TT Bike Sim

Sony have at last confirmed Tourist Trophy’s European release. The game will be out in shops ‘this May’ for PS2. The press release:

“Compare different bikes and manufacturers including 34 different models from Honda from the CBR1100XX to the CB1300 SUPER BOL D’OR RacingModify; 30 from Yamaha spanning 25 years from the 1980 RZ250 to the XJR1300 RacingModify; or take a spin on the TRICKSTAR ZX-10R Suzuka8H; push the Aprilia RSV1000R FACTORY RacingModify to its limits, or enjoy the envy as you mount a Ducati 999R.”

IGN have posted another Tourist Trophy preview complete with 8 new videos showing in-game, menu and replay footage.

Unlike previous videos, it looks as though whoever’s playing has actually been playing for more than 10 minutes and as a result the game’s looking better.

Tourist Trophy’s release date now stands at April the 4th in the US and God Knows When in Europe. If you’re Asia, the game has already been released.

As Tourist Trophy’s Asian release nears, quite a few people have received their pre-ordered copies of the game. Here are a few links to some of the updates that have been been posted so far:

• Tourist Trophy box, DVD and manual images
• TT Photomode images
• TT Prize list

Additionally, the official Tourist Trophy site has been updated with some new videos as well as an updated bike list which now has images of all of the bikes listed.

GameDaily have posted their impressions of Tourist Trophy. A few points from the article:

On changing bike settings:

“There are plenty of bikes in this game, but it appears that it’s not option intense. You can’t just go all out and customize your bike, though you do have modest control over tires, transmission, and riding form, which is basically your riding style. There are three options, default, in, and out, and what you choose will determine how you take sharp turns.”

On the controls:

What Polyphony’s done is map steering to the left analog and gas to the right, so if you tilt the right stick towards the TV your rider will accelerate and brake if you pull it back. In order to navigate a course successfully, you need to find some common middle ground between the two, which is just something I failed to find in the five minutes that I played.

» Go to the preview

Today marks the opening of MotoReview, my new site which has all the latest news from MotoGP, World Superbikes and British Superbikes. As well as the site itself you can chat with other bike racing fans in the MotoGP forums, and guess what? There’s also a dedicated Tourist Trophy forum which can also be accessed via www.ttbikesim.net.

See you there.

Update: TTBikeSim.net has expired and since been snapped up by some unscrupulous company. Please update your bookmarks and send a little bad karma their way.

Game Informer have posted a new hands-on preview of TT. On the whole it is fairly brief but does offer one previously unknown bit of info:

Since the game will not feature any motocross bikes, none of the rally tracks from Gran Turismo 4 will be appearing in the game.

This is a shame but perhaps isn’t surprising given how much work would have been involved in creating an entirely riding style and physics. GI have also uploaded five new videos, three of which are in-game and two that are replays. These videos are the first to show any in-game footage of crashes. We also have a mirror for these vids available in our movies section.

In addition to IGN’s extensive preview, Gamespy have also had their hands on Tourist Trophy and have posted their TT preview. There’s not a great deal of new info available but they do clarify the in-game controls:

The left analog steers, the right analog controls throttle and braking, and L2 plus the left analog allows for some weight transfer—think wheelies and jackknifes.

» Read the preview

The official Japanese Playstation shop now has a listing for Tourist Trophy which includes the TT boxart:

Thanks to Alpha from GT Planet for spotting this.

IGN have once again come up with the goods, this time in the form of a new three page hands-on preview. Here are some of the most interesting bits of the article:

Whereas most every racing game gives you direct control over your vehicle, Tourist Trophy is a little bit different in that it simulates the movement of the bike which is directly based on the movement of the rider. In essence, you’re controlling your on-screen biker who’s controlling the bike.

…the way each biker rides his motorcycle can drastically affect your performance and riding style. In the Arcade mode, you’re given three quick style options: In, Out or Default. In means that your biker will lean deep into each turn, looking as if he’s about to fall off. Out means that he drops the bike in each turn, but his body remains more upright, while Default is somewhere in-between.

The camera defaults to a third-person view, but you’re also given front bumper and cockpit views. … The cockpit view actually puts you in the driver’s seat, where you can read the actual dials and such on each bike, all of which is unique to each motorcycle.

As it’s set to ship to stores in the US a couple months after it hits Japan, the US may see a few additional bikes here or there that didn’t make it into the Japanese version, though we’re not told what they might be nor the chance of something like this happening.

There will be a few brand-new courses in the game [as opposed to Gran Turismo courses] that are famous for being motorcycle courses in real life, though those have yet to be unveiled.

One major difference to the Career mode here is that money does not come into play. You can still upgrade your bike and tweak its specs, earn a garage-full of rides and such, but all of these things are earned in races rather than bought with cash.

One thing that many more people will love than hate is that license tests have been scaled back a bit. You still have to pass license tests to qualify for races, but the total amount of licenses and the tests required for each one have been reduced.

IGN have also updated their videos section with 8 new videos.

» Read the preview at IGN

Perhaps unsurprisingly Polyphony announced today that Tourist Trophy’s Japanese release has been pushed back to February 2006.

Whether this effect’s the fairly vague ‘Spring 2006’ US release date is not not know for sure but, as C&VG suggest, it would seem likely.

Tourist Trophy has not yet been confirmed for European release.