Enthusia Professional Racing Updated Hands-On

TOKYO--When we first saw Enthusia Professional Racing at E3 earlier this year, we weren't particularly impressed by the game's unusual visual gravity system or the translucent black border around the edge of the screen that moved as the weight of your car shifted. We had an opportunity to play a four-track demo of the game at the Tokyo Game Show today, but while the realistic physics in the game are impressive, it's really hard to get excited about Enthusia in a room where Gran Turismo 4 is justifiably attracting huge crowds.

The demo version of Enthusia Professional Racing on display at the show consists of just four different tracks: Tsukuba Circuit, Edge of the Road, Route de la Seine, and a nighttime street course named Dragon Range. After picking a circuit, we were presented with three car choices, labeled easy, normal, and hard--which basically translated as slow, less slow, and quite fast. We were pleased to discover that the game now features a behind-the-car camera for those of us who don't like to drive from a position on the front bumper, but the sensation of speed in this view was really lacking. The fact that the visual gravity system (VGS) appeared right on the top of our car also did little to endear it to us. It's perhaps also worth mentioning at this point that the VGS (and to a lesser extent the indicator bars that show you how hard you're pushing down on either your accelerator or brake), which were the most unique things about Enthusia back at E3, have both now been implemented in Gran Turismo 4 (although GT4's gravity shift indicator doesn't obscure your view of your car, and only shows the shift in gravity from left to right).

So, once again we'll be leaving a trade show feeling a little unsure about Enthusia Professional Racing. The game will undoubtedly be extremely challenging and, as such, might appeal to hard-core racers who get Gran Turismo gold medals in their sleep, but right now it feels like the developers working on Enthusia are so obsessed with realism that they've forgotten about words like "accessible," "fun," and "game." Maybe we'll be proved wrong when we get our hands on a more complete version of the game, but only time will tell.

For more updates, be sure to check GameSpot's coverage of Tokyo Game Show 2004.