It was 1997. Titanic is sweeping theaters across the globe. Michael Schumacher once again performed a Desperate move to defend a championship bid, except this time it didn’t work. A children’s novel about an 11-year-old wizard boy was released that received widespread critical and commercial acclaim and it was inconceivable that its author would harbor deeply hateful views. On Christmas Day of that eventful year, you can also activate Saturn to quickly enter the touring car race, only to discover something different — special.
Night had fallen on the Boom Town Circuit and the moon hung high in the clouds. The first corner now runs to the right, not to the left. The courtyards and tops of all buildings are covered in white. Deeper in your lap, you glide past empty stands and majestic light-lined pine trees. Christmas has arrived on the fictional track, in a fleeting day — the day when people all over the world can vie for bragging rights.
This is one of three “Global Networking Events” scheduled for Sega . Touring Car Championship in 1997, a racing game was released for Saturn earlier that year. On certain days in 1997 and 1998 – if your system clock is set properly anyway – you’ll enter special, limited-time races set under unusual circumstances . Completing them generates a code, which can be entered on Sega’s website or sent directly in-game to Sega, if you’re one of the lucky few Saturn owners to have a NetLink dial-up modem. connect your console to the web. Submit a code that recorded your time on the global leaderboard.
The Christmas event is a simple race around a winter track where players will compete for the best time. The sequel, set on February 14, 1998 – Valentine’s Day – was oddly titled “Hit & Run” and tasked drivers with spilling as many hats as possible, while competing Win the fastest lap. The last Global Network event on April Fools’ Day that same year marked another test of time — only this time, running in the opposite direction of the rest of the race traffic.
These days, developers can of course get much more creative when it comes to putting a little carnival spirit into their games. For example, on the last week of each year, Rockstar shoots the entire Grand Theft Auto’s open world into one real climate disaster. Compared to that, the idea of holding a few races dotted around the holidays is pretty odd. However, in 1997? It should be a neat surprise.
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What makes these Global Networking Events even more exciting is that how they did. Again, it’s all driven by the Saturn’s internal clock – meaning to this day you can set the console’s date and time to Christmas ’97 and take part in a race around the Boom version Town Circuit is mirrored, full of snow. That’s how I experienced it, probably around 2009 because I was too young to picture any of this in 1997.
Technically, none of STCC’s festive content counts as a “holiday DLC”. After all, nothing is actually downloaded, and you don’t even need to connect your Saturn to the internet to post your time on Sega’s leaderboard. But when I think of playing games on vacation, I think Sega . Touring Car Championship. This game also comes to mind when I think about Eurobeat Epic of the 90s. It’s not a good racer — Sega Rally and US Daytona much better — but what other racing game gives you a chance to overtake Mercedes C-Class W202 DTM to certified home bangers?
