Well, I think there were alot of people who were looking forward to TOCA 2, given the great work that was done with TOCA 1. TOCA 1 bridged the gap between simulations and racing games, and was both, or neither. With the superb graphics, great racing, and nice 3d modelling, TOCA 1 really made a nice niche in the market. TOCA (and TOCA 2) is basically the British Touring Car Championship cars and drivers, on accurately modelled 3d tracks. Our writeup on TOCA 1 was quite good, even though it wasn't completely a sim (due to lack of setups options, and very limited damage in crashes)

So I downloaded the TOCA 2 demo with great expectations that it would take the fine points of TOCA 1 and expand them to new horizons, and improve on the bad points (of which there were very few). Codemasters had requested almost a year ago feedback from the racers as to how to improve TOCA 2. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who was hoping that they took everything in and made TOCA 2 even better. However...I must say that disappointment was probably the best discription of what I found with TOCA 2.

Installation was straightforward, but so is almost every Win95/98 game nowadays. However, after loading the first TOCA2 menu...first off, the immense amount of menus you had to traverse in TOCA 1 just to get from the lead-in screen to actually race was very annoying. And guess what...other than a repainted interface, TOCA 2 is the same. You have to go through EIGHT menus just to race, plus a few screens. Heaven forbid that you get into the race, then realize you want to change an option on your controller or something. I found the racing screens to be cluttered and annoying. This isn't different than TOCA 1 either, as in your windshield you have several huge laps display and timer. Very poor. Get that out of my driving view.

One of the things that was asked for in TOCA to was some real adjustments to the cars...well, there are some, but they are minimal, at best. You can adjust weight, suspension, gears, tires, and downforce, but they are only slide bars, and there is no option to save them! So you better write them down if you get a good one...

Gameplay was again, very like TOCA 1. Same start, same graphics, same road feel and same handling. The only track to run in the demo was Croft, which wasn't too bad, so it's unknown if the horrible bouncing at Brands Hatch was fixed. The car did seem to handle a bit better, it didn't seem to spin as bad as it did before, and suspension adjustments did make a difference. The AI seemed to be marginally improved, they didn't seem to bunch up as bad as before, but one of the very strange things was how fast cars that were behind you would catch up to you, no matter how far they had been left behind. Usually a bunch of them would pile up going into turn 1 (what, were these PROFESSIONAL touring car drivers???) and if you passed a few, they would usually be on your tail by the next corner. However, the ones that YOU were behind would very slowly start to come back to you if you got a good run off the corner.

The damage, again, is non-descript, but this IS the demo. The engine sound is also not very impressive (same as TOCA 1) but you can hear yourself when you're bouncing off the rumble strips and sliding through the grass. As far as the driving model goes, it really seems to be the same engine as TOCA 1 with some tweaks. There ARE some new things that are interesting with TOCA 2, you get to try out Formula Fords on the different tracks, as well as some of the world's supercars like the Jag XJ220, Lister Storm, ect. As well, as you can see, you as the driver make some amusing gestures when you get nailed from behind.

I really think this was a real disappointment from Codemasters. When TOCA 1 delivered so much, and Codemasters asked for input for TOCA 2, I fully expected something great. However, I would say this is TOCA 1 with a little bit of glitz. Demo available (19 meg)HERE.

System Requirements:
System: Win95/98 with DirectX 5.2 (included with game)
Pentium 133
3D Hardware Accelerator with 4 MB video ram
CD-ROM: 4 X
Memory: 32meg
Controls: Keyboard, Mouse
Sound: DirectX 5.2 compatible sound card

Being a life long drag racing fan and some time participant, I have always wanted to see a drag racing sim. After struggling along for years with the very simple, very outdated arcade-style games (anyone remember Slingshot by Activision for the Atari 2600?) Bethesda Software Works and Mind Magic Productions have both come out with state of the art drag racing sims. In ways, this game is everything I hoped for, and in others I’ve been left very disappointed by the latest in drag racing sims.

NHRA Championship Drag Racing (NHRA), developed by Tantrum Entertainment for Mind Magic Productions, is a mostly faithful reproduction of the 1998 National Hot Rod Association Winston Drag Racing tour. NHRA includes all 19 National Events and tracks (and the NEC Dome, an enclosed fantasy track) and drivers can choose one of the NHRA professional "nitro" classes, Top Fuel or Funny Car.

The Good: The strongest feature of this game is the realism of the driving experience. After several trips into the guardrail, it fast becomes obvious that driving these 6000 horsepower cars take a defter touch than we give these straight-line competitors. Very little steering input results in very big changes in direction as you rush down the track. Trying to cut a good reaction time, the most important thing a driver can do in drag racing, presents a challenge in NHRA. The computer cars try a variety of moves to rattle you, from rushing in to light both bulbs to making you wait for them at the line.

You also learn quickly that the race doesn’t end at the finish line, as you juggle deploying the ‘chutes, shutting off the engine, applying the brakes and keeping the car off the guardrail, all while watching the sand trap at the end of the track approaching. This makes for an entertaining drive, from burnout to turn-off. Once you get into a championship season, you have to juggle the need to get down the track under a variety of conditions, the need to qualify well and budgetary concerns to make it to the end of the season.

This realism extends to the pits, where your crew has 90 minutes to perform normal between rounds maintenance, repair any damage from the previous run, and make changes to the set up for conditions. Many variables, including wing angle, nitromethane percentage, front end weight, blower overdrive, compression ratio and more are adjustable, and finding the right combination of settings to match the track and atmospheric conditions.

The Bad: Perhaps the biggest weakness of this sim is it is very resource intensive. The computer I run this sim on is a Pentium 233MMX with 64 megs of RAM, a Diamond Stealth S220 video card with a Canopus Pure 3D graphics accelerator and a 24x CD-ROM. Even though these specs are well above the minimum requirement, I can only run in low graphics mode. While on the topic of graphics, the lack of a paint kit for this game is an obvious oversight, and the ability to choose from only fictional cars (as opposed to driving your favorite) hurts what otherwise is a faithful reproduction of professional drag racing.

Another downside to this sim is the extremely long load times involved during a race. As someone who has sat in the staging lanes for long periods of time between passes, downtime between runs is VERY boring, and NHRA is realistic in that aspect as well. During the test, it took an average of 35-40 seconds to load a single race. I tried many different software configurations with no decrease in load time.

Yet another annoying problem with this game is the lack of documentation. Have a problem, better look on-line or dial the "800" number, because the manual that accompanies the game explains ONLY the fundamentals of drag racing and game controls and offers nothing in the way of technical support, specs or troubleshooting.

Finally, there are a lot of niggling little glitches in the program that really hurt my overall satisfaction with the product. Issues like the inability to save games or replays have been noted, and a recent patch seems to address many of these issues.

The Verdict: While Tantrum and Mind Magic have put a lot of research into creating this officially licensed drag racing sim, the annoying lack support in the manual and extremely long file load times seriously detract from the gaming experience. While I am personally overjoyed that both of these software publishers have tackled professional drag racing the way that almost every other form of major league motor sports have in the past, I reluctantly give NHRA Championship a V6, and look forward to trying out Bethesda’s Burnout! Championship Drag Racing.