Gran Turismo For People Who Hate Gran Turismo - Enthusia Professional Racing

Trying to find something unique and different to base a racing simulation around is a difficult task; there's only so much you can do to a game based on realism. Somehow though, Konami found a way, with the unique Enthusia Professional Racing. Based around a hyper-realistic physics and handling model, Enthusia takes the road less traveled, and emphasizes not pure speed, but instead making driving skill the most vital component of the game. Thanks to some innovative features, Enthusia gets the job done, with few flaws, though the game is not perfect. In a year where Gran Turismo 4 and Forza Motorsport dominate the headlines for racing sims, Enthusia has received almost zero attention, which is a shame – while it might not match Sony or Microsoft's games in terms of depth, it instead offers a new and ultimately fun racing sim that does away with many of the less vital conventions of the genre, making it a racing simulation for people who usually don't have the patience for a racing simulation.

At its heart, Enthusia lives and dies on the Enthusia Life mode that's Konami's vastly different take on your typical career mode. The basic goal is common, to become the #1 driver in the world, but the way you get there is a whole different beast than what you might be used to. Using basic RPG elements as a base, you're forced to choose from a small number of licensed vehicles, and use that ride as you 'level up' and increase your rank. You have an individual level of your own, and each car can be leveled up to the maximum of 10. Each time you earn enough race points (which we'll discuss later), your car automatically levels and three different aspects of your car increase – tires, weight, and power, each of which changes how your car handles as the tuning level increases. There is not actual 'tuning' aside from some minor tweaks – you don't buy new parts and whatnot like Gran Turismo; there's not even any form of currency. If you were to pick a different car, that car begins at level 1 and you have to do the same thing again and again to get a car to its peak performance. In many respects, Enthusia is trying to tie you down to a single car as long as possible, and force you to focus on driving skills rather than raw horsepower. There's about 200 cars in total, though you must unlock many by winning or finishing high in races, though which you earn is based on a 'lottery' of the vehicles you just raced against, and sometimes you win nothing from the lottery and have to wait for another attempt at winning a certain car. Overall the selection is wonky at best – there's a lot of strange vehicles and not quite as many of the usual suspects you'd find, though they are there.

Enthusia Life is heavily based on statistics, and uses a ton of confusing algorithms to award ranking and whatnot. Each race is considered one week of a year – if you swap cars, it counts as a week and your ranking may be affected. The main stats to worry about are race odds – basically they handicap your chances of winning a race. If the odds are really high against you (meaning the other 5 cars are far superior to you in technical aspects), you begin at the head of the pack due to the challenge (sort of like getting a head start before the faster, better cars come out to demolish you), but if the odds are more reasonable, you start at the back of the pack for the same reasons. There's a risk/reward system in place that really can pay off – if you're able to win a difficult race thanks to such high odds, your multiplier (which is actually the listed odds, if you have a 100 point race with 8.1 odds you earn 810 total points) will result in a huge point gain and thus increase your ranking tremendously and possibly break you into the next class of races. On the other hand, if you play it safe and do races that are of lower class or with low odds, your ranking can actually drop and force you down a class and make you work your way up. Granted this system can be gamed to your advantage as I've seen in playing my way through it, but it's a game designed to keep you going forward instead of just beefing up on simple races (like you can in games like GT4 or Forza, just keep doing simple races and horde money for ultra-fast cars).

The final thing to worry about is Enthu Points, which act like a form of Hit Points in an RPG. If you've ever played Sega GT 2002 or Sega GT Online for Xbox, this may seem familiar, just blown up to be much more vital. Enthusia does not have car model damage, but the Enthu Points are a form of such. If you hit walls, other cars, go off the track, etc., you lose your EP gradually, and if you lose a lot of EP, you don't earn enough racing points (separate from the points earned with the odds...I know, there's a lot of crazy statistics to deal with) during races to level you or the car you're currently driving. If you actually run out of Enthu Points during a race, you're forced to take a week off and rest to recover what you've lost. At the end of a race though, depending on your level, you recover some EP that can save you. As you progress through the Enthusia Life, this becomes more challenging, and perhaps not in a fair way – while it's fine that hitting other cars yourself takes away your points, if an opposing car hits you...you're penalized for it, like that damned 5 second penalty in Gran Turismo 4 rally races. All told though, the game forces you to develop real driving skills, and if you're a good driver you'll never run out of EP and thus be able to climb the ranks pretty quickly.

