Test Drive Unlimited 2 Review

By Oli Welsh Published 8 February, 2011

On a road to everywhere.

Version tested: Xbox 360

It's been four and a half years since Lyon's Eden Games unfurled its manifesto for "massively open online racing" with the sprawling, quixotic Test Drive Unlimited – and like every year in the young industry of videogames, they've been long ones.

We've seen other attempts to expand the horizons of the online racing game in the interim: Forza Motorsport's bustling bazaar of customisation and hot-lap competition, Gran Turismo 5's halting attempt at a more genteel autophiles' club, and Criterion socially networking its way around the online/offline divide in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

Each has delivered parts of Test Drive Unlimited's bold promise: a thriving, connected community of petrolheads; an epic physical struggle between man, machine and road; a free-roaming kingdom of speed. They've done it with more polish and panache, better graphics, more nuanced and rewarding handling, more consistency and, most importantly perhaps, more players.

But they don't have its heart, and they don't have its breathtaking horizons. On the vast Hawaiian island of Oahu, Eden dared to dream of an online racing paradise that was set in something very much like the real world (1500 square kilometres of it). Rough and ready as it was, that dream wasn't compromised for anything; Test Drive Unlimited remains the ultimate love letter to the open road in games.

With this sequel, very little has changed. Eden has expanded the things that mean the most to it, inching its game closer to being a true persistent world and a peerless theatre of wish-fulfliment.

There's tons more real estate, with clubber getaway Ibiza appending its Mediterranean hinterlands to the rugged Pacific rock of Oahu (the latter's unlocked a little way into the game). There are deepened community features around the car clubs (now better than some MMOs' guild options) and user-created challenges. There are more ways to play multiplayer, including co-op challenges, co-driving and a Hot Pursuit-style chase mode.

TDU2's first 15 minutes, in which a brave site admin struggles to cope with the terrible default handling scheme.

Solo motorists have plenty to lose themselves in too, with off-road racing in hulking SUVs replacing motorbikes and opening up hundreds of acres of untouched terrain. Beautiful dynamic weather effects and a globally synchronised day/night cycle strengthen the intoxicating illusion that you're living a second life as a sportscar-obsessed playboy.

GT5 or F1 2010 can easily boast graphical superiority. But watching the sun blush the underside of an overcast sky and reflect in scattered puddles, after driving country roads all night through a crackling thunderstorm, is a thrilling kind of poetry those snapshots can't muster. It's heightened further by the knowledge that every other player online is living the same moment.

So Test Drive Unlimited 2 still has the magic. It also still has the bugs (we tested the retail Xbox 360 version), unreliable network performance, inconsistent graphics and physics, unwieldy interface and scrappy, lightweight vehicle handling.

I've never thought TDU's handling deserved quite the evisceration it's received at the hands of press and community. It's a unique challenge to create a handling model that can cope with both weaving through traffic at 200mph and taking lots of slow right-angle turns. Gran Turismo's staggering physicality was always going to be beyond it, while Criterion's drift symphonies need fictional roads to be written for them.

But the resulting compromise lands the game with steering that's somehow twitchy and heavy at the same time, as well as a lack of conviction and weight that can fool players into thinking they're playing a breezy, full-throttle arcade racer. In fact, TDU2 requires careful control of both accelerator and brake to master its persistent understeer.

A familiar tale then, and not the improvement most were hoping for. You should bypass the abysmal default setting immediately; on Sports or Hardcore, it's quite enjoyable in the medium term, especially at higher speeds, if perhaps lacking the involvement to sustain you through TDU2's long-haul "CarPG" grind.

That grind is now much more structured, with 60 levels to make your way through. These are divided into 15 each in Competition, Collection, Discovery and Community.

Competition is single- and multiplayer races, time trials and speed challenges, including the point-to-point dashes you can initiate by flashing your lights at a nearby player. The championships and cups are more manageable and focused than the first game's scattershot races, and the event design is strong, if prone to padding; the characters and "story" that grace them are a cheerfully terrible, but inoffensive and not entirely unwelcome, hook.

Collection encompasses buying and customising cars and houses, as well as tailoring your avatar with clothes, haircuts and cosmetic surgey. Discovery rewards exploration, the excellent one-off driving challenges (now time-limited), photography and the discovery of car wrecks (which can be assembled into prize cars). Community progress is earned through Club activity, co-op racing, player challenges and multiplayer cop chases.

It's an effective way of parcelling out and promoting all the elements that make TDU2 unique, and ensures you'll make progress whichever of the varied and absorbing pastimes happens to hook you. The structure is more complex than it needs to be, though – why assign points to specific achievements, rather than just dole out XP indiscriminately? Why link Collection progress to Discovery (which unlocks things in shops)? And why force players to grind through Community achievements if they're not that way inclined?

That theme is taken up by the game's cumbersome interface. It's essential to the romance of TDU that you should uncover the game by exploring the island – in contrast to Hot Pursuit's blunt navigation, say – but it's not essential that you spend a quarter of your game time cross-referencing menus, watching the GPS map zoom in and out and observing sinister plastic mannequins in ridiculous clothes greet each other in shops. (For a game so obsessed with image and lifestyle, TDU2 is hilariously, if endearingly, uncool.)

