Shiba-Koen is particularly impressive with an illuminated Tokyo Tower looming in the foreground. The developers at Genki did a great job in re-creating that stretch of highway, even planting look-alike billboards in the background to match the real-life setting. While my experience traveling through Tokyo’s highway system is limited, I have taken an airport shuttle from Chiba to Haneda on several occasions and instantly recognized the route in digital form. In addition to having to avoid guardrails and concrete pillars within tunnels, civilian cars also litter the highway, adding another layer of difficulty. This can take a mere 10 seconds if your car is tuned perfectly and loaded up on NOS, or it can take several minutes if both racers are of equal skill level. Once you’ve found a rival, you race through a specified Tokyo district until one car pulls away from the other. Instead of running laps around tracks, racing truly feels like a battle. The most attractive feature of “Shutoko” is inherent in street racing culture. Yes, even those illegal blue halogen lights that illuminate the bottom of your ride. Conversely, winning yields big money and a chance to buy upgrades for your car.Įngine overhauls, better mufflers, NOS (nitrous-oxide systems), and even cosmetic changes can be purchased. Call out a veteran racer with a tricked-out car and your gang will suffer, as will your pocketbook. It’s reminiscent of the “Risk” board game, except you’re fighting over a few square kilometers of concrete instead of continents.īut players must be mindful of which rival gang member to challenge. Win enough battles against a rival gang and their turf becomes yours. Once you find a family, you and your comrades have two main duties: protect your turf from intruders (my gang’s turf covered Daiba and Roppongi), and second, to enter another gang’s turf and challenge its members to a race. Once you make it to the game, you not only need flawless driving skills but wise decision-making (and patience) between races.įor example, first-time players are invited to join one of about a dozen Tokyo racing gangs. This game’s load times are especially problematic because so much time is spent shifting through menus: Moving between sub-menus causes the game to pause for a few seconds.
CAR RACING GAME PSP PS2
While most gamers have grown to tolerate long load times on home consoles like the PS2 and Xbox (where you can spend idle time puttering around the house), long load times are simply inexcusable for handheld games. The biggest problem with “Shutoko” is apparent the first time you load up the game - it takes more than three minutes from the time you insert the game’s UMD disc until you’re racing.