Test Drive Unlimited. What can I say about it?..well I could say the world is a little samey, the online play is far from optimised, and…oh none of this matters, and I say this will all the emphasis of bold, and underlined..and fuck it, in red.
Its. fucking. awesome.
Games are meant to be fun, and Test Drive, is fun. If you have ever watched an episode of Top Gear and remotely enjoyed it, you will love Test Drive, and here’s why. Ready? Its not a racing game. Its a driving game.
To me, racing games are about lap times, precision driving, boring graphs of performance, different types of tyre. Test drive isn’t about this, its about driving. The feel of a Ferrari compared to the feel of a classic Mustang. Its not so much as how a car will perform, but how much you will enjoy driving it. Its not tyre types but do I want red or black seats. In my 4 car garage at the minute there is an Aston DB9 and a Jaguar E-Type. Yeah, I could have bought a Ferrari, and it would be quicker, but they are just too…obvious, too…fake.
TDU is actually a game of two halves. Its a game about driving, and shopping…for things to drive of course. To go shopping, you obviously need money, and to get money you need to win races or do some challenge where some nutter is willing to pay you a ridiculous amount of money for you to drive a couple of miles for him. Once you’ve topped up your wad of cash, well its off to peruse the garages for more lovely shinys to buy, and all the cars are lovely and shiny. You will want to have them all (just remember its not Pokemon, and shouting “Alpha Romeo, I choose you” will not make it any faster) but how do you choose your next one?Well, you let your heart decide.
Test Drive does something that a game hasn’t done in a long time. It makes me feel like a kid again. I’m in a playground, and want to go on everything at once. There is such an air of irresponsibility about it, driving around at ridiculous speeds, getting into police chases, smashing into other cars…and all without consequence.
I can sum TDU up with this. No matter what you do, your car doesn’t even get a scratch, because that wouldn’t be as fun.
