the Sony PlayStation 2 was met with great
anticipation and expectation with the news that award-winning game
developer Polyphony Digital (makers of the ultra-realistic racing game
Gran Turismo) was going to handle the game. Tourist Trophy was going to
do for motorcycles what Gran Turismo did for driving.
Just like millions of motorcycles fans out there, I was very interested in how they would translate Gran Turismo's success and translate that into Tourist Trophy motorcycle racing.
Tourist Trophy offers over 100 different motorcycles from a number of popular motorcycle manufacturers such as Honda, Suzuki, Ducati, Kawasaki, Aprilia, BMW, Moriwaki, Buell, MV Augusta, Triumph, Yamaha and Yoshimura. Each bike is designed to their optimal performance but you can make modifications to the bike before a race. There is 35 tracks to choose from which range from city tracks such as New York, Hong Kong, Seattle Circuit, Tokyo R246, Seoul Central, Citta di Aria, Clubman Stage Route 5, Costa di Amalfi, Cote d'Azur, Special Stage Route 5. Some of the circuit tracks include Leguna Seca, Infineon Raceway, Nurburgring Nordschleife, Fuji Speedway (80s, 90s, 2005), Suzuka Circuit (Title, East, West), Tsukuba Circuit, Twin Ring Motegi (East, West, Road, Super) and Valencia. There are some original courses as well which include the Beginner Course, Apricot Hill, Autumn Ring, Autumn Ring Mini, Deep Forest Raceway, El Capitan, Grand Valley East, Grand Valley Speedway, High Speed Ring, Midfield Raceway, Motorland and Trial Mountain.
I strongly suggest that before you begin racing in Tourist Trophy Mode, it would be a wise decision to run through a few time trials and four-man races. Select different tracks to familiarize yourself with the curves and nuances of the game. Don't get too frustrated if you find yourself skidding across the pavement a few hundred times. Just like in Gran Turismo, you're going to have to master the art of control even more in Tourist Trophy. Too much leaning, accerating at the wrong point, bike shifting and other elements can cause you to crash in Tourist Trophy. Learn to handle the bike first and you will have a better chance of winning.
From the game’s mainmenu, you can select from two different playing modes (arcade and tourist trophy), replay theater, music theater and options. Arcade mode is where you can play a single player race, race in a four-man competition, ride in a time trial or race head-to-head against a friend in a split screen display. There are a number of things that you can configure in Tourist Trophy and this is what makes the game so much fun. Once you have chosen your race type, then select from the display of bikes available. You can select by make, displacement or from all available. Once you select your bike, then choose the color scheme of the bike and then select the equipment combination you want to wear. Now you're given the choice of transmission for your bike, tires and your riding form. Once you've made all of your selections, you're ready to race.
Tourist Trophy Mode is where this game impresses. You begin in License School and you have to earn your way through the game by accomplishing challenges. With each successful challenge, you acquire vastly improved bikes. You will need to enter the garage so you can see what you have access to and where you can begin customizing your ride. In the garage, you can customize your bike's features such as the suspension, tires, brake balance, gear ratio, exhaust and roller weight. Then choose your riding form from A, B, C, and Motard. Then you can change your riding options such as head roll angle, leg angles, head pitch angle, torso roll angle, torso yaw angle, body leaning, arm angle, seat position, lateral and vertical slides, upright body lean.
In Game Options, change your playing screen’s aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9 as well as some playing options such as the number of laps, tire wear, penalties and time limits. Customize your controller settings for your bike handling such as acceleration, braking, reverse and point of view. For those who want to take a photo of their ride, you can change the Picture Quality setting. Monitor the brightness, contrast, color balance and saturation. Being able to customize the game in a variety of ways is what makes this a great game.
After a few time trials, I felt I was ready to join in on a four-man race. Before you begin the race, you could perform a quick tune-up of your ride. Under quick tune-up, you can modify features such as gear ratio, horsepower, bike's weight, transmission, the tire type (choose the front and back wheel separately) and riding form (lean body, neutral, lean bike and motard). Once you are happy with your settings, you can then start the race. Once the race is over, you are shown where you finished in the race. Back to the race menu, you can view a replay of the race, a list of the best photo shots captured and the option to save the replay data.
Aside from the bike riding, Tourist Trophy offers some other fun features such as Photo Mode where you have three options (Photo Album, Photo Ride and Load Replay) to choose from. Photo Album provides you with a location for all of your photos that you have taken during your races. Photo Ride was designed specifically for you to take photos during the action. Catch all of the action from your ride on a Ducati 999R or a Kawasaki GPZ900R. Photo Ride will first create a replay of your ride then select Load Replay to play the replay of the ride and you can take your pictures then.
If you are familiar with the Gran Turismo series, then you should already be familiar with the design elements in Tourist Trophy. The game does not disappoint in delivering the best motorcycle simulator. Polyphony Digital understands the design elements and details it needs to build a solid simulator game. The detail of the game is very impressive and you can see that they did they homework towards ensuring that every configurable feature was covered whether it pertained to the bike, rider or even the equipment. Polyphony Digital has created another winner with Tourist Trophy.
Tourist Trophy is available for the Sony PlayStation 2. You can also pick up the Prima Game Guide for Tourst Trophy.
Check out Tourist Trophy online at http://www.touristtrophy-thegame.com
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