Here's why Tokyo Xtreme Racer - Drift is cool, and why you should play it

Being sick, I recently remembered the old days of playing PS2 racing games and during the adventure through old PS2 sites with games, I came up with an idea for a game. Surely Tokyo Xtreme Racer - Drift doesn’t sound promising but here are some reasons why you should boot up your PS2’s or your PS2 emulators and give it a try!

The car variety

Being a game with a smaller budget than Gran Turismo, Tokyo Racer, even to this day, impresses with the cars that appear in the game. Sure, there’s really not much of them but they all are unique and you won’t have the chance to see them in other games. A good example is the boring version of the AE86, the AE85, a Starlet Turbo, Nissan Marches or the Subaru Alcyone, a forgotten Loyale cramped in a more interesting chassics.

The atmosphere

Under the cover of a bad title and aesthetics that indicate like this game was made in America by people that know nothing about cars lays a fantastic piece of a game, with music, locations, cars suiting the Japan culture. The music is still perfect for trying to beat time records while driving in rain at night. It’s a perfect example where you don’t actually need Eurobeat and even a quiet, toned down song can do just fine.

It’s not repetetive

I started playing this game in the morning, while calmly sipping coffee and enjoying the atmosphere of touge roads and good (English, but good) music. It wasn’t long before I found myself playing it even when it was completely dark outside. Why?
I never found myself bored with this game. Having played it for a whole day straight and then for short hours till the end of the week, I still want to get a Impreza and finish the game. There are always new opponents waiting for you on parking lots, (That’s where you get into night races) their cars range from lightwait Honda Beat’s to powerful 4WD Subaru’s. It’s always a challenge, and it’s always fun to practice driving in rain with a much more powerful car than yours.

Hard to learn, easy to master

I started off going into barriers and swearing a lot because of the driving system that felt “weird” when I got to experience it after hours on Forza and other racing games.
After a hour or two, I was already properly balancing through throttle and brake, pulling the handbrake to avoid understeer and trying not to cook up my brakes as I drifted my way through Mt. Hakone on standard tyres in rain. The driving physics are weird and cars may feel heavy when you first try out drifting but the driving is pretty predictable and I’m sure you’ll like it after playing this game for an hour or two.

You can get it for free, on the PC, of course

In the current times where the new Horizon rules, with doing crazy tandems in 800hp cars on desert strips maybe it’s better to kick back and enjoy a toned down, calmer game pretty much like a Gran Turismo revolving around drifting. There are also other installments of Tokyo Xtreme Racer - Drift but they are far more off in the realistic aspects. So why not give a go to a forgotten PS2 gem if you have some time?