Xbox 360 | Test Drive Unlimited

Test Drive Unlimited ushered in the first time I’ve sat down and had a proper session on the Xbox 360. Sure, I’ve had a play of PRG and some other games, but I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of being able to sit down for some serious gaming.

And what a game to kick off my love affair with the 360. A racing game with open ended game play, no restrictive ‘track’ racing, and gorgeous visuals. It reminded me of what makes gaming fun.

Test Drive is by no means a simulator, it was built for fun. Hit a car head on, and you’ll set bits of that car fly off, but your car will be miraculously undamaged, so you can get straight back to the business of racing. The same goes for trees, concrete walls and power polls.

Unlike many arcade racers however, Test Drive handles well. The car feels like it’s driving like it should, and with racing views that include bumper cam, in car and from behind, Atari have though of just about everything. The only thing missing is that new car smell!

The game kicks off with you arriving at the airport and choosing your character, then its out to get a rental, then buy a house and a car. Once all of this is done it’s up to you. You can just go for a cruise, or start earning money and favours.

Money is the most important thing, as with it you can buy new cars, bigger houses (with room to store more cars) and even bikes.

But cruising around is also good. It lets you discover the island before you commit to a race on a stretch of road you’re unfamiliar with, and if motorbikes are your thing, then you’ll have to do a fair bit of driving, as you have to visit all the car dealers before the motorbike dealers will open their doors to you.

The motorbikes were the most fun in my humble opinion. Racing along in the ‘in car’ view, with dust and bug splatters building up on my visor was a hair-raising experience as I hurtled full speed down city streets weaving in and out of cars, only to discover that bikes don’t handle quite so wall as cars on the corners!

The feeling of speed is what makes any racing game, and Test Drive has it nailed.

But a thousand miles of open road (and plenty of off road to explore if you wish) does not make a racing game compelling. Races and missions and cars do.

As far as cars go, there are more than 125 licensed vehicles, and it won’t take you long before you start to build up a collection of exotic cars to play with.

The races and missions are varied and plentiful too, with timed races, standard races, speed camera tests and open road challenges, to the missions that include picking up beautiful women or hitchhikers and delivering them safely to their destination to the (I haven’t play this one yet) exciting sounding ‘escape from a psychopath’ mission.

All in all, Test Drive Unlimited has everything you could be looking for in a next gen racing game – the whole Island is open, with the only load times being when you visit a car show room, enter a mission or race, or get pulled over by the cops.

The graphics are amazing, with a smooth frame rate and little in the way of noticeable popup, with sounds that only add to the feeling that you’re actually racing an exotic car on a Hawaiian island!

The Test Drive series has come along way, and blows away everything that came before it in it’s latest offering on the ‘360.