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Test Drive Unlimited 2 starts off-road. Not on a dirt-track or rally course (although the game does boast these too), but completely off-road. On the roof of some swanky building in Ibiza, a party is in full swing. There’s a pool, a DJ filling the air with phat beats and buxom babes in bikinis, all basking under the midday sun. Bit early for a party, you might surmise, but it’s your birthday – the perfect excuse for a shindig. After choosing your character – one of the several young hipsters frequenting the event – you head inside to meet a rather attractive looking woman. She leads you into the garage to give you your present: a red Ferrari, gleaming away under the lights of the garage. You open the door and sit down. “Go on, start the engine” she says with a seductive tone, and you turn the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life.
And then you wake up.
In real life you’re but a lowly valet, asleep behind the wheel of a car that your pitiful pay packet could never hope to afford. Its owner (the same woman from your dreams) screams at you, hauling you out of your slumber and dashing your dreams in the process. The woman is pissed off; she’s late for an important meeting and her valet is asleep at the wheel. For some reason though, she seems aware of your ambitions of becoming a race driver, and decides to make the most of the situation. “Get me to the club on time,” she asks “and I’ll get you a spot in the Star Crown Race”. It’s a no brainer. She jumps in, and you put pedal to the metal, weaving through the streets of Ibiza in her shiny Ferrari.
Clearly a much greater emphasis has been placed on story in TDU2, with races and objectives tied into a clichéd rags to riches yarn. While it adds a little depth to the racing experience, the delivery of this narrative is pretty horrendous. Poor character models spout embarrassing lines of dialogue across a variety of cringe-worthy situations. There’s a slightly tongue in cheek charm to it all, but it never escapes the feeling of inadequacy. Still, this is a racing game, and the majority of players won’t be put off the game so long as the driving is of a decent standard. While the few cars I took control of were still in the process of being balanced, the handling certainly felt solid enough.
The game is split across two islands: Ibiza and Oahu – the island from the first game. In total, there’s over 3000km of open road to tear up, which is considerably more than any other racer currently on the market. Across these two islands are a plethora of clubs, garages and properties, all of which can be strolled about in the first person. You can inspect cars from your favourite car manufactures, talk to NPCs in the numerous driving schools and change the furnishings of any buildings you happen to own. This is very much an open world driving game, and the experience is yours to define.
The game is structured around four areas of development; competition, discovery collection and social. The competition side of things is where the real meat of the game can be found, and involves working through a range of competitive challenges across the two islands. You’re quest to become a street racing superstar begins on the lowest rung of the ladder; with no money and a crappy car bought from some dodgy dealer. You’re restricted in what races you can undertake by a license system. That clapped out Mustang, for example, wouldn’t be allowed to take part in a class B race. You’d first need to pass the class B license test, and then save up enough dollar to purchase an appropriate car of that classification. Climbing the ladder looks to be a lengthy process.
There’s nothing particularly interesting about the race circuit, several games over the years have employed a similar structure. It’s the social side of things where TDU2 really starts to shine. Like the original game, a huge emphasis has been placed on online functionality – the seamless blend of single and multiplayer experiences. As you cruise about each island, you’ll notice other players sharing the road with you, going about their own business within the city. When you get close enough, you’ll be presented with an option to challenge that player to a race. Should they agree, you’ll then be taken to an instanced race environment where it’s just you, them, and the road. I kept making the mistake of challenging cars that were clearly much faster than my own, which must have been fairly humorous for the other drivers.
It’s more than just a driving game in the guise of an MMO, however. TDU2 is all about defining yourself within the game world; making a name for yourself in the TDU community. You can purchase clothes and accessories for you character, customise your car with a new paint job and decorate any buildings or yachts you might happen to own. The game prompts you to share this lifestyle with others, with options to invite friends into your buildings where you can then force them to check out your wheels. TDU2 prides itself in being ‘always live’, a feature that isn’t dissimilar to Hot Pursuit’s new Autolog system. As well as letting you know what you’re friends are up to, new content and challenges will be integrated into the game world dynamically, meaning the game is constantly evolving.
With GT5 doing the whole simulation thing, and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit handling the arcade side of things, there’s a worry that TDU2 – which finds itself somewhere in the middle of the two – might get overlooked. Graphically it’s inferior to both, but this is really of no concern. TDU2 is all about a shared racing experience. It’s about making a name for yourself in a persistent world that will go on living long after you’ve stopped playing. Hopefully the core driving mechanics are solid enough to make all these innovations worthwhile.
Test Drive Unlimited 2 is scheduled for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in Q1 2011.