Much of the multiplayer is similarly hard to access. The online Casino mini-games are only free to those who preorder. There is no immediately obvious way to initiate a cop chase or play as a co-driver, and the convoy-driving co-op modes are currently unpopular (Keep Your Distance is an unglamorous trundle, but Follow The Leader is a fun relay race). Lobby-based racing works reliably, and you can easily jump to any player's location, but trying to stay together in free ride mode is like trying to mud-wrestle an octopus, as players flicker in and out of different instances.

It soon becomes apparent that Test Drive Unlimited 2's multiplayer is best enjoyed in a Club with a group of like-minded friends, organising your own fun or marshalling Eden's bizarre multiplayer diversions, like the hyperactive destruction-derby cop chases, into some semblance of working order. Meet the game in good company and with enthusiasm and patience, and it will reward you.

Or, even better perhaps, just approach it on your own. Like many "true" MMOs, TDU2 is a world that draws much of its life and atmosphere from other players, but in which it's wonderful to be alone: windows wound down to let the exhaust howl in and the thump of the radio out to the sea air you swear you can smell.

It's a long journey through this huge game and TDU2 offers an unrefined, bumpy ride. Thankfully, if it all gets too much, you can set the grind aside for a long journey of your own – just following your front wheels across the islands, revelling in one of the great videogame open worlds.

Unsteady but passionate and ambitious, TDU2 is fantastic escapism. It's just a shame it sometimes needs to escape from itself.

7 / 10

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (88) Latest comment 7 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • FutureDave #1 1 year ago

    Oh well.

  • Daeltaja #2 1 year ago

    This can wait then. Plenty to play through though so no problem!

  • agparrot #3 1 year ago

    Gosh. After all this time, it is a little surprising that Eden have managed to match the squarely imbalanced qualities of the first.

    I've spent far too much time reading about the game and watching videos of it now. This isn't a damning review, indeed none of them have been really. Neither have any of them been particularly glowing, however, seeming to think that the overall ambition of the game outweighs the rough edges. Fortunately my penchant for just messing around in open worlds, and the likelihood of being able to play online with a set of EGers over the next few weeks, means I'll probably get a good bit of the 'Social' side of things out of the way before everyone else inevitably leaves me to play 'watch the sunset' on my own.

    Can't say it isn't disappointing that the sketchy staying-connected-to-other-players problems seem to still be in place from the first game (2006 ffs!), and that the car handling has somehow been sanitized to the point of imbalance in some cases, and what appears to be uncontrollable oversteer in some cars, in others.

    Nevertheless, I'll be online with it soon, I suspect.

    Read like a 6.

  • governmentyard #4 1 year ago

    *clicks video*

    Might as well get rid of those video ads, EG. I'm curious about TDU2 but not so curious I'll sit through an advert for a beat 'em up AGAIN for the privilege, particularly as there'll bee hundreds of gameplay videos on you tube shortly.

  • Miths #5 1 year ago

    So no comments on how this game plays with steering wheel? Although since you tested the 360 version I guess you were pretty limited in your wheel choices (it still only supports the cheap official plastic wheel plus one or two Fantatecs, doesn't it?).

    I would be getting either the PC or the PS3 version and use my Logitech G25, but the reports of missing force feedback (except for basic rumble effects) and terribly sluggish wheel response - something that has apparently not been fixed since beta - are more than enough to scare me away until I know if it's really as bad as it sounds.
    And that's a shame really, because I had a blast spending an inordinate amount of hours just cruising in TDU1, where the PC version at least had pretty great wheel implementation, including proper force feedback. I would love to get TDU2 for the same purpose, but there's no way in hell I'm going to play it with a gamepad.

  • BillMurray #6 1 year ago

    I'm pretty happy with that.

  • Eldritch #7 1 year ago

    The trick with EG's videos is:

    Click on "Normal" first, then, as soon as the ad starts, click on "High". Then you skip the ad.

  • UncleLou #8 1 year ago

    In fact, TDU2 requires careful control of both accelerator and brake to master its persistent understeer.

    A familiar tale then, and not the improvement most were hoping for.

    This really, really, really needs a demo, desperately, so people can try the handling. I for one liked the handling in TD:U (after some tweaking), but many people playing the beta it feels much more like an arcade racer now.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #9 1 year ago

    Could have been much worse. Actually it sounds exactly like I wanted it to be. I never cared about multiplayer and the handling never bothered me either. Being able to drive for 30 minutes without going over the same intersection twice makes up for everything else. I have never forgiven developers for completely dismissing point-to-point races and this is where TDU comes in and I am really glad that it turned out well. TDU was flawed but eventually turned out to be one of the most memorable games I own on the 360. Seems like that special magic is still there, even if it's just as flawed as the original.

  • paulf #10 1 year ago

    'scrappy, lightweight vehicle handling'

    this should have been the first thing to fix, sounds like I'm gonna wait till it's 20 quid to drive around ibiza rave tunes pumping

  • vegard #11 1 year ago

    This is a mess on PC right now, needs a lot of optimization.

    Edit: To be fair, this is a mess on my PC, maybe nvidia owners will have more luck.
    Edited by vegard at 08/02/11 @ 20:28

  • TheNinkyNonk #12 1 year ago

    Why doesn't the driving genre feel the hate as much as the FPS genre? I mean, seriously, you could put a screengrab of a Veyron or Lambo from any number of modern racers side by side and you'd be hard pushed to tell what game you were looking at.

