Tourist Trophy

Introduction

Tourist Trophy

Developer: Polyphony Digital
Publisher: Sony
Platform: PlayStation 2
Price: US$39.99 (shop for this title)
Rating: E for Everyone

Let's say you're Polyphony Digital. You're coming off the great reviews and impressive sales of Gran Turismo 4, and every Gran Turismo game you have made has been an improvement on your previous work. You're basically considered the greatest development house for racing games and one of the jewels in Sony's crown. You have unrivaled access to the newest cars and the best tracks in the world. When it comes to simulation racing games, you're king. If a gamer is serious about cars, he has a PS2 and at least one of your games.

What's next? The obvious answer is a Gran Turismo game for the PS3, and I have no doubt they're cranking away at that right now. There's also the PSP port of Gran Turismo 4 which is starting to look more and more like vaporware. Aside from that, what do you do? Where do you go?

Motorcycles.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that Polyphony would go after the motorcycle enthusiast the same way they went after the car crowd. In retrospect, no one really saw this coming, although the idea got everyone excited the second it was announced. The upsides are obvious: they wouldn't have to build a gaming engine from scratch, they could use many of the assets from the Gran Turismo series, and they have a large built-in audience. What's not to love?

Pulling off a good motorcycle game is different than a car game though, and anyone who has ridden on a bike knows it's a vastly different beast than even a sports car. While the slightly deliberate racing of the Gran Turismo series works for cars, motorcycles require a sense of speed and danger that Polyphony isn't used to delivering. The cars in Gran Turismo can look like things from a museum, but on a motorcycle I should feel the wind almost coming out of my television screen.

So let's see how they did.

I've got my helmet, my leather chaps, and the biker's license I had to get when I bought a scooter. Let's ride.

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