Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

Major confession time: I never liked Gran Turismo. Although appreciative of developer Polyphony Digital’s anal perfectionism when it came to including every possible detail, something about completing licence tests and incessantly fine-tuning my car just did not translate into fun.

Perhaps realizing there was no way to improve on the last Gran Turismo, Polyphony have decided to condense anything anyone could ever want about motorcycles (save for the gang warfare) into one disc. Tourist Trophy (PS2/SCEI, Polyphony Digital) calls itself “the real riding simulator,” and rest assured Road Rage or Excitebike were not used as templates.

Come to think of it, there has never been a true motorcycle simulator. There have been more than a few car racing sims, including a couple of colossal attempts that bordered on mega-pretension (Yu Suzuki’s tri-screened mammoth F355

Challenge (Sega) springs to mind). But as technical and purist-oriented as Tourist Trophy is, there is fun to be had for those who don’t want to spend hours slaving over their bike collections.

The controls are daunting and outright aggravating at first, as all good sim games are. The first few races were disastrous; I kept under-turning and flipping over my bike. Upon completion of the licence tests (although annoying as a concept, they are helpful), things became clear—riding a bike is completely different from a car, and Polyphony succeed in demonstrating this fact.

Forget anything you learned in other racers, because TT’s turning, accelerating and driving physics are unique. Even more challenging is how every bike controls differently, and corners you mastered on a Vespa will have to be re-learned on better vehicles.

Unfortunately, all of this will reek of bad biker leather to those who don’t want to devote themselves to learning the intricacies of motorcycle racing. Even worse, all of the tech-heavy rider tuning and management from Gran Turismo is still here, including the necessity to learn various rider positions. There are more than 100 fully-licensed bikes (featuring the likes of Honda, BMW and Kawasaki), and over 35 courses, so Polyphony have made Tourist Trophy as deep as the Gran Turismo games.

A lame yet strangely pivotal factor in the game is the racer’s outfit, which is completely customizable and the primary reward for racing, other than new bikes.

As a late-gen PS2 title, the graphics are passable during the races, but only during the replays does one get to truly enjoy the detail put into every bike. The photo-realistic replays are nothing new (nor is the ability to save race video and photos), but each bike looks amazing and adds to the realism.

Fans of Gran Turismo should immediately pick up this game—it’s a deep racing simulator that will take time to master and truly understand. I will recommend Tourist Trophy to casual racing fans as well with a caution—the game has a deep learning curve, though in a few hours commandeering hairpin turns will actually be fun. Speed junkies, on the other hand, should note that because of these turns, the bikes are rarely hitting top speed and therefore will feel too slow.

E3

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is going on right now in Los Angeles. The big three are tight-lipped as always, but Sega has already announced Full Auto 2 for the PS3 (the first was developed by Toronto’s Pseudo Interactive) and Ubisoft has two games announced for the Nintendo Wii: the knight-based Red Steel and the unfortunately titled platformer Rayman Raving Rabbids.

The games I’m interested in seeing: Tekken 6 (PS3), Virtua Tennis 3 (X360, PS3), Sega Rally Revolution (PC, X360, PS3), and anything that uses the Wii controller.