Test Drive Unlimited - Review
Added September 19th, 2006 by Chris Oder
Introduction:
During E3, Atari released a demo of Test Drive Unlimited. Both the press and gamers blasted it pretty hard. Undaunted, the developers went back and tweaked the demo some more and recently re-released it. This second demo, combined with a few glowing recommendations from friends, persuaded me into checking out the full retail release. I figured with the Forza 2 delay and the supposedly new genre defining multiplayer, what’s there to lose, right? How about forty bucks and some loss of faith in your pals’ gaming habits, that’s what.
Gameplay:
TDU starts out ok. You’ll get to pick your choice of drivers from a line of characters waiting in line to board a plane to Hawaii. After choosing the least ugly person in the group, it’s off to fun in the sun. After touching down, you’ll snag a rental car and make a quick drive over to the real estate agent to purchase a house. This introduces two of the game’s somewhat unique gameplay aspects, the first being rental cars. If you need a specific ride for a race and don’t have or don’t want to drop the cash for that car, try renting it instead. You pay a small fee and get to use the car for a few minutes. It’s a nice feature, but in a game that’s all about collecting cars it seems like one that will be seldom used. The second somewhat fresh idea is real estate. You need a house mostly for the garage. Each house can hold a certain amount of vehicles, so to expand your collection you’ll need to keep buying up new properties. Other than bragging rights, “I have ten houses”, it’s a pain in the neck to have to keep blowing wads of cash just to increase the size of your garage.
So with new house keys in hand, it’s time to add some car keys to that key ring. I picked up the Audi TT and proceeded to hit the road. Then a bush. Then a truck. Then a building. After a few (read a whole lot) of attempts at driving, I finally started to get the hang of the somewhat odd driving physics. After figuring out the user unfriendly dpad interface, I succeeded in pulling up the map and started looking for races. Races are pretty straightforward, with some being confined to a certain class of car (A through G, A being the fastest and G being classics and muscle cars) and another being free for all events. There are also time trials and speed events. The speed events are fairly interesting and feature a track littered with speed traps. The racer has to speed past all the traps before time runs out and then the speeds logged at each trap are averaged to see if you beat the best average speed. The races start off fairly easy and ramp up in difficulty pretty quickly.
Races are all well and good, but TDU also sports some other interesting mission types. The first non-race event I found was a “Model” event. I activated the event and watched as a cutscene of my shiny new Lotus Elise pulling up to the curb began. It then switched to a first person perspective of me looking out the passenger window as a terribly rendered woman looked in. As she started blabbering about how she had been shopping all day and was all hot and sweaty, one of my eyebrows started to rise quizzically. Apparently my in game avatar must have been ok with sweat stains on the brand new leather bucket seats because the next thing I know I’ve got a timer on my screen and I’m racing to get this strange woman somewhere. About halfway to our destination, I made a rather bad turn and slid into the grass for a moment which elicited the response “Now I’m getting all hot and bothered” from my passenger. Now the other eyebrow went up. Ok, maybe the thought of driving around Hawaii in a Ferrari Enzo and picking up skanky “models” is some developer's idea of a good game, but too me it just comes across as an amateurish stab at appealing to some gamer’s baser instincts. At least you win clothing coupons from these missions though, otherwise they’d be pointless. More on that in a moment.
During E3, Atari released a demo of Test Drive Unlimited. Both the press and gamers blasted it pretty hard. Undaunted, the developers went back and tweaked the demo some more and recently re-released it. This second demo, combined with a few glowing recommendations from friends, persuaded me into checking out the full retail release. I figured with the Forza 2 delay and the supposedly new genre defining multiplayer, what’s there to lose, right? How about forty bucks and some loss of faith in your pals’ gaming habits, that’s what.
Gameplay:
TDU starts out ok. You’ll get to pick your choice of drivers from a line of characters waiting in line to board a plane to Hawaii. After choosing the least ugly person in the group, it’s off to fun in the sun. After touching down, you’ll snag a rental car and make a quick drive over to the real estate agent to purchase a house. This introduces two of the game’s somewhat unique gameplay aspects, the first being rental cars. If you need a specific ride for a race and don’t have or don’t want to drop the cash for that car, try renting it instead. You pay a small fee and get to use the car for a few minutes. It’s a nice feature, but in a game that’s all about collecting cars it seems like one that will be seldom used. The second somewhat fresh idea is real estate. You need a house mostly for the garage. Each house can hold a certain amount of vehicles, so to expand your collection you’ll need to keep buying up new properties. Other than bragging rights, “I have ten houses”, it’s a pain in the neck to have to keep blowing wads of cash just to increase the size of your garage.
