Description of Sega Touring Car Championship
In a distant galaxy, two years ago...
Two years ago, this would have been a remarkable game. Fast-paced car racing action, around a wide range of arcade oriented touring car courses. Know what? I would have loved such a game at that time. However, I guess my good old P100 system would have been a tad slow, so I would probably run the game on a friend's P133, and would still not be very convinced about the framerate. Now, when it is two years later, and I may get the framerate I like, I am not sure if I still care.
Say you are the chairman of a big - nay, huge - company building arcade machines. Say you have diminishing returns from the arcade halls because many people either have a console or the latest hot-rod Pentium system at home. What are you going to do? Well, just ask Sega! They lately let loose an avalanche of games, one with stock cars, one with rally cars and, yes, one with touring cars. They all look very similar to each other, play very similar to each other, and feel very similar to each other. They are so damn similar that you can safely say that if you own one, you own 'em all! The scarcity of new ideas shows in the hardware department of Sega Touring Car Championship is amazing: I saw three relatively good looking courses and four unspectacular cars (all behave more or less alike - you choose by looks not by attributes), and a bonus track and car can be unlocked after successfully winning championships. There are two modes of competition: PC and arcade, with the former standing for enhanced simulation aspects (tires, gears, suspension and so on can be customised), and the latter for pure arcade. The cars and the tracks all look very familiar. Seen this, done that instantly comes to mind.
Guess what, the age shows!
The marketing idea may be good: put relatively easy courses together with a simple driving model into a graphically and acoustically funky atmosphere. Alright, fellaws, here we go: the best thing graphics-wise about this game are the courses' backgrounds. Snowed-in mountains, semi-urban houses, brown canyons, nice enough though a bit unpersonal, a bit too far away. The graphics get instantly less impressive when you start looking at the cars and tracks. The flat 2d modelling shows: You don't see upcoming turns - they come as a slimy, messy piece of pixelated colours with mixed-in car pixels. In my opinion, the graphics really corrupt gameplay. The only way to master the tracks is to drive on them endlessly until you can literally go over them blindfolded. Ever since Moto Racer we have grown accustomed to better things, and one of them better things is 3D acceleration. This is something which you can't say about Sega Touring Car Championship. Too bad but this game just shipped waaayyy too late. I really wonder whether Sega can make any money out of this game?
A look under the hood reveals, uh, not much to cheer about
Not featuring 3d accelerated graphics is not necessarily a bad thing, provided that people with lesser machines are the target customers. Probably my niece, 8 years of age, would be heavily impressed by these cars. But then, my niece would have to buy a P166 system to enjoy them because that's just about what it takes to enjoy acceptable framerates with enough detail and SVGA graphics. Fair enough, you can reduce the detail level or go back to plain old VGA resolutions, but really, who would want to do that? One point that deserves praise, however, is the head-to-head multi-player mode, because it is possible on one machine. The game just divides your screen in two halves - that's a good way to allow multi-player competition for those who don't want to buy two games and connect two machines. Apart from that, multi-player offers the usual connection types via seriel link, ipx, and tcp/ip. By the way, installation and setup went problem free - all you really have to do is learn how to push the buttons and the f-keys to access the setup screens.
Overall, why not make a long story short?
Don't buy this game. Don't waste your money unless you have no other arcade racer and desperately want to relive the Sega-arcade feeling. But even then, you may be able to pick up Sega Rally or another game from last year for much less money. This game, as it is, is not worth the full retail price. The only possible reason to go for this particular title is the 2-player-mode on one machine, but if you haven't got at least a 17" monitor you probably won't find too much fun in this too (and Screamer Rally would be much better anyway. Ed)
Review By GamesDomain
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Comments and reviews
kinger41 2023-04-06 0 point
I have also managed to get it working on Windows 10 with the help of dgVoodoo2. Tip for everyone, set the screen options to 640x480 and Direct3D to get the best graphics for the game.
kinger41 2023-04-06 0 point
Runs extremely well on a Windows XP vm, probably recommended if you don't entirely know how to get the game working on modern hardware.
Phanang 2021-10-15 2 points
To, who has struggled at the filename of TheArcadeStriker version.
1. You just need to know where the game file is installed.
2.then, go to data and rename RES_Usa to res_jpn
3. this game need to run one the certain .MRG named, so you just renamed what error on for example you cannot go into championship mode because program does not know the name of EYECT_E.MRG you just renamed to eyecatch.MRG
Other error you can do with the same method above.
ACSTRIKER 2021-03-05 5 points
Si el juego te da errores al intentar jugar, ve a la carpeta instalada del juego, cambias el nombre de la carpeta Res_Usa a Res_Jpn, y renombras los archivos dentro de la carpeta asi: CHAMP_E.MRGCHAMP.MRG, EYECT_E.MRG EYECATCH.MRG, RSLT_E.MRG RESULT.MRG, VSGAM_E.MRG VSGAME.MRG Y TA_E.MRG TA.MRG
ACStriker 2021-01-23 3 points
Hello there! My name is slightly different now, but yeah, I'm that TheArcadeStriker that had made the "RetroBox" repack; kudos to whoever had found and reuploaded that! Not only it does gives me a lot of memories, but also I thought I had lost that one, so I'm VERY glad that it was saved!
Jundia Liso 2020-10-21 1 point
To play the game correctly you must use dgvoodoo2
lots of tutorials on you tube (google) to install and configure ... good luck
Marx21 2020-05-24 3 points
The Game Don't Work the game tried to find a folder named res_jpn but there's only a Res_Usa folder
I don't know what to do now please help
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Windows Version
Game Extras
Various files to help you run Sega Touring Car Championship, apply patches, fixes, maps or miscellaneous utilities.
SEGA Saturn ROM
- Year: 1997
- Publisher: SEGA Enterprises Ltd., SEGA Europe Ltd., Tec Toy Indústria de Brinquedos S.A.
- Developer: Sega AM9 R&D Division
Game Extras
Various files to help you run Sega Touring Car Championship, apply patches, fixes, maps or miscellaneous utilities.
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