  • asphaltcowboy #13 1 year ago

    The concept behind the game really interests, the first game did too (although the demo put paid to that). I love the idea of multiplayer-based car games (Burnout Paradise is my favourite racer this gen), but the rough and unrefined nature of the game really puts me off... it just sounds really shoddy.

    Also, I'm all for customisation (car and character) and meta-game style purchasing/designing of properties, but I absolutely hate the Home-lite, livin' it large in Ibeefa (including the horrible music), really cheesy/terrible "story" type stuff they've added onto this.

    If I pick it up, it won't be before the price has come down... a LOT.

  • Red930 #14 1 year ago

    OMG hard read, fractured sentences, three opinions/comments in one line, contradictions. meh - was this subbed? Game looks OK-ish.

  • technotica #15 1 year ago

    Hrm, I first heard about TDU a long time after it was released, I always thought the concept of the game was fascinating but decided to wait for TDU2 to be released (that was like a year ago...) now its released and only gets a 7... that seems to low a score to spend 49.99€ on... but the darn thing still sounds really intriguing...
    Edited by technotica at 08/02/11 @ 20:50

  • Keivz #16 1 year ago

    @Miths
    I too wish game reviewers were more complete in their reviews. I want to know the pros and cons of the included features. I want to know how many cars are available, if I can easily switch between songs on the controller, if I can play my own music, if the game features replays, how's the framerate, how's the damage model, etc, etc. Yes it's alot, put it into a separate section if it doesn't fit into the flow of the review, or provide a post review q & a if need be, but ffs review the game!

    Read like a 7 to me.

  • secombe #17 1 year ago

    I'm still sold, an awful lot to be said for just cruising around real locations, soaking it all in etc. I loved that about the first game, so new cars and the gorgeous island of Ibiza (an island I've explored extensively, the north has some stunning roads) is more than enough for me.

  • dirtyvu #18 1 year ago

    LOLOLOLOLOL on the video. closing the sunroof at high speed. colliding with a building full-speed a la GT5. and going offroading with a Ferrari as a shortcut...

  • Subquest #19 1 year ago

    I do hope the reviewer wasn't driving in that video. Cars tend to understeer loads if you don't use the brakes...

  • aphexstwin #20 1 year ago

    still need to know about wheel options and im rather disappointed that 'reviews' these days dont detail things like this, or even settings for best performance for pc gamers. still, it sounds like my ideal driving game and, from the video, looks better than the first on 360. i can forgive bad handling, leave that to the sims, but im hoping theres no cars that blow all others away like the saleen s7 did in the first. would love a demo for something to play till my real car has its mot and tax sorted this month, as thats stopping me buying for a while, but im patient!

  • Miths #21 1 year ago

    I decided to risk the purchase. I'm downloading the Steam version now - all 14 GB (good thing I'm on a 50 Mbit connection :), although I'm "only" getting ~3 MB/s right now).
    If the steering wheel support - and the handling in general - is as bad as an increasing number of reports indicate, it was €50 out the window, but I loved TDU1 too much not to take my chances on TDU2 as well.

    I'll report back later tonight with my impressions of how the game plays with a Logitech G25. Assuming I'm not in the group of people who apparently have problems getting the game to register their wheel at all. Something that can presumably be fixed by uninstalling the Logitech Profiler software, but there's no way in hell I'm going to cripple my experience in several other PC racing games just for the sake of TDU2.
    But I think I better reserve any further doom and gloom speculations until I have first hand experience :).

  • DrStrangelove #22 1 year ago

    lol 150 mph collisions with no effect at all. But even so it looks like they did a good job at punishing the player with annoying co-driver comments.

  • Death-Jester #23 1 year ago

    I too 'tried' this game due to no demo. I jumped in the Ferrari, drove it into a tree, then uninstalled the game. No crash physics, what is this. Ridge Racer?!
    The game plays like a giant advert for car manufacturers, I almost expected to have links appear in the game telling you where you can buy the car you are driving.

  • huckan #24 1 year ago

    Hmmm, just being playing this, I'm liking the overall atmosphere but the car physics feel 10 years old, very clunky; still been having a bit of fun though!

  • FiReTiGeR2K #25 1 year ago

    everyone who playe dthe first one knows what there getting and it always amazes me that gamers havnt made the connection between content and graphics yet.. the game is HUGE and persistantly online you wont get gears of war graphics in a fallout style world and i know that these kinda handling and graphics are the way it is with huge open world games if you liked the first one this is 2x better i mean i was going to buy this just for the fact the ENTIRE first island off TDU1 is in this game and that the second island for TDU2 is like 50% bigger than that! if you want a free roaming road race game this was and is the only choice everyone who played the first will get more content.Its not looking better in any respect but i bought the first one and i wil buy this just for sheer value for money

  • Miths #26 1 year ago

    @FiReTiGeR2K

    It's all fine and well having two huge locations to roam around - which is the whole reason I've been looking forward to this game and decided to buy it tonight - but that may not be enough if the car handling and control implementation are inferior to how they were in TDU1. Which is what a worrying amount of posts on the official forum make it sound like.

    My Steam download is at 75% so I guess I'll find out for myself soon enough.

  • infoxicated #27 1 year ago

    Read like a six, so a nice, safe publisher & developer pandering EG 7 was what I expected!

    Shame - I enjoyed the PSP version and thought this would be fun. Sounds naff, though.