So with new house keys in hand, it’s time to add some car keys to that key ring. I picked up the Audi TT and proceeded to hit the road. Then a bush. Then a truck. Then a building. After a few (read a whole lot) of attempts at driving, I finally started to get the hang of the somewhat odd driving physics. After figuring out the user unfriendly dpad interface, I succeeded in pulling up the map and started looking for races. Races are pretty straightforward, with some being confined to a certain class of car (A through G, A being the fastest and G being classics and muscle cars) and another being free for all events. There are also time trials and speed events. The speed events are fairly interesting and feature a track littered with speed traps. The racer has to speed past all the traps before time runs out and then the speeds logged at each trap are averaged to see if you beat the best average speed. The races start off fairly easy and ramp up in difficulty pretty quickly.
Races are all well and good, but TDU also sports some other interesting mission types. The first non-race event I found was a “Model” event. I activated the event and watched as a cutscene of my shiny new Lotus Elise pulling up to the curb began. It then switched to a first person perspective of me looking out the passenger window as a terribly rendered woman looked in. As she started blabbering about how she had been shopping all day and was all hot and sweaty, one of my eyebrows started to rise quizzically. Apparently my in game avatar must have been ok with sweat stains on the brand new leather bucket seats because the next thing I know I’ve got a timer on my screen and I’m racing to get this strange woman somewhere. About halfway to our destination, I made a rather bad turn and slid into the grass for a moment which elicited the response “Now I’m getting all hot and bothered” from my passenger. Now the other eyebrow went up. Ok, maybe the thought of driving around Hawaii in a Ferrari Enzo and picking up skanky “models” is some developer's idea of a good game, but too me it just comes across as an amateurish stab at appealing to some gamer’s baser instincts. At least you win clothing coupons from these missions though, otherwise they’d be pointless. More on that in a moment.
The other side missions include “Hitchhiker” missions, which are identical to the Model missions but involve picking up dudes instead of ladies. What, there are no guy models in Hawaii, just out of luck bums? There are also Courier missions that have you ferrying a cardboard box full of an undetermined substance from one place to the other. The cutscenes have a sort of edgy feel to them that sort of hints that the package may be illegal, but never really says what it is. I like to pretend that I’m carrying boxes full of stolen blood bags to a vampire night club. What? I have to do something to liven up this yawner. There are also delivery missions in which you get to drive some of the game’s really expensive cars from one lot to another. For some reason you get paid an astronomical sum to do this as long as you don’t bump anything or drive off the road. There’s no time limit, so you can take a whole hour to cautiously inch your way ten miles if you want to. It’s just like your morning commute, only you’re doing it to relax and have fun!
When you’re not racing or doing other side missions, you can cruise around the island searching for shops. There are various car tuning shops scattered across Oahu that all cater to different brands of vehicles. When you enter a tuning shop you’ll be presented with a whole host of tuning options. If by a “whole host” of tuning options you mean three generic upgrades labeled upgrade one, upgrade two, and upgrade three. What’s the point in having any selection at all when you can just buy the level three upgrade and be done with it? So customizing your car under the hood is out, the next best thing is the outside appearance. The most you get is the ability to change the paint color and that takes winning a race to unlock before you can repaint. Well at least I can customize my character right? You get clothing coupons that you can spend to by all sorts of clothes at various retailers throughout the game. While there is a bit more detail spent on virtual dress up than car modification, it’s still pretty pointless, because the only place you’ll see your character well is in the menu screens. It’s not like you can see what shoes someone else is wearing when they are driving.
The other thing you’ll have to watch out for is the police. Finally some action! You hit a few too many cars, buildings, etc. and you’ll have 5-0 on you. Too bad they can’t drive the cars either. Evading arrest is super easy and even the worst of drivers should be able to avoid the cops. That’s when the game actually gives you a chance though. After playing a good bit, I bumped into a van and the game paused and announced that I was being arrested for outstanding tickets. No police chase, no helicopters full of SWAT, nothing. Just a screen that says here’s how much you owe. Since I didn’t have the money to pay my fines I had to “do my time” which consisted of looking at the police headquarters while a thirty second timer counted down. That was the last straw. I don’t buy a game so it can put me in time out.
