If You've Never Played TOCA Touring Cars, Here's Why You're Missing Out

Motor sports, rightly or wrongly, are defined by their eras. Formula 1 racing has the "pre-sponsorship era", then the "wings era", the "turbo era" and the Renault-dominated "V10 era".

In rallying, there's the "rear drive era", the "Group B era", "Group A era" and finally, the current "WRC era", among others.

Touring cars has its fair share of eras too, but for racing fans of a certain age, few were quite as intense, quite as exciting and quite as fierce as the "Supertouring era". Between 1990 and 2000, the Supertouring era, and BTCC in particular, became one of motorsport's most high-technology, closely-contested series.

All the biggest names - both drivers and teams - contested the period, but for anyone with a Playstation console during the late 1990s, BTCC meant far more than panel-bashing racing: it meant two of the most exciting racing titles the gaming world had seen.

TOCA Touring Cars and TOCA 2 Touring Cars are the titles in question. Covering the 1997 and 1998 seasons - possibly two of the most dramatic years in the BTCC - the TOCA games put you right in the thick of the action, replicating all the British circuits and race-prepared saloons in (what was at the time, at least) pixel-perfect detail.

Not just the tracks and cars either, but the full bashing, smashing and tyre-screeching experience. Those cars were tricky to drive at the best of times, but even the steeliest of gamers would break out in a cold sweat as a virtual Derek Warwick or Jason Plato pulled alongside. Just as legions of real drivers have found, sharing space on track with certain individuals is never easy...

Switch to the cockpit view and you might has well have been doing it for real - the engine notes hardened, windscreens smashed and (unlike contemporary racer Gran Turismo) one false move could set you into a barrel roll.

TOCA was great but TOCA 2 really upped the ante, with even twitchier handling, more detailed cars and the option to drive in some of the BTCC's support series too. Action in Fiestas or Formula Fords was just as intense as racing in the tourers, while crazy fictitious bonus circuits took you to locations as diverse as a Bavarian forest, a Scottish lake and an American city course. Throw in a TVR Speed 12 and your controller might never have seen whiter knuckles.

These days, like many of our old games, you can pick up either of the TOCA titles for a few quid on eBay and the like.

It's worth a shot too, we reckon - they need a steady hand and the graphics are no longer what they were, but none of the subsequent TOCA titles (nor its eventual transition to today's GRID series) have ever quite captured the magic of those Supertouring-era games.