Test Drive was a driving franchise that was published by Accolade and later Atari all the way back in 1987, it had multiple releases by multiple developers, the last one in the series was called ‘Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends’ developed by Slightly Mad Studios came out to dismal reviews with boring career modes and random difficulty spikes and some performance issues.
The newest Test Drive, called “Test Drive:Unlimited Solar Crown” has been published by Nacon, the people who released the WRC games and Robocop: Rogue City. This game was released on 12th September of this year for all platforms and is set to come out for the switch at a later date.
Before There Was Forza Or Need For Speed
Test Drive has a long and storied past, from being exchanged between multiple publishers due to copyright issues to being discontinued until recently, the Test Drive series has been through it all. This franchise did it first with multiplayer racing before Forza and Need For Speed took the crown.
It also amazed players with its consistent graphics through every iteration, it introduced more complex driving mechanics such as traction control and gear shifting thus invoking a sense of realism, by the sixth game dynamic weather systems and damage modeling was introduced adding more challenge and depth to the series.
There Are Some Limits Being Reached Here
“Test Drive: Unlimited Solar Crown” is the latest in the series, being developed by KT Racing which was bought by Nacon some time ago. Just like Microsoft’s Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport series, it is an open world racing game that takes place in Hong Kong Island.
What is sad to see is that even though the series has been known for its depth of detail, every interior of all the various cars just look the same which is off putting to say the least. Another point of contention is the label of “open world” when you can’t go beyond a certain border, defeating the whole purpose of calling it an “open world” racing game.
The sense of progression is what you’d expect out of any racing game these days, you have to race to earn money and a set amount of reputation to progress the campaign further, with higher reputation you unlock the ability to buy faster, more expensive vehicles compared to the regular slow car you start with.
What is baffling is the set progression from road racing to off-road and then finally performance cars such as supercars or hypercars, meaning the player has to first complete a set amount of road races and then a set amount of off road races before he or she can start racing with performance cars. This kind of progression is, if nothing, a forced endeavor for the player to go through unlike in forza where you are just given the choice from the beginning.
What It Feels Like
The feeling of driving is one of the most important aspects in a racing title yet in a word the feeling of driving in this game feels confusing. It seems to be a combination of a racing simulator and an arcade style of driving akin to what is seen in Need For Speed games. It falls in between the cracks of the two styles, there’s not enough of an arcade feel to make it fun and neither is there enough of a technical side to make it interesting.
Unlike the previous titles this game doesn’t have any damage modeling what this entails is there is no penalty no matter how recklessly you drive and use other cars as cushions at tight corners to win races thus devolving each race into a point to point bumper car fiesta.
This game also suffers from what the franchise’s previous titles suffered from too, the dramatic shift in difficulty. The AI makes no mistakes in races and there are no difficulty settings to encourage the player to try again, this coupled with the awful respawn times for when you do make a mistake and there is no way to restart races.
A Dissatisfied Tester
The only good aspect of the game is the open world, the island of Hong Kong is amazing to explore and the number of races are varied enough but at the same time the mechanical and technical flaws outweigh what could’ve been a worthwhile racing title. Another baffling thing is the lack of any NPCs in the game, the sidewalks are devoid of any civilians doing anything which is in contrast to what Hong Kong really is, a colorful and densely populated cityscape.
This game unfortunately doesn’t do well against what you could get for your money, Forza Horizon, Forza Motorsport, Need For Speed have advanced far beyond where Test Drive had stopped and this latest venture isn’t enough to warrant a choice over the aforementioned.