Graphics:
I don’t even know where to start so I’ll start with the good news. The cars in TDU look really good, but these days what racer doesn’t have good looking cars. From there it’s all downhill. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I’ve seen plenty of travel brochures that make it seem like a bright, exciting place to go. The Hawaii Board of Tourism may want to have a talk with Atari because after playing TDU I’m ready to take next year’s vacation elsewhere. While the technology involved used to recreate the entire isle of Oahu is awe inspiring, the scenic vistas one would expect are not. Everything on the island is a dull shade of grey, green or brown. While it may be more true to life than the brochures, it would be more fun to play a game that looked like those photo shopped postcards. Lastly, the characters are horrendous. The male characters are passable but every single female character in the game looks like they went to a psycho plastic surgeon. “You’re supposed to be a model? Wow, I’d hate to see what ugly people look like on this island.”
When you’re not racing or doing other side missions, you can cruise around the island searching for shops. There are various car tuning shops scattered across Oahu that all cater to different brands of vehicles. When you enter a tuning shop you’ll be presented with a whole host of tuning options. If by a “whole host” of tuning options you mean three generic upgrades labeled upgrade one, upgrade two, and upgrade three. What’s the point in having any selection at all when you can just buy the level three upgrade and be done with it? So customizing your car under the hood is out, the next best thing is the outside appearance. The most you get is the ability to change the paint color and that takes winning a race to unlock before you can repaint. Well at least I can customize my character right? You get clothing coupons that you can spend to by all sorts of clothes at various retailers throughout the game. While there is a bit more detail spent on virtual dress up than car modification, it’s still pretty pointless, because the only place you’ll see your character well is in the menu screens. It’s not like you can see what shoes someone else is wearing when they are driving.
The other thing you’ll have to watch out for is the police. Finally some action! You hit a few too many cars, buildings, etc. and you’ll have 5-0 on you. Too bad they can’t drive the cars either. Evading arrest is super easy and even the worst of drivers should be able to avoid the cops. That’s when the game actually gives you a chance though. After playing a good bit, I bumped into a van and the game paused and announced that I was being arrested for outstanding tickets. No police chase, no helicopters full of SWAT, nothing. Just a screen that says here’s how much you owe. Since I didn’t have the money to pay my fines I had to “do my time” which consisted of looking at the police headquarters while a thirty second timer counted down. That was the last straw. I don’t buy a game so it can put me in time out.
Graphics:
I don’t even know where to start so I’ll start with the good news. The cars in TDU look really good, but these days what racer doesn’t have good looking cars. From there it’s all downhill. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I’ve seen plenty of travel brochures that make it seem like a bright, exciting place to go. The Hawaii Board of Tourism may want to have a talk with Atari because after playing TDU I’m ready to take next year’s vacation elsewhere. While the technology involved used to recreate the entire isle of Oahu is awe inspiring, the scenic vistas one would expect are not. Everything on the island is a dull shade of grey, green or brown. While it may be more true to life than the brochures, it would be more fun to play a game that looked like those photo shopped postcards. Lastly, the characters are horrendous. The male characters are passable but every single female character in the game looks like they went to a psycho plastic surgeon. “You’re supposed to be a model? Wow, I’d hate to see what ugly people look like on this island.”
Audio:
Dear Microsoft Xbox 360 development team. Thank you for making custom soundtracks an integral part of the Xbox 360 operating system. If you had not, I would be learning sign language now thanks to Test Drive Unlimited. I thought I’d heard some bad racing game soundtracks, but TDU is the worst. Between the classical music and the slew of talent less artists on each and every radio station, booting up a custom soundtrack is a no brainer. I take back everything bad I’ve ever said about EA Trax now. Voice acting is also pitiful. I’ve heard better voice work in a Godzilla movie dub. At least the cars sound good. Oh wait, no they don’t. They all sound tinny and quite a few even sound identical. I’m not a super car nut, but I can tell the difference between a tuner and a muscle car. Apparently the sound techs at Atari can’t.
Controls:
Any game that needs four level of driving assists has problems in my opinion. Driving uses the Xbox standard right trigger for gas, left trigger for brake setup. I’ve become a master of this driving style thanks to a slew of great racers on the Xbox and the 360, so I figured I should be able to jump right into TDU with no problems. Nope. TDU has some of the wonkiest physics I’ve seen in a racer. Good luck keeping your car on the pavement and heaven help you if even a tiny bit of your tire drifts off the road. Don’t even get me started on the incredible pain that is trying to drive a motorcycle in TDU. If you can adjust to the terrible controls, then by all means get to racing. I’ll wait for a game that actually lets me drive the cars instead of fighting them.