While Enthusia Life is the deepest gameplay mode, there's more to go around. Driving Evolution is the other highly-touted aspect of Enthusia Professional Racing; and it's quite different from anything else you've seen. Using the knowledge from the Dance Dance Revolution games, Driving Evolution is all about rhythm while racing – keeping a good, but not excessive speed, knowing when to slow down, etc. It all plays out in DDR-style mini-games which require you to hit marker checkpoints at exactly the right time, and then keep the rhythm all the way through the challenge. At first, they're really simple and easy to master, but by the time you get to the last ones, they're brutally difficult, but they force the issue and really teach you how to play the game. In addition, there's basic time trials where you can run all day long, and single races against competition that's comparable to the car you choose, on all the different (and numerous) tracks that you'll see in Enthusia Life. Many are original designs, but there's many real tracks, though many are extremely difficult to spell...but it has that really long, twisty track from PGR2, GT4, and Forza for starters. There's also a couple rally tracks, and the ultimate in cool – a randomly generated desert rally track that has no map to use and everything is a mystery when you start racing. Nothing like racing blind – Enthusia makes it really fun though.

Though technically Enthusia Professional Racing is a driving simulation, those who are experienced in the genre will be quite surprised to find a very different feeling game compared to the Gran Turismos of the world. The thing everyone will notice is how heavy the cars feel – it's like a Viper has the weight of a tank. This really puts emphasis on how you handle a car in a turn or around a chicane – there's no barreling through since the cars are too heavy to stop that fast...and after all, you can barely stop dead to take a 90 degree turn in real life at pretty much any speed in a couple seconds, much less in the 100s. Each class of cars feels very different – front-wheel drive cars take turns very well and have the overall best initial feel when you first try one, 4WD cars are heavier feeling and tend to be good at corners and handling though sometimes can be prone to understeer, but rear-wheel drive cars have absolutely ridiculous oversteering problems, making even minor turns result in spin-outs the first time you take one out for a drive. Considering many of the best cars in the game are of the rear-wheeled variety, this may bother those frustrated by the slippery handling, but there are thankfully plenty of solid front-wheel drive cars that can get you deep into Enthusia Life without having to worry about these beasts. The surface you drive on alters performance even more – though racing on wet tracks isn't as extreme as it was when the concept debuted with Gran Turismo 3, when you hit the snowy tracks cars become slippery (especially those pesky RWD cars), and the rally tracks are slightly different than being on a normal track. Actually the rally side of things is disappointing in this regard – rally games are usually wild affairs but Enthusia's seems a little dull regardless of how cool the random desert track is.

In an attempt to help out players, Konami put in a feature called VGS – or Visual Gravity System. VGS is basically a visual monitor of what's going on with your car, such as the traction of your tires and the weight transfering during turning or passing motions. The idea obviously is to let a player slowly learn how much or how little pressure they need to put on when they're making moves on a track, though sometimes it seems fairly useless because you can learn the same thing on your own via practice. Thankfully it can be turned off. It all comes down to the reality – though it may not appear to be, Enthusia has a steep learning curve if you're going to take a chance on the high-powered rides once you unlock a few and hope you can master the awkward physics of the rear-wheeled cars. It can be done, but it simply takes a lot of practice, which is why I recommend starting off with one as soon as possible when the races are simple and full of poor drivers in the novice cups...before you get blasted in the higher classes and knocked down a few ranks due to poor performance.

