TOCA! TOCA! TOCA!
Codemasters announces new TOCA sports car racing game
Codemasters have announced that a new installment in their multi-million selling TOCA Touring Car series of motor racing games is in the works, TOCA Race Driver. In keeping with the name, Codemasters are promising a more plot-driven game this time round, with more focus on the drivers themselves than usual. Exactly how this will work in practice isn't entirely clear, but it's being hyped as "a true convergence of racing gaming and cinematic experience".
"It's no longer sufficient or exciting to deliver a new edition of a best-selling franchise that just recreates previous editions on a new format", series producer Gavin Raeburn commented, apparently oblivious to the recent million selling success of Gran Turismo 3. "We have got to move on from the expectation that a sequel can be justified by simply adding more cars and tracks. With TOCA Race Driver we want to move the whole racing genre forward by delivering a very personal experience that the gamer can passionately connect with."
Codemasters have a rather extravagant team of 45 developers working on the game at the moment, with the release set for a vague "2002" on PC, PlayStation 2 and "other platforms". Hopefully we will get to see more at ECTS (if Codemasters see fit to open up to the press), but the first screenshots of the game in action are already looking promising.