Replay:
I’ll probably be one of the few reviewers to say this, but here goes. Atari, your attempt at an MMO racing game is very badly done. At first it seems like you’re driving around in a world populated by tons of people then you realize that you’re only actually connected to eight of them at the most. The game figures out who is in the same area as you and then connects you to those people. Players can then flash their lights at each other to start instant challenges. It amounts to a bunch of bozos constantly running you off the road and trying to challenge you even after multiple denial attempts on your part. TDU does include some features to allow you to attempt to lock just people on your friends list into your eight player free ride session, but every time we tried to lock a group of us in together it would constantly drop various people with no rhyme or reason.
Dear Microsoft Xbox 360 development team. Thank you for making custom soundtracks an integral part of the Xbox 360 operating system. If you had not, I would be learning sign language now thanks to Test Drive Unlimited. I thought I’d heard some bad racing game soundtracks, but TDU is the worst. Between the classical music and the slew of talent less artists on each and every radio station, booting up a custom soundtrack is a no brainer. I take back everything bad I’ve ever said about EA Trax now. Voice acting is also pitiful. I’ve heard better voice work in a Godzilla movie dub. At least the cars sound good. Oh wait, no they don’t. They all sound tinny and quite a few even sound identical. I’m not a super car nut, but I can tell the difference between a tuner and a muscle car. Apparently the sound techs at Atari can’t.
Controls:
Any game that needs four level of driving assists has problems in my opinion. Driving uses the Xbox standard right trigger for gas, left trigger for brake setup. I’ve become a master of this driving style thanks to a slew of great racers on the Xbox and the 360, so I figured I should be able to jump right into TDU with no problems. Nope. TDU has some of the wonkiest physics I’ve seen in a racer. Good luck keeping your car on the pavement and heaven help you if even a tiny bit of your tire drifts off the road. Don’t even get me started on the incredible pain that is trying to drive a motorcycle in TDU. If you can adjust to the terrible controls, then by all means get to racing. I’ll wait for a game that actually lets me drive the cars instead of fighting them.
Replay:
I’ll probably be one of the few reviewers to say this, but here goes. Atari, your attempt at an MMO racing game is very badly done. At first it seems like you’re driving around in a world populated by tons of people then you realize that you’re only actually connected to eight of them at the most. The game figures out who is in the same area as you and then connects you to those people. Players can then flash their lights at each other to start instant challenges. It amounts to a bunch of bozos constantly running you off the road and trying to challenge you even after multiple denial attempts on your part. TDU does include some features to allow you to attempt to lock just people on your friends list into your eight player free ride session, but every time we tried to lock a group of us in together it would constantly drop various people with no rhyme or reason.
While the MMO aspect is a big disappointment, there are still a few nice things about the Xbox Live portion of TDU. There are plenty of multiplayer race events, but like any other racer if you join random matches all the folks in the match are driving the fastest, best car in the game. Luckily, the game has a car club feature that allows you to create a sort of custom lobby where like minded car enthusiasts can get together for some fun races. There are also a lot of achievements to earn. They span a nice mix of single and multiplayer accolades which a dedicated racer should have no problem collecting. There are also plans to release downloadable content on Marketplace featuring a slew of additional cars.
Summary:
My new rule of thumb for Xbox 360 games is this: if a game has to have a second demo because the first demo was so bad, don’t buy it when it releases. Test Drive Unlimited is probably the most boring racing game I’ve ever played. While some folks may find driving virtual exotic cars around a bland replica of Hawaii relaxing, I find it frustrating. Especially when the cars control like they are on ice. Someone needs to tell the development team that it doesn’t snow in Hawaii. If you’re a car nut that just has to have every racing game that comes out then you might want to check it out. I’ll be using my trade in credit for a Forza Motorsports 2 preorder.
Summary:
My new rule of thumb for Xbox 360 games is this: if a game has to have a second demo because the first demo was so bad, don’t buy it when it releases. Test Drive Unlimited is probably the most boring racing game I’ve ever played. While some folks may find driving virtual exotic cars around a bland replica of Hawaii relaxing, I find it frustrating. Especially when the cars control like they are on ice. Someone needs to tell the development team that it doesn’t snow in Hawaii. If you’re a car nut that just has to have every racing game that comes out then you might want to check it out. I’ll be using my trade in credit for a Forza Motorsports 2 preorder.
