RACE 07 - The WTCC Game - SimBin's racer returns for a new season, adding brand new vehicle classes to the already excellent touring car series

Swedish development studio SimBin may be a small independent developer, but it has enjoyed a prolific rise to the top of the PC racing simulation market. To build on the success of its first outing, GTR, the studio enlisted the support of the World Touring Car Championship and created RACE: The WTCC Game, winning over critics and customers in the process. The sequel, RACE 07, expands the game even further, with new racing classes, such as Formula 3000, Radical sports cars, and even Minis. While the game is fundamentally similar to the previous game, particularly in the dated graphics engine, these new racing classes add considerably more depth to an already impressive package.


Despite the addition of new racing classes and vehicles, RACE 07 still maintains its WTCC branding and subtitle. As a result, the focus is definitely on the touring car leagues, if only because the majority of tracks in the game are taken from current and previous WTC championships. Fans of WTCC will probably want to upgrade just to get the updated 2007 season information, but newcomers to the series should be pleased to see that the 2006 series is still included. This means that tracks that were dropped between seasons, such as Magny-Cours, Puebla, and Istanbul, are still in as part of the 2006 season, while replacements such as Zandvoort, Anderstorp, and Pau make it as part of the 2007 lineup. You can play the full championship from both seasons, which includes practice, qualifying, warm-up, and two races for each of the 10-11 meets. This means that getting through a full season is no mean feat; although, you can skip the prerace buildup if you like. As with real touring cars, drivers who consistently finish in the top rankings have weight added to their vehicles to balance things out.

RACE 07 is a serious racing game, but it's one that feels authentic without being stuffy. The game can be tailored to create the experience you want, with numerous driving assists that can be disabled to make the game more difficult. Antilock brakes, traction control, and stability assists can be turned off at any time during the race, but disabling them makes cornering all the more difficult. You can also make the game harder by choosing from the preset racing levels at the beginning of each race. On the novice setting, the damage level of each crash is limited to 30 percent of the real-world effect, while mechanical failure is turned off to prevent your car from ever breaking completely. On the pro level, damage affects your car more both technically and aesthetically, meaning that each bump has a noticeable effect on performance.

As if wrestling with your own car wasn't enough of a challenge, RACE 07 also provides some of the most convincing artificial intelligence that we've seen in a driving game. The AI does a convincing job of driving competitively, steering into your path to stop you from passing and even giving you the odd nudge, something which also happens between computer-controlled opponents. At the beginning of a race, you'll frequently see AI drivers tussling to the point where one car will end up going off the track or spinning out completely. Given the short nature of touring car races (most tend to stay below 15 laps, although this can be decreased if you like), there's relatively little thinning out of the pack, leading to some incredibly exciting races as a result. Even on the novice setting, it's difficult to gain a lot of time on your opposition, which means that you have to concentrate all the way to the finish line.

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