The Tokyo Xtreme Racer series has been a sleeper hit since the Dreamcast days, even with its origins on the Super Famicom. Now, after an eighteen-year absence, TXR is coming back toSteamearly access. The series managed to actually be ahead of the curve trend-wise because once The Fast and the Furious series began in 2001, the tuner scene and street racing were all over the place in American pop culture, but this 9/9/99 DC launch title wound up setting the stage for what the future would hold for the next half-decade of car culture-heavy racing games.
Tuner Scene and Street Racing
The original game wound up leading to the franchise achieving a fair amount of success across the board on the Dreamcast and PS2, with the third entry being the most-beloved and biggest seller. The final entry hit the Xbox 360 in 2006, and now 18 years later, we’ll see it come back in a whole new form on PC with the early access release coming soon. The franchise allows you to drive around several real-world parts of Japan and engage in head-to-head racing battles alongside regular races. The franchise has unique Spirit Point Battle races to help it stand out.
“The original game wound up leading to the franchise achieving a fair amount of success across the board on the Dreamcast and PS2”
These feature spirit points, a numeric value that quantifies the willpower of the drivers and allows you to not only win via racing skills, but also master mind games to break your opponents' resolve. The Tokyo Expressway is recreated here with both tough turns and elevation shifts resulting in momentum shifts in moment-to-moment action. Every rival you face has their own driving styles, so you may wind up facing off with someone who takes bold moves and a lot of risks or someone who races in a more conservative fashion to win slowly, but surely.
Now with this being on PC, it does have a specs listing to be mindful of and it’s pretty beefy overall. An i7-7700 is recommended to start alongside 16GB of RAM and a 1050Ti graphics card, so pretty much most higher-end gaming laptops should be fine. With 12GB of storage needed, it won’t be a storage hog. If you want a higher-end experience, you’ll want a 3060 or 4060 for Ultra settings. There’s no word yet on Steam Deck compatibility or how well it’ll run on handheld gaming PCs like the ROG Ally, but that info should shake out with time. Tokyo Xtreme Racer will have an early access release on January 23, with a lower price than the final initial price.
7 Racing Games With the Best Drift Mechanics
Drifting in real life is no piece of cake, but these seven racing games make it accessible, fun and satisfying.
