We are still waiting on a suitable Amiga AGA emulator with robust recording features before tackling such games.
Car and Driver Presents: Grand Tour Racing '98
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Screenshot |
Player's Review
Grand Tour Racing 98 for the ps1, released in the US towards the end of 1997 and developed by Eutechnyx. The game is also known as Total Drivin in Europe, Gekisou!! Grand Racing in Japan and also M6 Turbo Racing in France. Interestingly all versions come with a region specific sound track so it may be worth visiting those versions at a later time.
The game has qute an interesting game engine. It runs fairly smooth and looks quite good for the Playstations low res mode. Features hills and dips as well as tight turns/ The game features 6 Track areas with 6+1 secret track each and 8 driver teams. The Longplay is not a 100% run due to a bad gameplay decision where you need to complete every track with every team. I just show all tracks and switch teams between areas for some variation. The games tries to offer simulation controls but I find the controls massively over sensitive and you just end-up over-steering all the time making the races quite difficult. Thankfully the ai can be a little stupid at times and crash or fly off a cliff which helps, although one track in particular in Egypt I notice they cheat a little driving up the side of a hill instead of taking the road. Another issue is the hud. It takes up a lot of room on the top right. Scotland 4 seems to have a bug where the lead racer can massively shoot off if given half a chance. It took more than a few goes to crack that one. In every other race, the cars would slow down on final lap to let you catch up, but not on this one race. I did find this version of the game a litle easier than Total Drivin though.
I start off the Longplay showing the Season mode. This mode is not in Total Drivin. It makes no sense to me as this is the only mode really worth playing. Unfortunately it is really short. I spend the rest of the Longplay going through each track area and showing all the tracks one by one as they are unlocked. This mode is not much fun to play as you have to get first on every track. This would have been a much better game had more effort gone into gameplay ( a longer season mode) and not just making a pretty racer with a huge grind. You will notice when I switch teams I lose the track unlocks so having to race all tracks with all teams that's 7 tracks x 6 areas = 42 x 8 teams .... 336 races! I don't even know if there is an end screen as reward as its just too much of a chore to play through. Gran Turismo would release roughly 6 months later and redefine what a simulation racing game on Playstation should be!
00:00:00 Run through of Season Mode - Team XU
00:26:20 All Easter Island Tracks - Team Rossi
00:55:55 Easter Island Secret Track
01:00:48 All Egypt Tracks - Team Ahmed
01:39:45 Egypt Secret Track
01:47:15 All Hong Kong Tracks - Team Baptiste
02:08:30 Hong Kong Secret Track
02:15:10 All Moscow Tracks - Team Morgen
02:43:05 Moscow Secret Track
02:49:45 All Switzerland Tracs - Team Ivanou
03:26:30 Switzerland Secret Track
03:33:55 All Scotland Tracks - Team Roberts
04:09:17 Scotland Secret Track
04:14:47 One of the demo reels showing game credits.
The game has qute an interesting game engine. It runs fairly smooth and looks quite good for the Playstations low res mode. Features hills and dips as well as tight turns/ The game features 6 Track areas with 6+1 secret track each and 8 driver teams. The Longplay is not a 100% run due to a bad gameplay decision where you need to complete every track with every team. I just show all tracks and switch teams between areas for some variation. The games tries to offer simulation controls but I find the controls massively over sensitive and you just end-up over-steering all the time making the races quite difficult. Thankfully the ai can be a little stupid at times and crash or fly off a cliff which helps, although one track in particular in Egypt I notice they cheat a little driving up the side of a hill instead of taking the road. Another issue is the hud. It takes up a lot of room on the top right. Scotland 4 seems to have a bug where the lead racer can massively shoot off if given half a chance. It took more than a few goes to crack that one. In every other race, the cars would slow down on final lap to let you catch up, but not on this one race. I did find this version of the game a litle easier than Total Drivin though.
I start off the Longplay showing the Season mode. This mode is not in Total Drivin. It makes no sense to me as this is the only mode really worth playing. Unfortunately it is really short. I spend the rest of the Longplay going through each track area and showing all the tracks one by one as they are unlocked. This mode is not much fun to play as you have to get first on every track. This would have been a much better game had more effort gone into gameplay ( a longer season mode) and not just making a pretty racer with a huge grind. You will notice when I switch teams I lose the track unlocks so having to race all tracks with all teams that's 7 tracks x 6 areas = 42 x 8 teams .... 336 races! I don't even know if there is an end screen as reward as its just too much of a chore to play through. Gran Turismo would release roughly 6 months later and redefine what a simulation racing game on Playstation should be!
00:00:00 Run through of Season Mode - Team XU
00:26:20 All Easter Island Tracks - Team Rossi
00:55:55 Easter Island Secret Track
01:00:48 All Egypt Tracks - Team Ahmed
01:39:45 Egypt Secret Track
01:47:15 All Hong Kong Tracks - Team Baptiste
02:08:30 Hong Kong Secret Track
02:15:10 All Moscow Tracks - Team Morgen
02:43:05 Moscow Secret Track
02:49:45 All Switzerland Tracs - Team Ivanou
03:26:30 Switzerland Secret Track
03:33:55 All Scotland Tracks - Team Roberts
04:09:17 Scotland Secret Track
04:14:47 One of the demo reels showing game credits.
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