Test Drive Unlimted (TDU): First Impressions

Having now played this for just over a week, I felt it was time to share my first impressions of Atari’s revolutionary driving sim, Test Drive Unlimited (TDU). Atari claim to have reinvented racing games with TDU, and have introduced a new genre, the Massively Open Online Racing (MOOR) genre. Their idea is to create a persistent world (modelled very accurately on the island of Hawaii) in which players can buy homes, race, buy cars, and generally do everything you would expect from the latest incarnation of the Test Drive franchise. And probably a little bit more besides.

So where to begin with a game like TDU (and I am going to refer to it as a game from here – it is more like a sim but that description just doesn’t feel right to describe it as a whole)?. Well the game starts with you arriving in Hawaii and renting a new car. You can pick from a few models (I personally went for the SLK55 AMG) and this will be your first car on the island, albeit for a very short period of time. Your first 2 tasks are really to buy a car of your own, and buy a house. This is fairly easy as the game directs you to the right places to do both. Once you’ve done this then the island really is your oyster. You can choose to do any of the challenges that are available for you (providing you can satisfy the entry criteria – i.e. you have the right kind of car) and you can start to build your wealth, and your reputation here.

There are 2 choices when it comes to challenges. You can either play the single player ones, which allow you to build up your wealth and your gamerscore. Or you can go online and take on other real-world players in the multiplayer races. Both styles follow the same formats of either a standard race, a timed race, or a speed trial. Add into that the missions that are also available – deliver a package, pick up a hitchhiker, pick up a model or deliver a high-performance car. Races and the courier and car delivery missions give you cash as rewards, whilst the ones involving moving people give you vouchers to spend at the clothing stores.

You can open up further challenges by increasing your level within the game, and this in turn can be achieved by collecting achievements and improving your gamerscore. It’s a great system that works well, and the achievements are nicely paced that you will be able to pick a few up at the start to open up more of the island, but as you get further into the game, you have to work harder to open up more. There are also achievements for the total number of miles driven (I’m currently up to 580) which is certainly an incentive not to jump to areas that you’ve already visited, but to drive there instead.

Where TDU gets its reputation as a sim is in the car handling. The game definitely gives you the most control when all of the driving aids are turned. If you’re driving the Corvette Z06 with no driving aids on, and you accelerate out of the corner too quickly then you can expect to end up facing the wrong way in a cloud of tyre smoke. Each car handles that little bit differently, and makes the driving quite a challenge at some times as you forget which car you are in and overcook it going into a corner. With the driving aids turned on the cars feel far too similar and this takes away a lot of the experience and the spirit of what TDU is trying to achieve.

So when Atari announced TDU everyone said it was far too ambitious, and far too big a project for them to be able to deliver successfully. But I have to say I think they have achieved what they set out to do. Sure there have been some server issues (show me an MMO that hasn’t had these) but beyond that, I think TDU is a must-have title. The island looks gorgeous, and when the scenery is rushing past at 160mph it looks great (at least the bits of it you can see!!). The car dynamics are awesome and the variety of cars keeps you on your toes, especially the first time you race a car in a new class and aren’t sure exactly what it will do when you throw it into a corner. There’s also so much more to TDU than what I’ve talked about here. There are the custom challenges (players can create these and they form a “winner-takes-90% of the entry fees” competition with large sums of prize money up for grabs). So in summary, TDU is great, you have to own it, and I believe that Atari really have created their dream, and reinvented racing…