Reviewed: April 29, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Atari
Developer
Eden Studios
Released: March 20, 2007
Genre: Racing
Players: 1-8
ESRB: Everyone
8
7
7
8
7.5
System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Test Drive Unlimited is the newest generation of driving simulations from Atari and Eden Studios featuring open ended driving all over the island of Oahu. In Test Drive Unlimited you have your choice of what to do at any given time including races, challenges or just leisurely drives along the scenic roads and highways of this spectacular Hawaiian island.
Test Drive Unlimited is a very open ended multiplayer and single player racing game that puts you behind the steering wheel. You start in the single player portion of the game by choosing your character from a set of people standing in line at an airport. After your choice you fly to Hawaii and end up choosing a car to rent and following some predetermined routes to buy a home and a new car.
From here you’re on your own to explore the huge island and find your adventures of racing. At many points all over the island are challenges in the forms of races or other driving tasks like giving rides or driving someone else’s car for repairs. Each of these tasks or races completed in time or without too much damages rewards you with money to buy a better car or bigger house.
Some of the races are pretty simple driving challenges but others are how fast you can go past several radar detectors or a simple speed test to see how fast your current car can go. Besides these challenges you have the online multiplayer races you can join or start at any time. Around the island are race points and you either have to drive to one or jump to one from the overhead map. These points are the start of each race where you join the server through several menus and screens and then get to start the race.
The races against others can be fair or very unfair as you can race against others with much better cars or you can filter out other vehicle types and race against ones with similar vehicles to yours. All the choices and filtering takes a few minutes and finding other racers can be a bit of a time consuming task.
It is far easier and less aggravating to race against the computer. There are plenty of challenges to find and try but they all boil down to one of several types of challenges and races. Starting the game when you have already been through the introduction and buying a home starts you at your home. You can then go to your garage and drive around or use the overhead map to jump to a point you have already been near.
If you have not driven to parts of the island then those parts will not be available for you to jump to from your map. So a good portion of your first gaming with Test Drive Unlimited is driving around and finding things to do. You will also be able to collect some money during this by racing or doing the other tasks. Some of the tasks only net you a few thousand but others like one delivery run nets you about $145,000 for a perfect damage free delivery.
The gameplay is pretty good but it does get boring after awhile due to the similarity of the different kinds and limited types of races and such you get to perform in. After racing flat out for some cash and the playing chauffer a few times gets old you can race against others online but this is not much different than playing against the pretty good AI. The racing is definitely different but overall it pretty much boils down to who has the better cars and more experience with them.
The cars handle very well and you do have a very noticeable difference depending on the car you drive. This is the best part of the game, getting enough cash to buy better cars and find one that fits your driving style. This game has to be played with a racing wheel, not because of system requirements but just to get you into the game. I tried out the Logitech G25 racing wheel and it is great with Test Drive Unlimited. I have also used my older Microsoft Sidewinder Racing wheel and both handled the game very well.
Test Drive Unlimited has some pretty standard system requirements for simulation games. The games graphics look very good on my system but you may not have as much eye candy; I have a really good video card. The scenes and textures are very well done and there is plenty of scenery for you to glance at while your zooming along the highways or shorelines.
The textures and things like trees and ground look very good and they have added some unique effects with blowing leaves and trash all over the place. The distance viewing looks very good even when you have your settings low for anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering. The graphics overall looked very good even when I lowered my settings.
The PC version of Test Drive Unlimited was postponed for the company to sort through some issue with the sound and music of the game; it also changed the rating. Test Drive has a very good set of sound effects and other noises like planes flying overhead and of course the car sounds that work very well.
The music for the game comes through your car radio which they added the feature of being able to load your own MP3 tunes to. It is a pretty simple matter of loading the MP3 files to a certain folder on your computer and then changing the radio station to find them on your car radio in game.
Test Drive Unlimited takes awhile to get the full depth of play before you realize you just have to do the same things over again to get anywhere. By this I mean that by the time you have gotten enough money to get a better vehicle and race better races or challenges in you have about done everything there is to do. The races don’t change much and the cars only get better along with the drivers your going up against.
If you like the challenge and thrill of racing fast Test Drive Unlimited is a very good game and changes the way you go from one race to the next. The races don’t change much after you have done several but the variety of having to search the island for all your available challenges has added a new and different aspect to the genre.
Test Drive Unlimited is a very good driving simulation game. It does get pretty repetitive but not any more so than many other racing games and does have the unique challenge of multiplayer races. The multiplayer races were a bit harder to join than other racing games I have played but it was a fun time.
One of the rather useless parts they have added to the game was the clothes, accessories and being able to change your character. I found this to be something that seemed like an addition thrown in to try and add value to the game, but who wants to spend time picking out a new outfit when you could be racing.