Test Drive Unlimited

Review by IanBear

Atari hate their home region!

The one most annoying issue with Test Drive Unlimited (TDU) is the price. The game is worth top dollar, but it really riles me that in the USA, this game costs just £21/€29 when it is full price here in Europe. Atari’s arguments for this have been frankly, weak. The bizarre thing is, this game is so good, that the price would not have been an issue if it had been a $60 game in the USA, it just annoys me that we pay more than twice as much, and the rumoured free content for Europe (that would be premium in the USA) has not materialised as of yet, and with ever more outlandish prices for content (300MS points for a madden stadium anyone??) I cannot see this region getting any free content. Furthermore, in a move to annoy the savvy internet purchaser, Atari region-locked the game so people could not even import the game for the lower price. This really set me off on the wrong foot with the game; so the gameplay needed to be top-drawer to lure me back in after seeing my bank balance destroyed!

Budget Audio

One area of TDU that did not receive full attention was the audio. The engine noises are pretty good, with deep notes and noticeable differences between cars; everything you would expect from a next-gen title. One annoyance is when you crash. There seems to be just one generic crashing sound that plays, no matter what speed or from what angle you impact from. Whilst I realise there is no damage, a more satisfying range would have been appreciated. The music however, harks back to the days of a PSX title. There are about five ‘radio’ stations, but there is no DJ, and there are only about five songs per station, which means you can hear the entire soundtrack in about two hours. The songs are also all by pretty much unknown artists, which is even more disappointing. It is no surprise that Eden defaults the radio to off. There is also very little in the way of ambient noise apart from other road users, whose cars all sound the same. The few lines of speech in the game have also been recorded on the cheap, and the GPS announcer quickly gets tiresome with her voice the tries, but fails miserably to sound sexy.

Next-Gen graphics.

If you have played one of the two TDU demos, you were probably pretty impressed by the graphics. The retail version is even more impressive. The weather effects (although there is no rain… yet) are stunning, and the HDR beautiful to behold. The motion blur is pretty perfect, and gives an impressive sense of speed, unlike in the recently released (and exceedingly poor quality) NFS: Carbon demo. The scenery, much like Hawaii itself, is, again, stunning to behold. Whilst some might find the island paradise a little samey, the idea of setting the game on an actual island was a stroke of pure genius, because no game designer could create such a large or perfect world to drive in! The sense of scale is enormous. In terms of square kilometres, this game is way bigger than Oblivion, or even Just Cause, although you can cover the ground faster once you have your level three tuned Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo! The car models are unsurpassed in any game on any system. The level of detail is phenomenal, and the interiors in particular are nothing short of amazing. You can also customise them in many cars, which makes this accomplishment all the more amazing. There are occasional graphical niggles, however. Due to the scale of the island, occasionally one of two things can happen when travelling at speed, although thankfully neither ever happened to me in a race. Firstly, you can get slowdown while processing power is transferred to loading, or secondly, horrific pop-up as you drive faster than the game can load scenery, which led once to me driving off into a totally unloaded area. Thankfully, rather than crashing, the game just reset me and loaded the scenery in front, and let me drive off. Luckily, these are very minor problems, and rarely posed a problem, even with driving at constant speeds of 240 MpH.

Multiplayer:

The other amazing part of TDU (after the use of Oahu) is the multiplayer. Eden describe the game as a MOOR (massively open online racing) and this is about right. You can cruise around and other racers will be put on your server, and when they are close enough you can chat with them and challenge them to races just by flashing your headlights. You can also join lobbies at any of the numerous pre0set locations around the island and join in a race with up to eight players. There was little to no lag in the matches I played, and thankfully, in ranked matches, there is the option to turn collisions off, which stops all the ramming that you get in PGR3 for example. There are also diners where you can attempt custom challenges made by community members, and you can join or set up car clubs (clans) for online battles. There are niggles with finding friends sometimes, but Eden promise that this will be fixed in the next patch. Also to be fixed is the trade room; another excellent feature where users can buy other players cars online with the cash that they have won. Once these issue are sorted, TDU will provide a pretty unbeatable online experience.

Gameplay:

The single player aspect is pretty generic compared to the rest of the game. There are a few types of race and time trial, and also some collect missions, although these are all the same, just with different names. However, the racing is fun, fast, and challenging, especially at ‘champion’ level, where the police are fast and will take you down at any opportunity, landing you with massive fines (my largest was $175,000!!) The handling model is excellent, with cars feeling distinctly different, and havok physics middleware rounding out the experience. There are a decent number of cars (over 100) and more are to come to the marketplace in the near future. (Eden has promised new content at least every six weeks) It’s also easy to get around Oahu, thanks to the GPS. If you haven’t driven to an area, then you target it. If you have, you can warp there. The manual is excellent, and includes a full road map of the island as well! However, where TDU distinguishes itself, is with the buying options. Need a new car? Do you rent or buy? What make do you want? Aston? Drive to the Aston Martin garage. Ferrari? Drive to the Ferrari garage. Want it tuned? Drive to the European tuner. Need more space for cars? Buy a new house! How you spend you cash is very important, as you only have limited garage slots, so property become very important. Therefore you really need to think how you spend the cash that you earn from your winnings in the challenges. It is also worth noting that TDU has one of the best achievement sets of any 360 game. You can get 100 in your first few hours, 250 in your first few days, and 650 in about 10 days, but to get the 1000 you need some serious skill. You need to drive 5000 km, drive on every road on the island, and win all the challenges. Tough stuff.

Conclusion

There are a couple of flaws, but a speedy resolution has been promised. Other than that, my only issue is the pricing system. However, if you just look at the multiplayer and single player aspects, then you have the best racing game on the 360, one of the best racing games of all time, and a contender for game of the year. It really is in many ways a racing revolution. Buy this game, you will not regret it!