  • king26 #28 1 year ago

    unfortunately I dont have much time or money for racers, so I am quite selective but I am looking forward to motorstorm 3

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #29 1 year ago

    @Miths, aphexstwin
    Sorry about the lack of comment on wheel support, but we were supplied with a 360 version and I don't have access to a 360-compatible wheel.

    @Subquest
    No, that wasn't me playing in the video. :)

    @infoxicated
    I personally love this game and had to talk myself down from a sentimental 8. I'm sure I exhibit many weaknesses in this review but I don't think pandering is one of them.

  • uknortherner2000 #30 1 year ago

    3rd party DRM: SecuROM 4 machine activation limit. So little more than an overpriced rental then.

    Nice to know the paying customer continues to be treated like criminal scum eh, Atari?

    I'll tell you one thing - you publishers treating me like a criminal for buying your shit is making it incredibly easy for me to ride out this recession without giving you charlatans a penny of my cash.

  • PearOfAnguish #31 1 year ago

    "car handling and control implementation are inferior to how they were in TDU1"

    It's gotten worse? It was bad enough in the first.

  • MJHaylett #32 1 year ago

    I loved the first game but I played it offline and that is what I would do again. 7/10 is not a Day One Buy but I will pick this up later in the year when maybe a patch or two has been released.

  • Soton4084 #33 1 year ago

    Disappointing. It appears to be a decent enough game judging from the review, but just doesn't sound like much of an improvement over the original. It's a shame because this game has the potential to be brilliant and I was hoping that the sequal would bring a huge leap in quality akin to that of Assassins Creed 2 and Uncharted 2.

  • Miths #34 1 year ago

    As promised a few hours ago, here are my impressions of using a Logitech G25 with the PC version of TDU2.

    Let's put the big nasty issue on the table right away. Force feedback doesn't work!
    It's been advertised as a feature of the game (and should be a requirement of all racing games that have any wheel support at all), there are seven or eight different settings for it in the game options, and yet I've now seen numerous reports besides my own saying that there's no force feedback at all in the game, only basic rumble effects (which is a separate setting).
    This issue has been reported for a number of Logitech wheels, including the G25, G27, Driving Force Pro/GT and Formula Force EX. I've also seen one person mention on the official forum that there's no FFB with his Fanatec GT3RS wheel.

    For the rest of this post I'll just copy/pate what I just wrote in a thread on the official TDU2 forum on the problem.

    "After much mucking about with the Logitech Profiler and the in-game settings, I've begrudingly had to accept that I'll be playing this game wihout force feedback until they hopefully patch in this advertised but apparently missing vital feature.

    I'm still experimenting with "canned" effects from spring and damper settings in the Profiler, but right now I'm keeping them low to the point of being unnoticeable. They simply feel terrible at high settings. The wheel centering setting in the Profiler doesn't seem to do anything even at 90-100%, at least not unless it's coupled with high spring and damper settings (in which case it might just have been the spring setting that caused the centering effect).

    One light in all this gloom is that at least I've been able to dial in the steering to be pretty responsive, so while there's the huge immersion factor from force feedback sorely missing, I'm at least able to drive well enough (I've actually come across dedicated sim racers on the iRacing forum saying they keep FFB turned off to help precision - they may have a point, but I'd take the immersion of FFB over slightly better cornering precision) and so far first impressions of the game have been fairly good (clunky menu systems aside).

    Here are my current Profiler settings for anyone interested.

    Overall effect strength: 102%
    Spring effect strength: 10%
    Damper effect strength: 10%

    Centering spring strength: active and at 85% (but as mentioned it doesn't really seem to do anything)

    Degrees of rotation: 540

    Allow game to adjust settings: active

    And here are my in-game settings.

    Vibrations: slider all the way left (I don't care for rumble effects when they aren't accompanied by FFB. I might turn them up slightly for off-road)

    Force feedback: pick any setting. None of them make a difference whatsoever.

    Controller linearity: slider two ticks to the right (which should be a value of 1, fully linear, according to the wheel configuration guide in this forum).

    Speed factor: one or two ticks to the right

    Steering damping: slider all the way left

    Dead zone: slider all the way left

    Pedal sensitivity: sliders in the middle (linear)

    And I'll end on this note - fix the damn force feedback Atari/Eden. That it's not working across a range of popular steering wheels is inexcusable, particularly since the issue was reported during beta already several months ago."

  • aphexstwin #35 1 year ago

    cheers for the detail miths. im waiting to here about ps3 wheel support as this was my intended platform. it would be very ironic if the 360 version of the game had wheel support, as i buy ps3 racing games due to the lack of support for my dfgt on 360.

    @ oli, eurogamer reviewed the hapless 360 wireless wheel, thought you might have had it in the office still...?

  • tinners #36 1 year ago

    You can't play the casino games unless you pre order - WTF??

  • Miths #37 1 year ago

    Despite the frustrating lack of force feedback in the PC version, this game is growing on me quickly and definitely feels like it might have the same addictive "just one more hour of cruising around before I call it a night" quality as TDU1 had for me.
    Handling feels precise and response enough with my G25 (once I had spent some time dialing in proper settings, including wheel rotation in the Profiler), but since it's the first racing game I've ever played that didn't have force feedback for my steering wheel, it's incredibly hard for me to form an opinion of the physics, since I don't get all the usual FFB clues on weight transfer, grip, road surface etc.
    I think it's pretty safe to say though that it's very close to being a pure arcade racer, but I'm usually capable of enjoying anything from Burnout to iRacing, so that in itself is not a problem for me.

