Race Driver 2006 is probably best looked at as an updated and portable version of TOCA Race Driver 2, because really, that's exactly what it is. There is quite a bit of new stuff here however, including the all-new Trans-World Cup (which we'll get to in a second), 10 new tracks and 16 new cars, plus game sharing and WiFi racing for up to 12 people that takes advantage of the PSP's networking capabilities.
Race Driver 2006's main Career mode mirrors that of the console game, revolving around a story-based racing structure replete with pre-rendered cutscenes that tells the story of you working with a hopeful racing coach, dollar sign-eyed investor, TV crew and more. Most every step of the story allows you to select between one of two racing series to compete in, with some forced series coming at key times in the story. The vehicle you drive will be assigned to you by the team in accordance to the series type, so you never have a chance to choose which vehicle to take out on the track or tinker with any of them.
Personally, I prefer the open style of Gran Turismo and the like where every choice in the game is up to you, but there's something unique about the way that the game's story mode handles things that gives it a fresh feeling. And plus, it not only suggests but forces the use of different cars all the time, making sure that you're constantly changing what you're driving. This is great in that it keeps each racing series feeling different as the car classes handle entirely different from one another. A little more personalization would be nice, but it's still something you won't really find anywhere else, even in other racing games with some form of a story.
The main new addition to the game is the Trans-World Cup mode which acts as a series of challenges. It's somewhat similar to the navigation you see in Burnout where you're presented with an overhead map and each city has a different race or challenge to perform. You only start with two, but each one you finish opens more so you're always given an option of what to do. You're able to earn 10 points for each event (which ties into your overall world rank), with the full 10 points coming from a peak performance, so it encourages mastering each of the challenges.
The cool part about the Trans-World Cup is that although you're still given a pre-designated vehicle for each event like the Career mode, there are a number of different challenge types to keep you on your toes. You'll find time trials, average speed challenges, no damage races and more. Some of them are rather interesting, like one Rallycross challenge were you begin the race on lap three out of five and in first place except that your car is badly damaged, so the challenge here is to simply keep your lead with an underperforming vehicle.
Codemaster's Race Driver series, and more specifically the newer TOCA licensed versions, have all had fantastic physics and driving models and Race Driver 2006 is no different. The cars range from feeling good to fantastic, with the muscle cars being the most fun and seemingly the most accurate to drive. Cars feel like they have appropriate weight, with Indy cars skipping all over the track at will while semis drive like 15 tons of bricks.
It's the subtleties between each vehicle and class type that makes up a large part of what simulation racers are all about, and Codemasters has done a great job at bringing these touches to the PSP. The engine does such a great job at transferring the experience of driving that you're able to tell how well each tire is hugging the ground, an essential feeling for simulated racing. Now, each and every individual car may not be perfectly simulated, as a vehicle here or there may feel just a tad looser or lighter than it should, but Codemasters has done an overall great job at bring a real-life driving experience to the PSP.
One of our only complaints with the game is related to its realistic physics-based driving model, however it's more a fault of the PSP's limitations than any fault of Codemasters. As the only analog input on the PSP is its singular analog stick, you're not able to have analog control over your gas and brakes. This presents problems when you should be able to give your car just a tad bit of gas when starting to exit out of a turn, so as it is you either need to coast out of the turn a little longer than usual or seriously risk spinning out.
Codemasters has helped this problem quite a bit by slowly increasing the rate of the gas pressure for you when you press X. Rather than simply going from no gas to full throttle, the pedal will slowly increase over about a second or so. It helps a ton, but still, it doesn't help if you want to ride out the second half of a turn with the pedal half-way down. One really cool aspect of this is that if you currently have your foot (finger) on the gas and quickly release and tap it again, the car will kick right back into full throttle so that you're still able to intentionally slip the back tires around a turn, which is a great tweak that many folks probably won't even realize. Codemasters obviously knows what it's doing.
The physics-based driving model not only greatly applies to how the game feels but to how it looks as well. Cars roll and dive as you slam on the brakes and drift into turns, further helping to transfer a real sense of being and weight to the vehicles. Even aside from this though, Race Driver 2006 is one hell of a good looking PSP game. Car detail is rather outstanding for being on Sony's little system with plenty of curves in all the right places and lots of little things like air intakes rendered quite nicely. Even the tracks themselves look great with nice texture detail. It doesn't run at 60fps, but we never once had a problem with its framerate.
For all of its beauty, the game's visuals aren't flawless. LOD is generally pretty good and for the most part it isn't really noticeable when cars move in and out of the distance, but it does affect brake and starting countdown lights. The countdown lights aren't too big of a problem as you don't need to be perfect off the line, but not being able to see brake lights in the distance can and does cause a problem. It's quite easy to speed along at high speeds and not realize the cars in front of you are already slowing down until it's too late, which can be problematic for your car's welfare. You'll get used to it once you know where upcoming tight turns are, but it can be problematic on new tracks.
The last bone we have to pick with an otherwise excellent game is that it's rather easy overall. The game doesn't seem to utilize AI assist (or catch-up, whatever you want to call it) in any fashion, which is nice because it can be extremely frustrating, but it also means that if you're already an experienced racer you likely won't have any problem until later in the game. When the competition heats up later on things are a fair bit better, but at the start it wasn't uncommon to win by 10 seconds or more on our first time through a track. It's so fun to race these vehicles however that it doesn't impact the experience much.