I asked why they spell it 'Tokio'? No answer came the solemn reply. Tokyo - Kyoto. Get it? To-Kyo. Kyo-to. Tokyo means city to the West. West City. The old capital. It's similar to the way the Chinese name their cities. Nanjing etc.

Autobahns - for a gear head, again like me, represent roads without speed limits. Tokyo as a visitor, represents a city without limits. Tokyo is a place of contrasts. The city that has temples next to skyscrapers. I got married in one. A city with fishing lakes next to mega-hotels. The Emperor's palace, in a city with no space, has gardens. Italian pasta served with rice. Whole stores dedicated to Gundam models. It is amazing. No where like it on Earth. I love Tokyo. I really do.

Autobahn Tokio - what could be better?

I don't know why in this game they spell Tokio like that, as opposed Tokyo - but no matter.

Autobahn Tokio is described as a poor mans Need for speed. Good Lord - Heavens above. That represent ignorance on an epic scale. That is wrong.

Autobahn Tokio is actually Ridge Racer meets Gran Turismo meets Battle Gear or Initial D. After Ridge, before Polyphonic, before anyone thought an AE86 was cool there was Autobahn Tokio on the 3DO. It's red car verses yellow car, hinting towards real racing dynamics and the recongnisable cars of Gran Turismo or Initial D.

Bacteria is to Monkeys, as Monkeys are to Humans. In which Victory Lap is to Autobahn Tokio, Autobahn Tokio is to Project Gothem 3.

Autobahn Tokio smells of Ridge racer, has the tracks of GT and hints at initial D.

Where to start? The cars? Unlike Ridge Racer the cars are noticeably modelled on real easily identifiable cars. The blue one is a Honda Civic. The white one is an old Mercedes 'C' class. The yellow one is obviously a Nissan Fair-lady and finally the ubiquitous red Mazda RX7.

Moving onto the tracks, particular the night city one, these are undeniably Gran Turismo.

The night city mode is Special Stage Route 5, the mountain route is Grand Valley Speedway and the forest route is Deep Forest Racing Way. Don't argue.

Of cause GT didn't make it to the PS1 for another 4 years after Autobahn Tokio was released. I don't care what anyone says - they, the 3DO ones, are the originals. The 3DO versions do, again I emphasise, look like stripped down versions of the PS1 GT game. The dark city track, unnamed in the actual 3DO game, is very and I cannot emphasise this enough, reminiscent of the Sony Playstations Gran Turismo circuit Special D. So are the others. The circuits are fairly short but eerily familiar.

The game itself isn't great. The cars don't handle well, the graphics, compared to the Need for speed are at best iffy and the music is dreadful. Having said that - Left foot braking.

Braking with one foot, while keeping the revs up high with the other foot. It is great way of exiting a corner fast - it is a racing, rally and street racing driving technique - and Autobahn Tokio supports this driving technique. It supported it in 1995, when this information was privy only to few car geeks. Which means one thing - that Autobahn Tokio game developers were car fan-boys or racing fan-boys or passionate about cars and driving. NFS didn't support left foot braking - or Ridge racer or Daytona... GT did, so does Battle gear and Initial D.

I don't know the link between Tokio Autobahn, the ignored Japanese only arcade driving game for the 3DO. A driving game that uses only English language and hints at a gaming evolutionary link between Gran Turismo, Ridge Racer`and Initial D - but the link is there. I promise.

Rare - Simply rare.

3DO Kid.

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