PlayStation 2

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift

There's a lot of drift-oriented racers out there now, but this is the first one that made me feel as if I was barreling down a mountain road, struggling to keep a head of a persistent rival, while powersliding around corners to come within a hair's breath of defeat...and not always succeeding. It has it's share of flaws, but if you want a true challenge, TXR: Drift's sticker price of $20 is a steal. Go out and get your drifting on.

For fans of the series, this is an instant recommendation. The same addictive properties are there, just mixed up a little. For newcomers, there's a bigger learning curve (your first car or two will likely suck, and you won't get a real sense of drifting until you can upgrade or move to a decently-muscled machine), but once the game's hooks get into you, it can suck away hours at a time. The price point just makes any of the major faults that much smaller, and I really can't recommend this enough as something to offset the sims or Need for Speed offerings out there.

There are a lot of great things this game has to offer, but it does have it faults. The change to drift style is certainly a welcome change of pace and the control scheme is extremely well done. Some minor changes could help the game flow smoother and a touch of variety would do the game a world of good. Then again, you're only paying $20 for it, so the good is more than enough to outweigh the bad.

The level of skill that it's possible to gain in this game is by far its greatest strength. The excellent physics model allows a very fine degree of car control and this gives the player an opportunity to hone their techniques almost to perfection. Compared to Initial D, it is an in-depth game that many will feel is too involved to appeal to all but a few dedicated gamers. Although it is restrictive in some ways, perseverance is rewarded by an excellent racing challenge that is sure to last for many hours of gaming pleasure. Kaido Battle should definitely be considered by anyone who was interested in Initial D, especially by anyone who bought the Sega game and thought it was too arcadey for it’s own good.

If this game interests you at all, let me make a recommendation – buy Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 instead. TXRD1 is decent enough if you can get the hang of things, but TXRD2 is at least 50 times better with superior physics, less obtuse objectives, a lot more rivals, and even better graphics. That, and a damn hilarious J-Rock song in Crazy English. Then again, both are $15 or so, so buying them both can double your fun. But TXRD2 is a ton better than its frustrating, yet sometimes addictive predecessor.

Cheap or not, there are many good racers ot there, and Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift doesn't come close to its contemporaries.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT could have been a drift racing fans godsend, but the experience is soured by balancing issues and bad AI. Driving by yourself for several hours is the pits, and losing multiple races against bad AI gets really monotonous. TXR DRIFT is only recommended for the drift enthusiasts.

While the most dedicated fans of drift racing will likely laud Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT for some of its design choices, most racing fans simply won't know what to do with it. The racing is steadfastly dedicated to one esoteric brand of racing that, by itself, just isn't a whole lot of fun, and the game simply doesn't present itself well enough to make up for the gameplay's more annoying elements. For those thoroughly entrenched in the drift-racing scene, DRIFT might be worth its budget price. But most any other driving game fan will find themselves quickly bored with DRIFT, especially those raised on the concepts of high speeds, flashy rides, and the Razor Callahan-esque street-racing villainy.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT very similar to the Midnight Club series but less dimensional. It's priced under twenty bucks but I've seen it available on the net for less than ten - and frankly it might not even be worth that much.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer DRIFT is a poor game through and through. Its driving mechanic fails in most every way, and being that it's centered around your ability to properly drift, the game simply doesn't work very well. Combined with a disjointed, somewhat confusing and seemingly pointless progression system, there's not anything here for anyone other than die-hard Genki fans.

You could do a lot worse than Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift. It has its faults, but it doesn’t completely fail. By that same token however, this late in the PS2’s life cycle there are literally handfuls of other racers out there that do the job so much better. The tacked on multiplayer modes might be fun with a friend for a day or two, but even that doesn’t save Drift from feeling like it’s late to the finish line.

Genki, please just stop with the gimmicks and punishing gameplay. Get back to basics, and recapture the magic that made the original Dreamcast version such a hit. It’s not too late to save this once-proud franchise.