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Platform
Xbox
Genre
Racing
Publisher
Atari
Developer
Pitbull Syndicate
ESRB
T (Teen)
Released
Q2 2002
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- Get to drive 1960s-70s muscle
cars you were too young to drive when they first roamed the
streets
- Takes advantage of Xbox soundtrack feature if you, like me,
don't care much for Ja Rule tunes
- When the speed gauge reads you're flying at 200 mph, it
actually feels that way
- Tight and responsive driving control scheme
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- CPU AI needs improvement
- Never feel like you're driving with the power packed under the
hood of muscle cars because of sub-par engine sounds
- Soundtrack during races becomes too repetitive and no option
to select which song you want to drive to
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Review: Test Drive Off-Road Wide Open (XBox)
Review: Test Drive (Playstation 2)
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Test
Drive
Score: 8.1 / 10
Okay, you can’t play (or won’t be able to
anytime soon, thanks to the PlayStation exclusivity deal) Grand Theft
Auto III on an Xbox. But with Project Gotham Racing (PGR), RalliSport
Challenge (RSC), and Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions, the Xbox has some
really top-notch games for fans of the genre to get revved up about. Add
one more to that collection of solid Xbox drivers with the latest to
motor onto the Microsoft system, Test Drive (TD). Now, the Test Drive
arcade racing series has been hanging around the console market for
quite a while, with the latest release being Test Drive 6 on the
PlayStation two years ago. After the ill-advised attempt to take the
series off-road last year (Test Drive Off-Road Wide Open) on first the
PS2 and then the Xbox, TD restarts the series’ odometer at 0 and turns a
new corner by successfully returning to its arcade street racing roots.
The earlier Test Drive games focused on arcade-style racing instead of
the simulation-based driving made famous and perfected by the Gran
Turismo series on the PlayStation and PS2. Which meant not worrying
about if your tires would provide the proper grip and braking needed for
a particular race and instead concentrating on illegal high-speed racing
through city locales, avoiding the police and the heavy traffic patterns
trying to slow you down. This is where TD returns
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cars of years gone by including a customized Camaro, GTO, and Chevelle
in addition to some older and newer Corvettes, Mustangs, and Vipers.
Also available are some exotic cars ranging from the Shelby Cobra to the
Jaguar XJ220 and XKR. The cars and the levels of San Francisco, Tokyo,
London, and Monte Carlo that you race through are accurately detailed,
much better than what appears in TD’s PS2 version. Even though
graphically TD isn’t as polished as PGR, the game takes advantage of the
rendering abilities of the Xbox, with the cars having that metallic
shininess and closer attention to minute detail.
The levels you traverse in the dream machine of your choice are of a
satisfactory length, although London is much shorter than the other
three. Rain, nighttime racing, and fog effects all add a pinch of
realism to TD’s arcade racing action. A missing touch is any type of
damage inflicted on your ride. You can smash the hell out of your TD
power vehicle and nary a scratch will turn up. This is in direct
contrast to PGR, where damage appears in the form of twisted fenders,
crushed side mirrors, and a malformed chassis depending on how much
crashing you do. Considering that ramming into your opponents and
interfering police vehicles is part of TD’s charm, it would have been
nice to have some type of vehicle damage gauge factor into the gameplay.
One of TD’s best features is the tight and responsive driving controls,
set up identically to PGR’s with the left analog stick handling the
steering and the two triggers serving as the brakes and accelerator. The
controls handle much better than PGR however, because in TD all you
worry about is driving instead of PGR’s kudos scoring system, which
relies on a lot of sliding through turns. In TD, you will be comfortable
with its control schematics after only a race or two. Another
improvement over the PS2 version is the quicker load times between
races. To alleviate the waiting period, there’s a mini game of the
classic game Pong to entertain you. But since most Xbox load times will
only be approximately 5-10 seconds at most, don’t count on getting
hooked on Pong anytime soon.
