One nice thing about Top Gear is that, even though it’s mainly about sport compacts, it does bring some other interest cars into the mix. You will find American muscle just as easily as you will find Asian compacts and German luxury cars. Gamers can choose from what looks to be a Civic hatchback, a BMW 323, a Celica, a Dodge Charger, or a Ford F-150 pick-up. No official licenses are in place, but at least you will be racing well-known rides in Top Gear.
Modes in Top Gear are very straightforward. There’s a Quick Race mode that allows solo or split-screen head-to-head racing, plus a single player competition which throws gamers right into highly modified rides (no tuning or appearance mods necessary). Quick Race takes place on various courses within fictitious cities, with lap and point-to-point options at gamer’s fingertips. A mode known as Tune and Race skips the Story mode’s excess, but still retains the monetary system for buying and modding cars. Basic categories are nitrous, exterior mods, or mechanical mods (not sure why they were broken up like this) mods, with the option to tune the mechanical mods for even better performance. All major areas of a car’s performance can be modified in the mechanical section, such as injection, ignition, exhaust, engine internals, cooling, electronic components, and forced induction. Chassis changes include suspension components, brakes upgrades, lightening programs, and transmission parts. Each category has the familiar “stages” of performance, with higher stages costing more and needing unlocked through logging time in the game. Some of the cooler mods are all-wheel-drive systems, brake proportioning valves, and stroker bottom ends; these items are unique and rarely seen in tuning games at any level. The body mods in Top Gear RPM Tuning are also unique since some of the fiberglass and carbon fiber upgrades have a down force percentage associated with them.