Enthusia's AI is better than GT4's lifeless take on it, but sometimes it's simply not fun when the CPU cars are borderline psycho and will ram the hell out of you constantly, which as mentioned takes away Enthu Points which can force you out of the next race due to running out of EP. On the other hand, the AI is designed in a way that unless you're way outclassed on a track, you have a chance to win just as long as your car is leveled and your driver level is high, thus winning by driving skills rather than speed. You'd be surprised at how well you can do in a seemingly unwinnable race as long as you drive perfectly with the perfect lines and flawless cornering. Considering how many racing games are based on pure speed and not technical skill, this is a nice departure from the norm and actually feels like playing real human competition – if the guy driving the high-speed car sucks and can't keep it under control, he won't win, and the one who keeps a good speed with good overall driving skills can win even if his car can't compete in pure horsepower terms. Which of course brings up the disappointing lack of online play, something that hopefully will appear in a possible sequel if Konami sticks with it.

As it is, Enthusia is an innovative take on racing simulations that is flawed but innovative and shows a lot of promise if there's any future for the game. Keeping in mind this is Konami's first try at this genre, they did a really good job making something different from what you'd expect. Some may say the lack of upgrading parts and basic tuning options replaced by a leveling system is a copout, but it could be seen that Konami is merely simplifying the game and making it accessible for those who don't have the patience or tolerance for a game like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport and its pressure to keep your cars full of upgrades and endlessly repeating races to make enough coin to move on. It's like someone took the basic ideas in Need for Speed Underground (i.e. the minor upgrading options, just considered basic level-ups like an RPG) and built a simulation around it instead of an arcade-style racer. It could use some more work but Enthusia is a surprisingly good racer and hopefully will garner a following so more can be made as Konami learns the craft.

Visually Enthusia looks sharp in almost every way. The cars are reproduced from the real things almost perfectly, almost up there with the high-quality versions in Gran Turismo 4. The fantasy tracks designed by the Konami team (all based on real areas, such as the Pacific Northwest, France, the UK, etc) are excellent in all regards (though none are so outstanding that they feel like one of the opponents in the game, as other racers have managed to do here and there), while licensed circuits are recreated very well. It all runs at a 60 FPS clip without any slowdown or choppiness, which is the most vital part of any racing game visual engine. Enthusia's clean presentation within the game menus helps balance the complicated systems setup for the career mode as well, making it easy to get around and learn the basics of the game. Something different should have been done about the introduction scene of the game when you first boot it up though – the FMV is about as random and stupid as it gets, with bizarre references and visuals that don't even make any sense in a racing game. Whatever happened to a nice CG video like any other racing game?

The audio is both good and disappointing. Important things like engine sounds and tires screeching are generic and are drowned out by the music playing, though perhaps it's by design seeing that little was done apparently to create engine effects unique from vehicle to vehicle. The sounds of cars smacking into each other (something you hear all too often due to the kamikaze AI) isn't too bad, but when you smack walls it isn't quite as good. On the other hand, there's a really nice original soundtrack that fortunately wasn't swapped out for some licensed drivel; the jazzy but uptempo and occasional techno compositions are unique from track to track and most fit the theme of said track perfectly. These are the kinds of tunes we'd get in Gran Turismo if Sony didn't see fit to put in a soundtrack that appealed to a different breed of gamer. Those who've played a lot of Ridge Racer games will know what to expect, since Enthusia's soundtrack is similar to that franchise.

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It doesn't have the depth of Gran Turismo, but I think Enthusia Professional Racing was not designed to compete in that regard anyway. Instead, Enthusia is built for those who want a bit more 'pick up and play' in their racing simulations, and it does that fairly well. It has some problems that should be worked out (let's make RWD cars handle just slightly better guys...no RWD car has such bad control in reality), but for a genre Konami has never dove into, its a great first start and can only get better if a sequel is granted. Both innovative and familiar, Enthusia Professional Racing is a good game for those done with GT4, and those who hate GT4, simply because it caters to both audiences quite well. As long as you can deal with the issues that Enthusia suffers from, you'll find a fun and challenging racer that's quite different than what you commonly expect from its genre – more than enough of a good reason to give Konami the support so the Enthusia franchise grows and really becomes something to pay attention to.