TOCA is a driving game for true drivers - with an enormous selection of car classes and the gameplay to match.
The TOCA franchise is famous for two things: the variety of car classes and the superb gameplay. Sure - Gran Turismo offers a variety of cars - but they all fall into two primary categories: street cars or rally cars. In TOCA you have the opportunity to hop into a eurokart for a few laps and then try your hand in a supertruck...or maybe an indy car...the number of available choices is simply mind-boggling. TOCA 3 takes what they've done in the past and does it better...much better. There are twice as many choices as the previous iteration for car-class and the number of tracks looks to have been boosted as well. You can play this game for days and still not touch on every car or track in the game. But all this content means very little without the proper coupling of gameplay.
Gameplay is where TOCA simply rules this genre. To put it simply - it's loads and loads of fun. Each car class has unique handling characteristics and each one is perfectly on cue. The rally physics had been lacking in the past and now seem to have received an overhaul. The street physics are just as well tuned as before and you have a tangible feel of the momentum of your car and the forces you're applying. Gran Turismo always had a severe lack of oversteer - even with all the assists turned off I was still unable to dive into the front suspension and take advantage of the extra traction to shift the weight of the car properly. The results in GT4 are a whole lot of understeer and a seemingly binary response for spinning out. There is no such problem in TOCA - the car can easily be slung onto the front tires for a good look at the apex before powering out with a bit of steering correction for maximum effect. The experience is exactly what I expect from the car and I fail to understand how Polyphony continuously falls short in this same tactile experience.
The Graphics in TOCA are a bit subpar - especially now that we can put games side-by-side nextgen consoles for comparison - but they are enough for a suspension of disbelief, and really you're too busy having a lot of fun to notice. I enjoy the "drivers-seat" camera that seems to be all the rage now-a-days and the modeling of the environment around you - while not super-detailed - is sufficient to give me the feeling that I'm actually driving the vehicle.
The sound is quality with only a few faults. Each class of car and each car within the class is true to its real-world counterpart. My only beef with the sound is whatever system they use to acheive the doppler effect (the change in pitch you hear while a car is traveling past you). It often has an extremely digital sound to it that betrays the behind the scenes audio interpolation being performed. Occasionally the engine RPM ranges fall to this same shortcoming. All this may seem to imply that the sound is horrible, but I assure you - it's not...it's actually pretty darn good...it simply has some hiccups.
The game supports the Logitech Driving Force Pro (a al GT4) and this is my input device of choice for play. With a few input adjustments that you can readily find in online forums you will have an experience with the wheel that is almost the GT4 experience. You don't get quite the "lift" feel from the gradients of tracks and the bumps don't really come through - but the wheel pushes back progressively as you accelerate and the shoulders will give the wheel a good kick. I should add that all the inputs have adjustable dead-zones and saturation levels so if the car doesn't feel quite right you can go in and fiddle with it till you're hitting each apex with little difficulty.
All in all - this is a must buy for anyone that enjoys the true racing experience. There is a career mode - complete with story-driven video that paces you along from event to event - as well as multiple game modes for practicing and running through the seasons for particular classes of choice. Codemasters has put a lot of effort into this game and I'm highly pleased with the result. I highly recommend the use of a wheel - but even without the upgraded input it's still a total blast.