Test Drive Unlimited's basic concept is an open gaming environment where there's pretty much nothing to do but race ultra expensive cars. Your character starts out with a bit of cash, and you must get yourself a car from amongst the game's licensed high performance vehicles, a house to keep your cars and yourself in, and then set off on a series of online or offline automotive-related adventures. The setting of the game is the Hawaiian island of Oahu, which Atari say has been re-created accurately from GPS data to within ten metres. This means 1,000 square kilometers of palm tree-laced roads, cities, mountains, highways and suburbia to traverse. While it's enjoyable enough to simply drive around and explore (which is in fact necessary, since every road must be driven on to be unlocked), it's also a de-facto replacement for a regular racing game's menu or lobby systems.
While you can zoom out and pick a challenge or race from a map, you can also do it in a more naturalistic way – by driving to the event. Floating icons litter the landscape, and at any time you can check out possible challenges simply by hitting a button as you drive by. Upon winning challenges and events, you'll earn money which can be spent on more cars (and motorcycles), bigger and more houses (needed to store all your cars), even licensed clothing and after market accessories. Of course, the game progresses as you gain cash and status.
The usual car pr0n.
This open design extends to the online multiplayer. Test Drive Unlimited's servers support an unlimited number of players (hence the name), and it handles this by setting each user in their own 'bubble' view of the world, where the eight nearest players to them are on their map. While driving around the island, you can challenge any other player you pass at any time simply by flashing your lights at them. Upon acceptance of the challenge, you can set the rules and destination and then you're off. All the usual competitions, rankings, classes and events are also present, but Eden Studios have also put a lot of effort into the game world's social structures, allowing for the creation of teams and clubs. Your club can even have it's own headquarters, ranking and rivalries.
The words 'Test Drive' in the game's title are somewhat misleading, because the racing itself is firmly in the arcade camp. There are a variety of handling options, but most people will stick with the 'assist' mode, meaning you don't have to worry too much about the subtleties of weight shifting and over-steer. You may have to use the brakes every now and then, but it's much more Ridge Racer then Forza, with all the drifting, slipstream passing and nudging we've come to expect. Collisions are particularly unrealistic, since there is no damage modelling to playable cars (although NPC cars do take damage). Atari told us this was a conscious decision to save players from tedious repair stats, but we've a feeling it may have something to do with the car makers not wanting to see images of their products damaged.
Unfortunately, the lack of car damage sometimes takes any realism and weight away from the racing. The crash model seems to be based on a premise that fancy cars are indestructible, and instead of the usual semi-elastic collisions, all crashes between racers seem to be totally elastic, and you'll see cars and bikes bounce all over the place like they're made of impossibly shiny rubber. It also looks ridiculous when your Ferrari ploughs through a carpark full of NPC cars leaving a trail of twisted metal, yet your own vehicle not only survives without a scratch, but seems to have been created of matter twenty times the density of everything else, as if it were made on the planet Krypton. This problem doesn't affect most races, but is worth noting for those who were after a true simulator.
Don't expect realistic crashes.
The racing itself in Test Drive Unlimited takes full advantage of the large open setting. While the tracks in other games may have shortcuts, it TDU you're simply given a start and end point, and you can take whatever route you like to the finish line. To help you in the right direction, you're supplied with a GPS display which shows the what it thinks are the best roads to take to the end, but much like a real GPS, it can sometimes have a 'different' idea of what's quickest, and if you know the area you may be able to shave some seconds off your time by taking an alternate fork in the road. Another strength in this regard is that you can drive off any unprotected edge of the road and go cross country. This can be daunting, as you may have missed an important overpass (or hit a tree) and have to turn around, so as a concession you can always hit the 'back' button to be dropped back on the appropriate road with a time penalty. The back option may be a little too lenient though – at one point in a race we were screwed out of precious seconds by missing an exit and continuing on a less direct route, yet a guy who actually hit a tree was better off because he was dropped back on the appropriate main track!
Another area where Test Drive Unlimited excels is the technology. The cars and bikes are nicely detailed, from authentic interiors through to the now-standard shiny paint jobs. While it's as about as good looking as most racing games - the detail on the buildings and environments is excellent - at first glance the environments may not seem that special for an Xbox 360 racer. But it's the scope that makes it impressive. In a fifteen minute race at 120mph, we only crossed ¼ of the island. Along the way we passed hundreds of unique houses, mountains, beaches and plains. It's truly one of the most expansive environments we've ever seen in a game, and it will be interesting to see how it works once the players start filling the servers. There's really only one thing disrupting the illusion, and that's the lack of people walking around. There are a few touches that imply life, such as ever present paper and leaves flying around to 'fill in' the empty space and make it feel less sterile, but this, combined with deserted streets mean the city areas look like a deserted town straight out of a Zombie movie. The suburban areas therefore look best, because the lack of people walking around is most realistic here.
The suburban areas look the best.
Overall, Test Drive Unlimited is loaded with offline content and seems to have some good ideas and structure for its online community. It remains to be seen exactly how well it will deliver well on its premise of a 'Car MMO', but while the racing itself has a few quirks, it looks set to be an entertaining world for car freaks to get into upon its September release.
Definitely want this game 
Less skilled players will take longer because it's harder than PGR2. Also the map editor and online play makes it a longer game too.
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