Touge R

‘Touge' literally means a mountain road. To understand the concept behind this game, one must first understand that the Japanese bureaucracy (for reasons of its own) has built a network of exquisitely paved, totally useless narrow winding roads through the country's mountains. Well, maybe not totally useless; motor enthusiasts and drag-racers frequent these mountain paths, and this, of course, is what the long-running Touge (a.k.a. Peak Performance) series is all about. The Xbox version looked very sharp with lovely vistas, nice scenery and good car models. The handling felt a bit stiff, but this will probably be improved by the time of release, later this year. The game has a Gran Turismo style play mode in which players purchase a vehicle and can then later upgrade it with custom parts/tuning.