A big plus with TD is the many different modes, both single-player and
multiplayer. The main component of the game is the underground story
mode. You take the persona of Dennis Black, hotshot street racer hired
to take the place of Donald Clark, the mysterious recovering-from-injury
driver in the illegal worldwide underground racing circuit. The
underground mode story is actually better than you may expect, keeping
you coming back for more fun racing action. Each of the almost 50 races
that make up the underground story mode get you closer and closer to
Clark’s true motive for hiring you. There’s also a circuit race, linear
race, multiplayer, and once you unlock them, a drag race and cop chase
mode. You can’t win actual pink slips from your adversary, but the drag
race mode brings some bragging rights gaming to your Xbox and comes in
handy for quick home dispute settling. (Tired of arguing who’s turn it
is to do the dishes? Pop in Test Drive and drag it out, the loser in
store for a Palmolive hand soaking.) Another Test Drive tradition is the
cop chase mode, where you take on the role of one of the police car
drivers that try to stop you in the underground mode. Your objective is
to track down and pull over six illegal Test Drivers before they reach
the finish line.
Music featured in the game comes from some big-name artists, including
Moby, Ja Rule, and DMX. Unfortunately for me, that strays from most of
my musical tastes, and compounding this is the fact that only one song
plays for each of the levels, continually looping until you complete
that particular level. Even worse, you have no control over which song
plays during your driving. But all is not lost for gamers like me who
aren’t fans of many of TD’s musical acts. More and more games are taking
advantage of the Xbox soundtrack feature, where you can rip your own
favorite tunes to play during your gaming time. Fortunately for me, TD
is one of these titles. But if you can get down and funky with Ja Rule,
Moby, or DMX, Test Drive has a varied selection of tunage for your
listening pleasure. One little disappointment was the sound effects of
the car’s engines. Most of them are inadequately low-key, not what you
would expect to hear from vehicles motoring upwards of 200 miles per
hour. By the way, especially when zooming at close to 200 in Tokyo, you
really can get the exhilarating feeling of furious fast speed thanks to
TD’s high frame-rate.
The audio effects heard when you pass other vehicles, especially in
tunnels or enclosed roadways, were a pleasant surprise. One audio
element that can become particularly grating is the phrases thrown your
way in the underground mode by your opponents when either they pass you
or you pass them on the way to the finish line. They become highly
repetitious, especially if you continually jockey between positions
during the race. In one unbearable Tokyo race, within a minute time
span, the underground opponent that kept on overtaking me, let loose
with the same exact comment at least 10 (TEN!) times. It almost made me
want to ditch the goal of finishing first and ram full-force into his
car just to shut him up. But otherwise, the dialogue of the underground
mode, while a little stereotypical to each character’s persona and
slightly over-the-top, moves along TD’s single-player gameplay at an
intentionally black-humorous and amusing pace.
Two factors really detract from all the good stuff under Test Drive’s
hood. First off is the game’s artificial intelligence of the competing
racers, primarily in the underground mode. You can have all the
competing cars in front of you, especially after you crash. But if you
look closely, even if you take 30 seconds to get your bearings right
again, the game’s AI will actually slow the other racer’s cars down to a
crawl until you can get within range of them again. I can guess that the
developers did this to make sure you never completely fall out of a
race, but it can be almost downright ridiculous. These are supposed to
be cutthroat racing opponents but instead they act like sympathetic
buddies. (You can almost imagine them saying to each other "Hey
everybody, let’s wait for up for Dennis!”) I’d rather have a better and
faster car at my disposal and improve my driving skills to compensate
for the inevitable crash or mishap suffered while learning how to race a
particular track than have the AI take pity on me for my driving
misfortunes.
It would have also elongated the somewhat short underground mode by
requiring more dedication to becoming a better driver instead of having
the AI’s help. And finally, I was severely disappointed in the
multiplayer mode of the game. While PGR allows for four player races, TD
supports only two competitors. With the excellent frame-rate and
anti-aliasing that saturates the Xbox version of TD, it is inexcusable
not having the opportunity to race against more than one human
competitor. The single multiplayer mode that doesn’t suffer because of
this is the drag race, which can only support two players anyway.
Weak CPU AI through most of the game is what really holds Test Drive
back from being a Ferrari amongst Xbox racing games. Also Test Drive’s
underground story mode is a little on the short side, but it’s a gas
while it lasts. The novel cop chase mode is another nice touch and any
fan of the movie “The Fast And The Furious” will get some decent replay
value out of the drag race mode. Even though it isn’t on the same
overall quality level as either PGR or RSC, TD is another good addition
now parked in the Xbox driving game garage. Xbox owners looking for more
of a smash-‘em-up arcade racer that satisfies the need for speed and
destruction compared to the truer simulation-type racers that PGR and
RSC tend to be, should steer Test Drive’s way.
- Lee Cieniawa
lcieniawa@armchairmepire.com
(July 10, 2002) |
