The Breakfast Run
A lot of the appeal of the TDU series is the ability get together with other players online.
The online aspects of Test Drive Unlimited 2 have honestly been tough to gauge thanks to ongoing issues with the online servers as well as some glitches that affected the game from the word go. Many of those issues have been solved since launch and work is still being done to sort everything out. We did have a good amount of issues getting friends to see each other in the games so that we could partner up and do things together, although most of the time we ran into more issues with people just disappearing around us or some people unable to see others.
Online events are also available on the map which let you duke it out against other real world players but I was unable to give a decent account of my experience with it as there were either no games available or I couldn’t get into any lobbies that I did find. Again, this could be an issue that is sorted by the time that you read this.
TDU 2 also offers the ability for people to create and enter public challenges as well as create clubs that serve similarly to that of guilds in typical MMO titles. At the end of the day the online components can add a lot of longevity and value to your experience and in some cases will become the major reason that people keep playing, but for those who are merely looking for an offline single-player experience, there’s still a lot to do without the online content as it doesn’t revolve around it.
Prancing Horses and Raging Bulls
In a game like Test Drive Unlimited 2, the star of the show really is a toss-up between the list of available cars and the enormous locations that you get to explore and experience. Cars are available from all of the dealers and can also be upgraded (not to mention that if you wash any of them you are treated to a very awkward wet n’ wild half-naked lady-gawking session).
Dealerships are explored from a first-person perspective and allow the player to admire cars, open their doors/windows, climb inside, start the engine and just about everything else you would want to do at a dealership for such beautiful machines. Some dealerships are graced with beautiful fine details such as an actual row of steering wheels from some of their most famous models, or photos of their racing heritage. A real-petrolhead will get an added layer of enjoyment from the finer details.
Car lists are car lists and while we understand that a lot goes on behind the scenes to secure the rights to vehicles it’s pretty much impossible to ignore one giant omission from the roster. The gaping hole in the car list comes in the form of the raging bulls from Lamborghini. It’s nigh on impossible to think of supercars without Lamborghini springing to mind and fans of their cars (who don’t read awesome sites like Lazygamer) will be more than disappointed to drive around looking for a Lamborghini dealership, only to find that none exist.
One of the most important elements of Test Drive Unlimited is the feeling you get from driving the cars themselves. Each car handles differently in its own way, although don’t expect large differences between a lot of them or a sim-like driving experience overall. Different types of vehicles (front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, SUV’s etc.) do however feel very different and you are given the option of three different assist types that range from full assist, slight assist to a hardcore mode with no assists whatsoever.
I, for example, used the hardcore driving mode and chose the Lotus Esprit as my first vehicle in the game and just as would be expected, the car was nimble but quick to spin out without the proper balance of power thanks to its short wheel base, engine size and rear-wheel power setup. The difference is easy to see when compared to a perfectly balanced Ferrari F430 Scuderia.
While I immensely enjoyed the hours and hours that I spent traversing and exploring the island of O’ahu in the first TDU, Test Drive Unlimited 2 still feels way too familiar and gave me a serious injection of the been-there-done-that feeling. The cars still feel a bit floaty and may not be easy for a lot of gamers to go to after recent extended sessions with some of the other high-quality racing titles that have been released over the last year.
Test Drive, Limited
Test Drive Unlimited 2 also looks all too familiar for my liking. While the game has included day / night cycles, weather effects and some cosmetic damage, the engine looks precisely the same as the first game. The car models are decent enough in most cases, and what the game lacks in the details it makes up for in scale, but even with allowing for those elements, it still looks dated either way.
The sound in TDU 2 is also pretty questionable in places, with some cars sounding like nothing more than an odd digital drone that’s enough to put you off buying the car altogether. The voice acting is quite honestly some of the worst in the business and thanks to the pre-event cutscenes and some of the voice-overs from the competitors right before a race, you are subjected to characters that sound so wooden, so fake, so put-on that you can’t help but feel embarrassed for the developers every time a character says something.
Considering that the first TDU was not far off from being a launch title for the Xbox 360, it was definitely disappointing to see the sequel looking practically the same 4 years down the line.
TDU 2 launched with a really rough amount of bugs that ranged from online server issues to corrupt save games and freezing, and while most of it is being fixed you can’t help but feel that the game isn’t as polished as it should have been.
Last Updated: February 28, 2011
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