    So far I've grown more attached to my starter 1980s Lotus Esprit S3 than I have to any the cars in the GT5 garage :). And I just took out two Zondas - F Roadster and Cinque - for a test drive. Extremely fast and fun, as expected.

    The lack of force feedback - whether a bug or a feature that was just never finished - really is a massive, unforgivable screwup, and one I seriously hope they get fixed very soon with a patch. But while I wait TDU2 certainly feels like a game I can enjoy quite a bit.
    It also doesn't hurt that it actually looks quite good in places - sunset, sunrise and rain/storm conditions especially - even though I have to run it at medium settings and 1680x1050 (my monitor has a native resolution of 1920x1200) to ensure that my framerate stays in the 30-60 range at all times (I'm on a Core 2 Quad PC with 8 GB RAM and a Geforce GTX 260).

  • ToAks #38 1 year ago

    i got the first one on PSP and on PS2, i barely played it on PS2 as i got sick of it after the exellent PSP version.

    i am happy that it got a 7, now i am in no rush to get it :)

    i'll get it when i'm done with Motorstorm 3 and GT5 and...blooddrive and monstertrucks and damn it...Deadspace 2,LBP2,DCU:online... and everything else.

    PS:i hope Atari sell a bucketload of TDU2, they really need a commercial hit theese days oh and Eden needs to do another Alone In The Dark :)

  • AgentBalti #39 1 year ago

    TDU has always been a guilty pleasure. So much to love and so much to grind your teeth about (bikes...yuk.) But still, even after this lacklustre review (even though Oli almost wavered for a sentimental 8), my pre-order will still stand. It is the only game, apart from Just Cause 2, where I can just roam around and 'play' - rather than 'go here NOW, go there NOW, GO GO GO!!!'. Hopefully a patch will iron out some of the creases, but still TDU sounds as welcome as your old pair of slippers...flawed, but still comfortable and welcoming.

  • AgentBalti #40 1 year ago

    [link url=http://www.examiner.com/video-game-guide-in-national/test-drive-unlimited-2-walkthrough-strategy-guides-and-review-review
    ]http://www.examiner.com/video-game-guide...[/link]

    Interesting...this review seems entirely ripped from Eurogamer!

  • Beano #41 1 year ago

    The handling blows but the game stil gets a decent 7?

  • theonlyix #42 1 year ago

    I hope they release a demo =/ If not, this is a "no buy" for me

  • metalangel #43 1 year ago

    Sequel to the game that sold me a 360! A bit disappointed they've not done more in five years, but definitely up for more. This is still one of the few games where you experience what it's like to actually own a fast car, not just drive one (Forza and GT aren't the others...)

  • darkphoenix #44 1 year ago

    Forced community achievements?
    Tell that to Burnout Paradise...

  • darkphoenix #45 1 year ago

    Forced community achievements?
    Tell that to Burnout Paradise...

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #46 1 year ago

    @aphexstwin
    I think that was before I joined. I haven't seen it - maybe someone made off with it. I'll investigate.

    @AgentBalti
    !!!!!

  • onezeonx #47 1 year ago

    I'll wait for a demo or sub £25 price before buying

    Looks good but with so much stuff out soon £35+ is to much a gamble for my budget

  • optimusprym8 #48 1 year ago

    I will be trading in the pile of shite that is GT5 for this. That is all

  • optimusprym8 #49 1 year ago

    Although WTF is this BS offer from GAME? Agree to trade TDU2 in before 24th Feb and get guaranteed £35 back :-/
    http://www.game.co.uk/lowdown.aspx?lid=1...

  • Tinrib72 #50 1 year ago

    Really need to know what its like with the Xbox wheel before I commit to ordering..
    Edited by Tinrib72 at 09/02/11 @ 10:19

  • FreakyZoid #51 1 year ago

    That intro movie is brilliant. I can just imagine the guy in his mocap suit having to pretend to dance along to music he can't hear over and over again in different ways.

  • infoxicated #52 1 year ago

    @Oli - if you weren't pandering to the publisher and the devs, why the kiss ass score when it's a driving game which fails at the very core of what it's meant to do - the driving experience. And you said yourself that all the bolt on fluff was disposable.

    Your review reads to me like the game fails in its execution, both as a driving game and in its attempts to be cool.

    Yet you give it a 7/10.

    If Eurogamer can give a great game a "solid 8", then a "pandering 7" has to be the next step down. Otherwise it'd be a 6 or a 5 and you'd properly stick the boot in. Yet you guys rarely ever do.

    Fortunately the score means little to me - the contents of your review have already swayed my decision and I won't be buying it.

  • harrisimo #53 1 year ago

    This site has also shamelessly ripped off part of your review, word for word:

    http://www.gameguidedog.com/game-walkthrough/Test-Drive-Unlimited-2-walkthrough-video-game-guide-PC-PS3-XBOX-360

    The lazy, unethical fucks.

  • Sulphur_Man #54 1 year ago

    "In fact, TDU2 requires careful control of both accelerator and brake to master its persistent understeer"

    Sounds like real driving on real roads to me. 95% of all modern cars will understeer on the limit, usually fairly beningly, sometimes scarily.

