Test Drive Unlimited 2 Beta Impressions

Test Drive Unlimited 2 is the sequel to, you guessed it, Test Drive Unlimited brought to you by the fine folks at Atari. Developed by Eden Games, Test Drive Unlimited 2 has a similar vibe as Burnout Paradise as you drive around a city which acts as the hub to all your racing activity. Unlike Burnout, this game takes place in Ibiza, Spain and features real cars. Recently, they had a stress test and invited people to try out to game. Here are my early impressions from my brief time with it.




First thing that I noticed right off the bat is the atrocious user interface. It’s evident that this is a console game and the PC version doesn’t seem to have a made for the PC feel to it. From the ‘press start to play’ main menu, to the please do not turn off your computer while the game saves reminder(really?), every option in the game is navigable by little arrows that you must click an absurd amount of times to pick the right option.



For instance if you want to set your game resolution to 1600X900, from the default 1280X720, you will need to click on this little arrow until you’ve found the right resolution. This goes for everything in this game, from simple game options to navigating customisation options for your cars and avatar.

Yes you heard me correctly, customising your avatar. It seems every game these days seem to be going down the persistent user character route. In TDU2, you can have a cosmetic surgery(which is just the usual changing the look of your avatar) to getting a haircut. Yes the hairstylists here in TDU2 Ibiza can give your avatar long hair magically. If only we had that in real life, we’d have many balding men really happy.

Dr. Riviera's Cosmetic Surgery Clinic

Giving character customisation a whole new meaning

I’ve got to tell you about this crazy cosmetic surgery clinic. It’s bloody creepy, it’s got the modern looking clinic right down to the creepy surgeon in it(oh Dr. Riviera). After you’ve made changes to your avatars looks, the surgeon closes in on you with this blade and your avatars face gets bandaged. It’s disturbing and creepy. Few games have ever made me squirm, and TDU2 manages to do this with the going under the knife avatar customisation. Which is odd that a racing game would ever do this to me.

There are many points of interest on the map, such as Dr. Riviera’s cosmetic surgery clinic to shops where you can buy cars to even your own home where you can house all your cars in your garage. When you go into these locations, you are in first person mode. You’ll be reminded of the awful user interface here again. You can’t use the WASD keys to control your movement, but instead use the arrow keys on the keypad.

The multiplayer lobby is pretty neat. Look virtual cars with virtual people!

There’s some really neat concepts here, like when you join a multiplayer event, you and your opponents line up on the road much like to a street race in place of a boring multiplayer lobby. Single Player and Multiplayer challenges are in the same world map and you can drop in and out of them easily(maybe not out, I’ll explain about this shortly). You will be using your GPS map all the time, looking for events and locations to upgrade your stuff.

The in game hud map is a little bit on the small side to make any sense of your surrounding, but luckily the GPS map is really nifty as it lets you immediately load to any location on the map. All you need to do is right click and select go there and voila! No need to drive all the way there looking up the map to make sure you’re on the right route.

It's a very BIG game world! A lot variety.

In the free ride mode(where you’re just roaming the open world of Ibiza), you can earn money by doing things like sliding/drifting around or by driving really fast and having near misses with other vehicles. You can chain these up in a combo to earn even more money.

TDU2s got a Grand Theft Auto like traffic offense system whereby if you get the attention of the police enforcers, by doing traffic offence in front of the police or like hitting police cars(yeah that’d get their attention), you initiate a chase sequence where the police cars go after you much like in a Need For Speed Hot Pursuit game(but without the over the top helicopters and what not). If you get caught, it looks like you might just have to pay in game money to them and gain some notoriety points. It’s unclear exactly how these add up in the beta.



There’s this very cool instance where the police calls you up on your mobile and requests you to chase down a reckless driver who is another human player. While seriously I wouldn’t want the police where I live calling me up every time they have a reckless driver problem in real life, but this is still pretty neat.

This multiplayer instance then ‘auto magically’(I don’t know who coined this term, but it’s apt here) transforms all the human player cars(I think there is about 8 human player that become the police) into fast cop super cars and the offending drivers gets what looks like a fast open wheel race car.

Oh and another thing about the user interface, when you’re in your car, you cant use your mouse. You can accept these police calls by pressing enter, but you cant cancel them! This is a major problem if you want to drop out of an event you’re in, and you cant use your mouse to select the cancel button on the bottom of the screen. What were they thinking?



The Ibiza world map in TDU2 is exquisitely detailed. I don’t know how realistic this is, but it looks pretty damn realistic to me. The world map has a variety of environment types, vegetation's, trees, various terrain types from sea side yachting heavens to country side farmland, it is an absolute feast for the eye. There are also off road routes as well for all you off road racing junkies.

Expect the environment to change as you drive along the roads, with realistic vegetation, and geographic  formations. Again, I don’t know how realistic this Ibiza is compared to the real world location, but I was really impressed by the work they have put into making a believable looking world. It’s a pleasure driving your car and speeding down a long straight. The graphics look great, but maybe not as sharp as a triple A EA game, or a Forza Motorsport.



Test Drive Unlimited 2 doesn’t handle as smoothly as Burnout Paradise and controlling your cars feel a little too responsive using the keyboard controls. I'm assuming that enthusiasts that use a racing wheel would get a better driving experience in TDU2. It’s still not simulation territory, but a mix between arcadey controls with some simmy feeling controls.

Having said all that, this is merely an impression from a beta, so keep in mind, things could change. If they solved the user interface issues for the PC version and perhaps made managing your character and cars a little easier(instead of needing to go to your house and other places on the map just to do these things), Test Drive Unlimited 2 could be a an interesting choice for racing game fans.Test Drive Unlimited 2 is targeted for a Q1 2011 release for the PC, PS3, and XBOX360.

Just because it features Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, The Test Drive Unlimited 2 E3 Trailer

NOTE: This impression is based off a beta version of the game. Things could change as release date closes in on the game.