Andy Laub

I realized after returning Gran Turismo 5 that perhaps part of my problem with it is that it just wasn’t the game I was looking for at the time. I like “owning” cars and being able to drive them around, and sometimes it’s nice to be able to do that in a non-competitive, non-track setting. Understandably, this is a feature absent in both the GT and Forza series’. It’s a logical omission; adding in something like that completely changes the scope of the game to something more along of the lines of a free-roaming arcade racer, like Burnout, Need for Speed, or, in this case, Test Drive Unlimited.

I wrote years ago about the original iteration of the game, or the demo, at least, and was not particularly kind:

Test Drive Unlimited is on [this list] for wasting two hours of my life. Those familiar with the demo will realize I played it to the maximum time limit twice, which is indicative of how crack-like it is. I play and play, and all I can think is “I’m totally wasting my time on this,” a feeling reminiscent of Driv3r which (surprise) is from the same company (Atari).

Harsh words, but the game just didn’t do it for me. Still, I really liked the concept (it’s billed as a massively multiplayer online racing game), and with the release of the sequel this past week, the least I could do was give it another chance.

I’m glad I did. Test Drive Unlimited 2 takes the formula from the original game and just adds more stuff – which, in a game where personalization is a big deal, is always a good thing. Most notable is the addition of off-road areas, and the inevitable SUV’s to traverse them. The car list has also expanded, as has the territory you’re able to explore.

Because I haven’t gone back to try the original, I can’t say for sure whether they’ve changed the handling of the cars. Regardless, I’m happy to say that the physics work, and don’t generally get in the way. That may sound like a backhanded compliment, but it is a good thing. There is a lot to like in the world of TDU2. The graphics aren’t anything revolutionary but are still attractive, and every car features a full assortment of driving views (cockpit, roof, chase car, etc). Convertible tops can be raised and lowered, as can windows. The map holds a wide variety of destinations, and when you enter these areas you are able to walk around in first-person view. This is especially interesting in the car dealerships, where you can open the doors and start the engines of the cars for sale.

All in all, it’s a fun enough diversion that I ended up ordering it. I hope I don’t regret that decision, and here’s why: the game, as fun as it is, has a couple of show-stopping bugs that desperately need fixing. One of the two biggest issues is the unstable servers, which causes the game to hang when starting, and if the servers are down the only way to play the game is to disconnect from Xbox Live. This is a big deal for a lot of people, considering the main point of the game is to be able to race online. However, I spent my time in the single player campaign and am somewhat reluctant when it comes to online play, so I didn’t feel as though I was missing out on anything major. Obviously it’s an issue that needs to be fixed, and the TDU2 team is addressing it.

The more frustrating of the two bugs for me is that it’s incredibly easy to end up with a corrupted save game (ask me how I know). TDU2 tends to save very, very frequently – entering a shop, exiting a shop, entering an event, pausing the game, etc, etc. The problem is, when you want to end your session, you need to worry about whether the game is saving or not, and when you press the Guide button (which brings up the system-wide menu on the 360), the game pauses… and saves. If you’re not aware of this, you’ll quit the game in the middle of the saving process and possibly lose your data.

This is a completely ridiculous issue. Listen: I understand that launching a game is stressful on servers, and so I get that there will inevitably be downtime with things like that. However, save data isn’t tied to server activity and therefore this is a problem that never should have made it this far. It’s compounded by the fact that there’s no way to quit the game properly – believe me, I scoured the pause menu in search of a “Quit” option and came up empty-handed, and as a result, I simply quit to the dashboard and ended up losing 3 or 4 hours of gameplay. And do not get me started on having to watch those (unskippable) cutscenes again. Absolutely, mind-blowingly terrible writing.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the issue that has me most worried about resuming my game when it arrives. I’ve been very careful not to quit while the game is saving but I’m paranoid about losing my data again; the sooner they can fix this problem, the sooner I can give Test Drive Unlimited 2 the recommendation it deserves.

So I finally got a chance to sit down and get in some quality time with Gran Turismo 3. Problem is, it doesn’t seem to be an improvement over the plain ol’ GT2. Granted, the graphics and sound are both much improved, but the game play really isn’t. To begin with, it has less camera angles than the previous game. Whereas before you had two third-person views, there is now only one, plus the requisite first-person, in-car view. Problem is, this view is completely inadequate. The camera sits too low and too close behind the car – to the point where the road ahead is sometimes obstructed by your vehicle, usually when a turn is immediately ahead.

Another feature that this game is noticeably lacking is some kind of brightness adjustment. Shaded areas of the track tend to wash out to the point where, again, you can barely tell what’s happening, if at all. I am very pleased with the current settings of our WEGA, and I don’t think it should be necessary to adjust the brightness just for this game. The game I’m comparing this to which shall remain nameless does have brightness options. Thankfully, GT3 does at least have an aspect ratio option.

Game play is up to par with the others in the series, not noticeably different (which is a good thing). What GT has yet to nail down is their segues between races. GT2 had the unavoidable automatic replay. So far in GT3, all I’ve done is the licensing tests, but that’s enough to drive me insane. If you fail one of these, the most awful music ever begins playing, and the game just sits for 5 or 10 seconds before relinquishing control to you. This means that you’ll probably want to pause and restart instead, which is instantaneous. I’d like to see Gran Turismo take note of the not-quite-so-popular Vanishing Point.

See, Vanishing Point has similar tests, but if you run into something that would cause you to fail, the action immediately stops. Two or three options pop up (I think quit, retry, and replay) and the camera begins to pan around the car, so you can see what hit where. You can watch this if you want or you can immediately try again. There’s a bit of ambient music and noise, but it doesn’t sound as though the game is celebrating your defeat.

Overall, GT3 is still a fantastic game, marred by little things that may really irritate some people (ie: me). I may be writing this out of bitterness out of the licensing tests, but the truth is, I really do like the game. I will probably pull out of this mood after those are completed, but these are still issues that shouldn’t show up in a game with these production values. I look forward to seeing how GT4 compares.