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Review: Import Tuner Challenge - Xbox 360

by Steven Williamson on 20 November 2006, 10:41

Tags: Import Tuner Challenge - Xbox 360, Racing

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Remind us never to go for a spin around Tokyo



Import Tuner Challenge does something very strange indeed. Instead of attempting to hook the audience with exciting gameplay and fast paced driving action, it delivers a virtual overdose of realism in terms of customisation options that will only appeal to petrol heads, and delivers a plethora of excruciatingly bland races across the repetitive Tokyo freeways. The Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchise may have moved to a new platform, been given a new name and a half-hearted next-gen makeover, but the developers have paid for too much attention to the customisation aspect and neglected the need to fuel our racing hearts with excitement.

In Import Tuner Challenge you need to work your way up from a run-of the-mill street racer to king of the road as you partake in race after race over the eternal highways of Tokyo and the famous C1 loop. From aero kits to new seats to tampering with the sound of your horn, you can amend every inch of your vehicle; in fact the Japanese developers, Genki, have included over 5 million customisations. It’s not just cosmetic pimping though, if you wish you can spend hour upon hour navigating the menus in order to pump up your car’s performance, modifying everything from the clutch to the suspension.

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Whilst the customisation aspect is the strongest feature of the game, thanks to the easy to use menus and the way the cars respond to the your fine tuning, when it comes down to racing Import Tuner Challenge is a write-off. The Tokyo highway system has been accurately mapped, but is actually an extremely dull place to race (once you’ve travelled through one grey, murky tunnel you’ve seen them all) and the fact that we even had time to study the scenery should give you some indication to the fact that we often felt decisively limp and uninspired by the lack of action on the road, despite travelling at high speeds.

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Racing involves taking part in challenges against other street racers through flashing your lights at a rival or pulling into a car park where you’ll be challenged by Japanese street racers with scary names such as Cinderella After Midnight (we’re shaking in our boots). Controlling the cars feels awkward, but even then they’re easy to keep on the road due to the fact that steering around corners takes little effort (you won’t find any dramatic skids here). We hadn’t even tuned our car, yet we could still zigzag in and out of traffic and take corners at high speeds with little fear of crashing. Despite the ease of use you’ll have no choice but to tune up your car if you want to win as the AI will breeze past you unless you spend the whole race blocking them and in fairness you will see the improvements on the road.