    Likewise, GT5's crushing monotony is getting chopped for this bright star

  • TAKEL12 #55 1 year ago

    The plagiarism issue is hilarious!

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #56 1 year ago

    @sven_vath
    I did find the game a bit easier to handle in bonnet view, as it happens, but all its cameras are pretty good (unlike, say, GT's).

  • Mr_Wizard #57 1 year ago

    @harrisimo
    Christ, that GameGuideDog.com site really takes the piss. Has this weird vibe of somehow being auto-generated to attract clicks, yet comment threads there seem to indicate real activity. Love the self-important promotion of the guy that runs it at the bottom of each article too. Wonder what Eurogamer will do...

  • SEVQA #58 1 year ago

    That character select with those dancing zombies was ridiculous, made me wish it was an FPS and they were the targets.

  • neems #59 1 year ago

    @Miths - I know it's not your thing, but I don't suppose you could let us know how it handles with a controller could you? Or indeed anybody I guess, I would be playing the pc version, but I use an Xbox controller. Unless I rent the PS3 version first.

  • Miths #60 1 year ago

    @neems
    Unfortunately I don't have a gamepad available for my PC right now.

  • neems #61 1 year ago

    Ah, fair enough. Thanks anyway.

  • agparrot #62 1 year ago

    I was playing a bit of TDU1 with the bonnet cam last night.

    The main difference between it, and the in-car view, is that it appears to go easier on the game engine - not having to render the interior of the car seems to imbue the experience with a perceptible increase in framerate and game fluidity. It is also far easier to weave between traffic in bonnet-cam, possibly just because the view is centred, rather than from behind the steering wheel.

    This means nothing in the context of TDU2, of course, which apparently has some major differences, handling-wise.

  • darc #63 1 year ago

    Ugh, I can remember being excited when TDU 1 shipped (and being subsequently underwhelmed with the driving) but it seems like they've made every effort to make this game even *less* likeable. That scene in Ibiza looks like The Sims Douchebag Expansion Pack.

    A racing game wherein you "collect" cosmetic surgery? This can only be the work of the devil... or perhaps the greatest prank of all time.

    I'm almost embarrassed that I like cars now.

  • obidanshinobi #64 1 year ago

    Why does the driving in this game remind me of Deadly Premonition ?

  • coolerthannos #65 1 year ago

    @Miths
    I have been playing TDU2 for 2 days now on my xbox360. I have the Xbox360 wireless steering wheel (which by the way has good force feedback) and I can't believe that TDU2 has abysmal force feedback support. The car doesn't feel any bumps or anything. If I go off road with the car nothing happens it stays the same, nor does it get any rumble effects. It just make the steering work like a power steering that's all no other effect. I thought only PC users were having trouble with the force feedback, I can't believe they didn't put proper force feedback.
    However even without the force feedback, I am still having fun with the game.

  • tinners #66 1 year ago

    What's the deal with the casino then? Visions of me winning big so I can get that veyron I always wanted in a game of Texas Hold'em are diminishing after reading you need to pre order it?
    Edited by tinners at 09/02/11 @ 17:22

  • technotica #67 1 year ago

    Here more about the plagiarization:

    http://www.strengthgamer.com/Test_Drive_...

  • Beano #68 1 year ago

    I had the chance to play the PS3 version today and can confirm the car physics are horrible.... absolute rubbish and floaty handling. Graphics were pretty nice and clean... better than expected. But with the cars driving like crap on a stick, this is a no-buy for me.

  • Harmonica #69 1 year ago

    I liked the review but it really needs more meat. I think multiplayer and how the cars handle with a wheel is all anyone who enjoyed the first game cares about. It sounds like multiplayer is as instanced-out as the original, which is what eventually killed it for me. I like racing with friends but the rest of the time, just being able to cane around amongst real people would be good.

    I didn't mind the handling in the first game but if they've mucked about with it that's disappointing.

  • DavidGarfield #70 1 year ago

    GameGuideDog wishes to post our formal apology and retraction notice for the integrity of it's publications as earlier today it was pointed out that we had posted the wrong content both on Examiner.com as well as on our own site which was that of a contributor’s rewritten resource. We have no desire to copy others materials and we were even aware via a copyscape check that the submission was not an authentic review, rather a copy. It was a miss-entered blunder to say the least to pass along the wrong content to get our postings, and again we express our sincerest apologies to both Eurogamer and Examiner.com.

  • Beano #71 1 year ago

    "I didn't mind the handling in the first game but if they've mucked about with it that's disappointing. "

    Me neither - I really liked the first game on 360 and didn't expect a simulation or realism. But they have made the physics and car feel MUCH worse. A shame since it could have been an amazing game if the physics were decent or just fun - right now it feels like a Sims game with a really sloppy racing gamer tacked on.

  • Vedfolner #72 1 year ago

    DLC prior to release = No sale. Too bad, I was really looking forward to this. Although I should probably thank the bloodsucking bastards for saving me the cash.

  • Tricky2050 #73 1 year ago

    They still haven't fixed the staying as a group issue from the first game?!?!? For a game where cruising around with friends is half the fun this is pretty devastating to me. I played the beta and mentioned that there was no force feedback, glad to see they listened.....

    No buy from me unfortunately.

  • neems #74 1 year ago

    Although it's hardly the same sort of game, you might want to check out Fuel, which had a party based free roaming multiplayer. An underrated game in my opinion.

