It's a good game, a little dated, but still.

User Rating: 8.7 | Kaido Racer 2 PS2
I find it rather funny that the "professional" (I really hate using that term, because they really aren't worthy of it) reviewers seem to believe that Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 was created after the insane rise in Drift popularity brought on by The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. However, what they don't know is, this game has been out for something like...2 years in Japan under the title "Kaido Battle". These are the people that we go to for our gaming information? They fail at keeping up with anything released outside of North America. Anyways, onto the review!

I had trouble with this one at first, mainly grasping the controls a little, a friend of mine who has the Japanese copy of the game told me that the physics were a little closer to Gran Turismo 4, in anticipation, I played GT4 for a couple of weeks in order to get used to it, boy did it ever pay off. It does differ quite a bit from Gran Turismo, a little more indirect, but not impossible to control. It took me about 20 minutes to completly get used to it. The GS reviewer said something like "you still can't drift". To that I say, fail, for it is possible to drift, it takes a rather large amount of skill however. Now then, onto sound, the sound is alright, I'll admit however, the soundtrack is enough to make one's ears bleed, other than a select number of instrumental rock songs and the opening theme, the soundtrack is pretty well un-listenable. The car sounds are impressive, the game offering a different sound for each type of engine. The graphics are also rather well done when you consider how old it is, I wasn't expecting something like Gran Turismo or Need for Speed Carbon, but what Genki provided us with was more than sufficient, even today, 2 years after the game was originally released. A very good game for its value, when you consider that in Japan, it's worth something along the lines of $54USD, and we're getting here for $15USD.