Sega Touring Car Championship (セガツーリングカーチャンピオンシップ) is a Sega Model 2C CRX arcade racing game developed by AM Annex in 1996. It is similar to Sega Rally Championship in design, but uses touring cars instead of rally cars.
Touring Car was less successful than Rally and has never seen a sequel (although what exactly constitutes a "sequel" among the long string of Sega arcade racers is unclear). It is believed that the steeper difficulty curve contributed to Touring Car's poor performance, though it did receive Sega Saturn and Windows ports (unlike Indy 500).
The Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti is sponsored primarily by Martini Racing, the same sponsor behind the Lancia Delta HF Integrale in Sega Rally.
Toyota Supra
The Toyota Supra is the token Japanese car, most likely included to please a Japanese audience, but also to make up the numbers - the DTM of 1995 only featured three cars. The Supra is sponsored primarily by Castrol, who also sponsored the Toyota Celica CT-Four in Sega Rally.
The Lancia Delta HF Integrale comes straight from Sega Rally and is only available in the home ports. Hold when selecting the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti to access it.
Toyota Celica CT-Four ST205
The Toyota Celica CT-Four ST205 also comes straight from Sega Rally and is only available in the home ports. Hold when selecting the Toyota Supra to access it.
Tracks
Country Circuit
Country Circuit is the simplest circuit in Sega Touring Car Championship and is used twice in arcade mode, first as a qualifiying lap, and then repeated again in race form. It is a generic, mostly circular track which has come to be expected in arcade racing games.
A lap of the circuit is measured as 2.045km.
Grün Walt Circuit/Grunwald Circuit
The second, medium difficulty track takes place in a forest and is named "Grün Walt Circuit" in the arcade version. This is likely a translation error - "Grünwald" is german for "green forest", and the home ports partially fix this mistake by renaming the track "Grunwald Circuit" (though still miss the umlaut). Weirdly, however, the track takes place in a fairly mountianous region, with fewer trees visible than the more forest-like Country Circuit.
A lap of the circuit is measured as 2.605km
Brick Wall Town
Brick Wall Town is a track set in a built-up area, with narrower roads and tricker corners than the previous two tracks.
A lap of the circuit is measured as 2.277km
Urban Circuit
Urban Circuit only becomes available if the player finishes Brick Wall Town in first place.
A lap of the circuit is measured as 2.105km
Boom Town Circuit
Boom Town Circuit is exclusive to the Saturn and PC ports of the game.
A lap of the circuit is measured as 2.771km
Versions
Home ports to the Sega Saturn and Windows PC were handled by AM Annex, and were released in 1997 and 1998 respectively. These versions include cars from the 1996 International Touring Car Championship plus more interestingly, the Toyota Celica CT-Four and Lancia Delta HF Integrale from Sega Rally. There are also hidden courses in this version, and contains features such as split-screen multiplayer.
The Saturn version has what is known as "Global Net Events", which are triggered at various times of the year depending on the system's clock. Setting it to the 25th of December 1997 will trigger "winter holiday" mode, 13th of Februrary will trigger "hit and run mode" (in which you need to hit cones), and 1st of April will trigger "April Foul" mode, in which you drive in the opposite direction and have to avoid oncoming cars.
Unfortunately the Saturn conversion of Sega Touring Car Championship suffers from several technical issues, including a low 20FPS refresh rate, frequent glitches when rendering polygons (and shadows) and warped textures - issues that do not manifest in the older Saturn release of Sega Rally (or contemporary Sega racing games from the era including Manx TT Super Bike, Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition and Sonic R). An attempt at mimicking "realistic" physics also leads to cars being comparatively difficult to handle - something exacerbated by the use of the standard Control Pad as opposed to a 3D Control Pad or Arcade Racer Joystick.
Production credits
All versions (Advertise)
Special Thanks:
The automobiles appearing in SEGA TouringCar Championship™ are the actual cars that participated in the world touring car races.
Thanks to the cooperation of: Alfa Romeo (155 V6Ti), Mercedez-Benz (C-Class), Opel (Calibra V6), Toyota (Supra)
Special Thanks:Mario Cotza, Richard Dunn, Michael Gsedl, Steve Cross, Nobuhiko Shimizu, Masaru Agarida, Mitsuaki Nishi, Naoko Shibukawa, Takashi Yamashita, Shinichi Suzuki, Racing On, C-One Corporation, Naoki Hattori
Testers:Amy Albertson, Marco Alvarado, Lorne Ascuncion, Karen Brown, Mike Dobbins, Sean Doidge, Rick Greer, Rod Hong, Laine Maeda, Mike McCollum, Jason Philyaw, Kenny Robinson, Jacob Rohrer, Matt Underwood, Ferdinand Villar
Territory Input: Mark Hartley, Paco del Puerto, Thorsten Moe, Cédric Maréchal
Manual Translation: Eurotek
Testing Company: XXCAL
Assistant Product Manager: Steve Wombwell
European Marketing Manager: Hitendra Naik
Special Thanks to: Louise Anderson, Nicky Beale, Madeline Cross, Hans-Erik Gassner, Tony Hinchliffe, Edward Luck, Debbie Morris, Hitoshi Okuno, David Wilkin