  • ExplodingClown #75 1 year ago

    If this game had Burnout's crashes, it'd be day 1 purchase. Oh and Flatout's driver-through-the-windscreen comedy sadism would be welcome too.

    Actually fuck it, just get Criterion to remake Carmageddon.

  • Munkhee #76 1 year ago

    @SirFuzzyDunlop

    I'd be interested to hear what slider settings you're using for the gmepad? I loved the first TDU, and have been looking forward to this sequel ever since. Having picked up the game yesterday though, I've found the handling to be absolutely atrocious - worse than the first game by some margin (which was bad enough!).

    I test drove all 3 of the starting cars more than once, and have tried all 3 'realism' settings (settled on 'Hardcore'). Chose the Lancia in the end, as that seemed the best of a (very) bad bunch. But the floaty steering and lack of any sense of weight to the cars is utterly ruinous to me. I should point out that I'm using the cockpit view, which it has to be said seems to highlight the handling issues more than the 1st person camera view. But being 'in the car' is all part of the TDU experience to me.

    I *really* want to love this game - the entire setup represents the driving game I've always wanted to play, with open roads, civilian traffic, visiting showrooms, building up a cool collection of cars, multiplayer clubs etc... even the cheesy character and story stuff has a certain degree of charm ;-) But the fact is, with such a poor feeling of actually driving, it's all for nought. Just SO frustrating. I really hope I don't have to wait for TDU3 to see the potential of this game realised...

    /rant over
    Edited by Munkhee at 11/02/11 @ 10:38

  • Munkhee #77 1 year ago

    Thanks for taking the time to respond Fuzzy. Don't worry - I'm not planning to return the game just yet ;-) The ironic thing is that I'll likely put 60 hours into it *despite* the poor handling, as I did with the first game. It just amazes me that this wasn't the first thing they addressed, as you mention. It's especailly annoying given the devloper diary they released bragging about how much work they had done to improve this aspect of the game. Really got my hopes up.

    Such a shame, as I imagine a lot of people not as forgiving us the two of us will simply return the game, or be put off buying it in the first place because of the (justified it has to be said) comments on handling in reviews/forums. All this will mean is lost sales, and the very real chance that the franchise will end with this sequel.

    I really hope they do something to address this via updates, but - being a developer myself - I think this is unlikely, due to the cost involved (on Xbox anyway, where MS have a policy of charging for any update dealing with non-critical issues, to dissuade developers from releasing buggy or incomplete games in the first place), and the fact that any big changes to the handling will have huge ramifications for the balancing of the entire game, affecting target times for events etc. I hope to be proved wrong though of course!
    Edited by Munkhee at 11/02/11 @ 15:57

  • Munkhee #78 1 year ago

    Indeed. There is some hope though - I hear the issues with the servers are due to unexpected high demand. If that's the case, then I hope that Atari (or perhaps another developer/publisher) can see that the demand is out there for this kind of driving experience, and really deliver on the concept in the future. A game that marries GT5 (or even PGR) style driving physics with this kind of open-world environment would be my kind of heaven ;-)
    Edited by Munkhee at 11/02/11 @ 16:55

  • george1976 #79 1 year ago

    In my opinion is a bad game.

  • Harmonica #80 1 year ago

    If anyone is still on the fence about this, there's a handful of us with the game in the forum thread that have been gabbing about it for pages. It's really good fun.

  • superdelphinus #81 1 year ago

    Been playing this a bit today - seems fun but the steering feels almost binary, i.e. either on or off. It means that at slower speeds it handles like a ship and at higher speeds a little change of direction sends you wobbling around everywhere!

  • dr_zoidthrob #82 1 year ago

    Mine, unfortunately, is being returned today. I spent far too long trying to get the Golf to act like a car and not a random direction generator. I might pick it up in the future after a decent-sized handling patch has been released.

    It's not an awful game, just nowhere near as good as it could (and should) have been.

    Such a shame.

  • rumahparfum #83 1 year ago

    yes have a bonnet view.

    Parfum

  • Seansy #84 1 year ago

    Awful game. What a waste of Dance Central and ten quid.

    Screw you Eden, screw you to the core.

  • MinerWilly #85 1 year ago

    Rented it tonight for £1 from Blockbusters , gave it 45 mins . Wont be playing it again , thats the good thing about renting as if id bought it id have had to convince myself i was actually enjoying it whereas i can honestly say its a poor mans Burnout and i didnt like Burnout either . Wish id bought a lottery ticket with my £1 .

  • Bursiene #86 1 year ago

    My cousin bought it and wanted to see what it was like. I still have the original and it looks and plays no different. The graphics are at best average, handling poor and the sound effects are awful. The old amiga test drive 2 game had better engine sound effect than this! Thank god I didn't buy it.

  • HawkFest #87 10 months ago

    I was looking for some car cruising game, where one could just ride on free open roads as much as wanted, with breathtaking sightseeings and such. Ideally it had to be on a sim level more than an arcade game, since this would've also been an occasion for my girl friend to "practice" at driving a car (she just received her driver's license). Yes I know that's not like driving a real car... But at least I could've shown her the differences between under steering and over steering for example, as well as the different adjustments that can be made (e.g. importance of air pressures in tires, etc.). For this I bought the Locgitech Driving Force GT with sequential manual transmission (we have an automatic transmission car anyways, as most cars she will drive - and more over I don't have the correct table top to fix the separate G27's manual transmission gear box : it's a wooden round table).

