The first of the next gen racers? (Test Drive Unlimited (Xbox 360))

Member Name: huntski

Product:	Test Drive Unlimited (Xbox 360)
Date:	10/09/08 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great new ideas, great location, great cars.

Disadvantages: Just......A.........Bit.. ...........Empty.

Aaaah, fresh air, breath of.
As a concept this nice little runner from Atari had me very exited. Hundred plus cars, Haiwaii, thousands of miles of open road, buyable property, Haiwaii...
So, I bought my ticket jumped on a flight, and emigrated to Ohau.
Oh. Haiwaii didn`t look this blocky in the brochure, best I call the travel agents. Oh. I see, nobody lives here, just cars.......

Okay, maybe it`s not quite that bad and the longer i played the more i enjoyed. But it`s certainly, shall we say, a quirky little fellah.
Firstly there`s no denying that the 7 course meal of motors available is first class, the classic cars being a nice touch. And travelling from dealership to dealership to unlock bigger and better cars was (for a while at least) rather fun.
Just enjoying the countryside, or diverting on a longer route just to take in a coastal path. Just relaxing, relaxing... until some nut case on a super bike over takes you in your Murcielago and you simply HAVE to take chase! "Here, this weaving in and out of traffic at 160mph is easy!" Then, whooops. Hit a police car. Another chase ensues, this time forcing you to push your lambo all the way to 200. Glancing out of the side window (which is a pain in the bloody arse!) the world is but a warped blur. Cop car fades into the distance... victory!
It was moments like this that i thought made TDU truly playable, and while it didn`t quite make up for the slightly dodgy handling or the ghostly feeling one gets when cruising through high class-high rise appartments, with nobody in them, OR the engine noise lazily copied for multiple cars(boooooooooooooooooring) it goes a long way towards helping.
And lets be honest, there is no better feeling than finally being able to afford your first really hot car, coming up against one of the vast many cpu controlled wandering cars that whooped your hiney 2 days ago, and choking him (or her) in an asphyxiating cloud of rubber fumes!
The incentive for gain is much better than in most other racers, as the cars you`re pitted against in each race don`t self level (an infuriating feature of many racers which I hate) to match your performance.
There are a fair amount of challenges to keep you occupied at first but many are so short they soon get chewed up.
The idea of picking up prostit, sorry, maidens in distress and/or hitch hikers is fantastic, but falls immediatley short by not rewarding you with cash. Stupid. The transporter missions on the other hand are especially good, and reward you with plenty of wedge for completing them.
I would say one of the most enjoyable elements of the game is building up your own island empire through buying properties, as if you studied the map hard enough these would very often come with huge expanses of private road, (that cpu cars just happened to spawn on) perfect for those high octane one on ones. Couple this with the choice of donning yourself in some fine threads from real life fashion manufacturers and you get a real self gratifying feeling of being the richest kid on the block.

But sadly all these features eventually fall by the wayside, and end up reminding you of just how empty the game world is.
Imagine what a game this could have been.
If only the best features had been expanded upon, the graphics sharpened up slightly (although it`s fair to say this was a fairly early 360 attempt), the awful sound effects tweaked, everything was there ready to become a real belter of a racer. I sincerely hope somebody picks up where Atari left off, to not fulfill the potential that it has at ground roots would be a gaming travesty.
As it is, Test Drive Ulimited stays an above average game that just SHOULD have been so much better. Peace out.
J.Hunter

Summary: Deserves a place in most collections, should have rocked the gaming world.