With this sequel, very little has changed. 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. 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). They've done it with more polish and panache, better graphics, more nuanced and rewarding handling, more consistency and, most importantly perhaps, more players.īut they don't have its heart, and they don't have its breathtaking horizons. 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.Įach 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. 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.