    So I bought this game, as it seemed to be the only one that does not limit the driving to race tracks (and to super overpowered and unaccessible cars) as well as to allow for free rides on open roads... I didn't have to mess around much for adjusting the steering wheel controls for my Force GT wheel, they were ok right out of the box. However, after having tried it, I am still looking for such an above-mentioned game, since TDU2 does NOT deliver :

    1- There's a futile background story that attempts to force some RPG flavor to your driver's stance. You can't get away from it, you MUST play the role of an underrated groom who's trying to gain the interest of a somewhat whore. Its long, annoying and stupid, trying to show-off in a world of somewhat dumb "newly riches" and their deviant values having invested these paradise islands. The producers wanted to give its customers the impression of "living a dream", but they really missed the point as they are imposing what cars advertisers think about their target audiences (mostly males not man) : nice cars = nice whores you can buy or get (every body is a whore in a world where money is the end-goal)... As such, you begin in a "dream" where all the ladies are in bikini at a pool side party - maybe that's cool for some (mostly for "wannabe-manly Jak-Ass" teenagers who consider the opposite sex as solely this, a "sex" - which is not even true for the majority of teens who don't rely on Disney or Hollywood to get some education), but heck there's a myriad of other "games" offering such a setting which are targeting this niche of customers, so why impose this context in a "driving-a-car game" for all the characters (customers) out there? When I want to drive open roads, I don't want to hang around nor interact with a culturally stupid, limited and deviant characters, let ME enjoy my rides as I wish please, don't sabotage my gaming/driving experience with such irrelevant (and culturally out-of-line) things...

    Here, TDU2 spectacularly misses its target, they should've stick to car driving and everything that goes around it. Personally I hate it when all ladies are ridiculously dressed and acting like Barby-dulls. I could just get over it and drive around, but not my GF : as she says, she just don't want to encourage the creators of such a "retard ambiance reflecting backward mentalities" (*g*)...

    2- When you get your caravan, there's a dresser but nothing in it : you can't get rid of your groom outfit unless you decide to waltz around half-naked. There's no clue at all about this issue. In that sense, the house selling thing (being an RPG factor), is very limited if not irrelevant for the game, is very badly done and we could live without it (to the dev/producers : if you can't get even near nowadays standards - nor yesterday's for that matter -, just don't do it).

    3- About the online system, the creators have put too much expectations on the online community to actually put meat around their own game product : every race I've fumbled onto while driving the open road were either unavailable (frozen while some host was away, or simply closed due to the lack of online players), either created with one sole flavor leaving other possibilities to your imagination, unless you create such a race and wait for other players... And wait.... wait...

    4- The hud menu system (or GUI) is a big mess, not intuitive at all : although its ergonomics are "ok", we just don't know where to look for to improve. At the beginning after you get recruited, there's a message telling that you must acquire a "C4" license... However we don't know where nor how to get it, or when this happens, not at first glance : apart from the little scenarios, there's no documentation nor help system mentioning about the basics and the goals (I bought the game online from Steam - it looks that I'd need to read online documentations, a real immersion braking factor). There's a GPS supposedly telling you what to do and where to go, but after having found my little caravan, I don't know what to do nor where to go (no more GPS "calls" jumping in), all I can find are british resellers offering unaffordable british cars, as well as unaffordable houses, and very limited online races (when they actually work). Do we need to participate in online races to get advancements (more cash when you win, allowing you to acquire another car than the cheap one you get at the beginning, instead of just driving for 100-200 dollars chunks at the risk of loosing those peanuts if you bump a car)?...

    All in all, I'm very disappointed with my buy, I feel like having been fooled : sometimes I can't get to their online servers (even though my connection works flawlessly), and when that happens the game just can't start! Needless to say that even though I can connect, online races are very limited and have bugs (like even though when you're not into a race, you can see other online racers cars oddly jumping around, if not suddenly appearing to your front then your left then rear then back on your right)... All I am looking for is a game where we can drive a car on open roads, with a game engine/interface/controls especially designed around driving a car in a beautiful areas... Forget about the obligation to be online just to drive around, and forget about being able to make your driver walk and interact out of the car with other characters : I play Oblivion for that matter (and will buy Skyrim). Even Far Cry 2 (which permits driving different vehicles) is much better at this...
    Edited by HawkFest at 19/07/11 @ 22:33

  • apple-and-cream #88 7 months ago

    I have found this game very disappointing as well as frustrating. The game has quite a few bugs in it. Also the cars in the game do such stupid things like for example you could be going over a jump and the car starts spiralling in the air and when you go around a corner the car under steers then rolls over. (under steer is when the car wont turn when you turn the steering wheel, over steer is when the car drifts). The opponents in the game are also extremely competitive such as I was doing an event and while i was about to brake to go round a corner I was smashed of the road, the same thing happens on straights. Also their are only 100 cars in the game where as in Gran Turismo 5 there are over 1000. there are also more cars in the previous test drive as well because in this game there is no Lamborghini dealer, less classic cars, no Lexus dealer, and so on and all of these cars are in the previous test dive unlimited. To sum up this game has been of great disappointment and if any one is thinking if buying this game they shall be greatly disappointed and will have buyers remorse from doing so. I would recommend one of the Need For Speed games or the previous Test Drive Unlimited or Gran Turismo 5. i would rate this game 3/10.