The Great Playthrough: Game 43 - Toy Racer

Toy Racer

Released on: Sega Dreamcast

Played on: Sega Dreamcast

Release date: 2000

Looking back over the games I've done so far, this is the first Dreamcast game I've played in the playthrough, and now I think I've played at least one game on every console!

I like the Dreamcast. I like the controller, the VMU, and it produces very good quality graphics and sound for it's generation. However, my game collection for it is fairly limited - I don't have many of the games that people recognise as Dreamcast games (Jet Set Radio, Shenmue etc) because, when I bought my Dreamcast at a car boot sale, the previous owner had obviously been a fan of racing games. So I have quite a few of those.

And so I approached Toy Racer with trepidation. On the one hand, I like a good arcade racer (a sentence I seem to say more and more nowadays), but on the other hand, I can find racers to be boring after a while...

Before I continue, I should point out that I very rarely do any research before I play a game that I already own. I don't look up its details, I don't read reviews, I just pop it in and give it a try. Which is what I did here.

The first race I played, I was aware there were no other racers on the track - but I quickly realised that I had  selected the Training mode, so that was fine. I used the five lap race to adjust to the handling (which was pretty good), and to admire the graphics and smooth framerate of the game. 

So I finished that race, and then dropped back into the menu system, and I was mildly confused as the options available are the following:

Training - This is a training Mode, obviously.

Local - For playing locally

Network - This is for playing online - sadly, the Dreamarena online system is long defunct!

So I assumed, "Oh, you need to select local, because that's the option which will give you the one-player mode!".

So I did, and I selected a different track and vehicle, and started the race. Sure enough, the HUD proclaimed I was in first, and so I zoomed off competitvely. About a minute later, I realised I hadn't seen any other cars, although I had picked up some offensive weapons (in-keeping with the Toy theme, these were pencils as missiles, and boxing gloves on springs as mines!). And then I crashed. And no-one overtook me. So I got nosy and waited, not moving at all. Still no competition.

Confused, I finished the race, and then looked the game up on Wikipedia.

It turns out? Toy Racer is a multi-player only game. And I have only one Dreamcast pad. 

Oops!

Rating: N/A (How can I rate a game that I can't play properly?)

Time Played: 10 minutes

Would I play it again?: Maybe, it was fun, but only if I have some other people and Dreamcast pads!