Test Drive Unlimited 2 (2011) Review #blogpost

Test Drive Unlimited 2 is an open world racing game set on the island of Ibiza and the island of Oahu. It was developed by Eden Games and published by Atari. It was released is 2011, somewhat 5 years after the first Test Drive Unlimited. So, you might be wondering if those 5 years of development has made it better than Forza Horizon. Well… No, because when this game was in development, Atari was running out of money and almost went bankrupt, So I think this game is a bit unfinished, but here’s a review of what they did get finished.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 has 101 cars, ranging from the small “cars of the people” Such as the Citroen 2CV and the Classic Beetle to Super cars like the Ferrari Enzo and like five different Bugatti Veyrons (Looks like someone’s a fanboy). Off-roading was huge part of the game, so there’s also some SUVs in the game as well such as the Land Rover Range Rover Sport HSE and the Volkswagen Touareg. there’s not really any oddball cars except some off-road buggy thing.

The sound of the cars are nothing like real life. It’s as if Eden Games got the sound from one car and just changed it in music editing software like Audacity. And then we get to the driving physics. Lets just say it’s a joke.

When I found out that Test Drive Unlimited was coming, I didn’t go on the internet to look for the car list, because I wanted it do be a surprise. It was a surprise, but a bad one. I thought that there would be about 300 cars. With the amount to time Eden games had, you’d think that 300 would be an alright number that’s achievable.

I would have liked to see more rally cars like the Ford Escort MKI seeing as rally was a huge part of the game and half of the races are rally races, so there should have been more suitable cars to choose from. There should have been for Japanese cars. I counted 4 Japanese cars. I think the game should have included BMW, because it need more sports sedans/Saloons like the M5 and M3. Here in my garage, I don’t have my Lamborghini. I have no idea why Lamborghini was taken out of the game, but it was a stupid decision to do so.

Upgrading was just stupid. Unlike other games, where you install parts, Test drive Unlimited 2 has this weird stage system. The stage system doesn’t let you upgrade the car how you want. What makes the upgrading system even worse is that there’s no tuning options like there is in forza, and that whole area of the game is disappointing.

The idea of having two maps is a brilliant. It means that you can have twice as many races without any of them being repeated. I like that there ain’t any barriers, so you can go buy a Range Rover and go exploring. The quality of the maps are better than most games of the time but its the whole thing of the fact that it took 5 years to get to that point.

To sum up this review, the amount of cars, the upgrading system and the Physics are all disappointing. The Maps and the graphics are great. Overall, I’m going to give this game 6 out of 10 and that purely because the Maps and graphics are the only perfect aspects of the game.