GTI Club+: Rally Côte d'Azur

GTI Club+: Rally Côte d'Azur is the PlayStation 3 racing game by Konami. The arcade version itself is a remake of the original GTI Club released in 1996.

GTI Club+ was ported in HD by Sumo Digital, a Foundation 9 Entertainment affiliate, and was released through the European PlayStation Store on 4 December 2008, and the North American Store on 15 January 2009, and the Japan Store on 25 February 2010. As of 2012, it is no longer available for purchase due to license expiration.

Production
A first trailer was unveiled at the Leipzig Game Convention 2008. The video was followed by a playable demo on 27 November.

This enhanced version is rendered in 720p and runs at 60fps. It supports Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and the original BGM has been remixed by Atjazz.

Features
Compared with the arcade version, GTI Club+ added a solo mode, an eight-player online multiplayer mode (Race and Time Bomb modes) instead of four-player, an online rankings leaderboard and was compatible with the PlayStation Eye which allowed players to see themselves during playtime. Voice chat was also possible through the PlayStation Eye or Bluetooth headset. It also supported motion sensor steering through Sixaxis, rumble through DualShock 3 and PlayStation Network Trophies feature.

Cars & tracks
The arcade version contained four circuits: France, England, Italy and USA. This home version had only one out of the box, France, hence the title.

The Rally Côte d'Azur (a.k.a. France Course) consisted of fictitious urban and harbour areas located in the Côte d'azur, also known as French Riviera. Road signs clearly hinted at Monaco's Monte Carlo (Musée océanographique, parking Louis II, parking Square Gastaud) with references to nearby French cities of Menton (Port Garavan), Antibes, Digne and Nice.

Solo mode consisted of four circuits named Easy, Medium, Hard and Free Run. Easy was 3-lap course within a small area. Medium added traffic and new sections to the Easy course. Hard was a 5-lap reverse version of the Medium course. Free Run was a traffic-free Time Attack version of Medium course.

Playable vehicles were the original 1996 GTI Club's four licensed European superminis from the '80s, namely the Morris Mini Cooper 1275S (Mk1), Renault 5 Alpine Turbo (A5/R122B), Volkswagen Golf GTi (Mk1), Autobianchi A112 Abarth plus the Lancia Delta HF 4WD. All of them were taken from the Supermini Festa! version.

A car customisation featured painting, horn selection as well as the use of stickers and decals. Alternative car versions were unlockable by winning races. Easy difficulty unlocked a Police colour scheme for the car the race was won in and said scheme was reminiscent of the livery of the police force of the country the car was made in (i.e. "Police", "Polizia" or "Polizei", though the Renault had a "Polizia" livery instead of the French "Police" for some reasons). Medium difficulty unlocked Taxi schemes for the cars. These Police and Taxi versions could not be customized.

An hidden vehicle called Toy Dog was unlocked when beating the Hard difficulty. This extra racer consisted of a German Shepherd Dog-shaped wooden rocking dog.

Downloadable content
The first set of DLC entitled 'Car Pack 1' was released on 4 June 2009, adding four cars taken from GTI Club Supermini Festa!. These are the Fiat 500 Abarth, BMW Mini Cooper S (MkII), Peugeot 207 GTi (with a Supermini Festa! sticker) and Volkswagen Polo GTI (Mk5) with their respective Police and Taxi versions as in the arcade game. This first DLC also featured a set of ten PSN Trophies.

Additional cars should have been available as hinted by the empty car slots found in GTI Club+ 's Garage. These cars were likely to be the remaining three from the arcade version, i.e. Volkswagen Golf GTI 16v (Mk2), Fiat 500 Abarth 695SS and Nissan Micra (K12C).

Reception
The game received above-average reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.