TOCA 2 Touring Car Challenge

TOCA 2 Touring Car Challenge, also known as TOCA 2 Touring Cars (EU) is a Codemaster racing game released in 1998 between the two Gran Turismo games it competes with.

The game must be close to pushing the playstation to its limits as there is quite a lot going on with 16 cars racing around the track. It is the cause for some major slowdown in the fluidity of the gameplay but the game still plays ok. The game is very difficult or at least the championship mode is. Single race and the Special car events are considerably easier and certainly the more fun aspect of the game to play.

The Expert Championship has been played through in this video. It is a long 26 event championship with 12 4 lap races and 12 8 lap races requiring at least one pit stop. The most difficult aspect of the game is the car handling. It is very easy to over-steer the car causing you to slide off the track, way to easy. It is very important to tackle corners at the correct speed else you will spin off, or not make the corner and drive on and it can be frustrating finding the correct line, more so than any other racing game. It doesn't help that for any chance of winning you have to drive aggressively. The AI cars certainly do and don't take kindly to being knocked about. The AI does make mistakes, but it cant easily be forced into making them. You can cut corners without fear of penalty, but its not always a good idea as if the angle is slightly wrong, you will spin. Hitting other cars can get you disqualified if you hit them often enough. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the ford mondeo for a more balanced vehicle.

All the cars have damage models, but I can not easily show this aspect of the game as if I take to much damage or I come off the track, it may as well be race over. Before each race I do a qualifying lap. At the end of each race I show One lap in the action replay. This generally shows all the action which is in the first lap anyway. There are quite a few varied modes which the game cycles through and look particularly good for the time. During each race I will switch between all view modes since some folk like to see chase view and others internal view. I prefer to race in Cockpit view just for that extra bit of immersion. The cockpit view is done really well and its really strange that later games on all platforms pretty much dropped cockpit view for many years and to this day race games are released where cockpit mode is not implemented.

In the second part of the video I show off all the Support vehicle championships. This unlocks a couple of extra tracks but still not everything. With two modes completed I wanted to show off all bonus tracks but still had not unlocked them all and I do not know how to. I guess they might be in the easy and normal difficulty championships. At this point I add cheat modes for EXTRA DAMAGE and ALL BONUS TRACKS. I then go through Single race mode and show each Bonus track one by one. I do find it odd that I can only select novice difficulty and did not see away to enable higher levels without further cheats. Maybe they are unlocked in the challenge mode of the game (not played).

Throughout all the game the most dreaded track is Knockhill. It has some fast corners which the AI cars can just blast around like they are nothing and I have to take great care to get round. The weather is often bad on this track as well which does not help matters at all. One aspect I have not mentioned is the weather in fact and the gfx effects associated with rain are done quite well in this game and would have looked quite special for the ps1 in 1998. The worst car for me was the TVR Speed 12. This thing just wants to spin on the spot and needs great care to keep it on the track as well as fast enough to race.

And now for some time stamps. PART 1: Expert Championship.

00:00:00 - Intro
00:03:00 - Race 1 & 2 Thruxton
00:30:00 - Race 3 & 4 Silverstone
00:58:50 - Race 5 & 6 Donnington (Unlocks Downtown USA Bonus Track)
01:23:50 - Race 7 & 8 Brands Hatch (Gives Fastboy Cheat Code)
01:42:00 - Race 9 & 10 Oulton park
02:04:55 - Race 11 & 12 Donington (Elastic Cheat Code)(Unlocks Loch Ranoch Bonus Track)
02:31:40 - Race 13 & 14 Croft
03:00:40 - Race 15 & 16 Snetterton (Gives Longlong Cheat Code)
03:26:30 - Race 17 & 18 Thruxton (Unlocks Kastl, Bavaria Bonus Track)
03:53:20 - Race 19 & 20 Knockhill (Gives Punchy Cheat Code)
04:14:40 - Race 21 & 22 Brands Hatch
04:32:10 - Race 23 & 23 Oulton Park (Gives Justfeet Cheat Code)
04:54:00 - Race 25 & 26 Silverstone (Unlocks Alpine Climb Bonus Track)

Part 2: Support Car Championships (4 races each) & Single Races

00:00:00 - A quick look at Car Driver information
01:42:00 - Ford Fiesta Championship
00:28:20 - Formula Ford Championship (Unlocks Short Test Track Bonus Track)
00:56:00 - AC Superblower championship
01:18:18 - TVR Speed 12 Championship (Unlocks Long Test Track Bonus Track)
01:44:10 - Jaguar XJ220 Championship
02:16:27 - Grinall Scorpion Championship
02:33:50 - Lister Storm Championship

02:56:53 Cheats entered for Single Race Mode
02:58:10 - Downtown USA Bonus Track 1
03:05:37 - Lock Ranoch Bonus Track 2
03:13:37 - Kastl, Bavaria Bonus Track 3
03:19:43 - Alpine Climb Bonus Track 4
03:26:09 - Donington GP Circuit Bonus Track 5
03:32:42 - Oulton park International Circuit Bonus Track 6
03:40:52 - Test Track Short Circuit Bonus Track 7
03:45:18 - Test Track Long Circuit Bonus Track 8
03:50:51 - Test Track Oval Circuit Bonus Track 9 (I guess this would have unlocked if getting all 280 points in Support car championships)