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Test Drive Preview

By Miguel Lopez, GameSpotPosted Apr 4, 2002 6:07 pm PT

We get a playable PS2 build of the classic series' latest iteration.

All muscle cars should be cherry red.

The Test Drive series has seen more than a dozen iterations on almost every platform imaginable. For a good chunk of its early years, it was considered to be the premier racing game on the PC. Times have changed in the racing arena, no doubt, and, if its latest incarnation is any indication, so has the Test Drive series. The PS2 version of the game--which is titled, simply, Test Drive--is bringing more of the same off-the-handle arcade-racing gameplay you've come to associate with the series as of late and slapping something of a character-driven story in front of it. Nothing highly ambitious (nor intrusive), really, but rather just a set of faces that provide banter to pad the prerace sequences and help set the tone for the series of races you'll engage in. Think of characters like those in SSX, and you'll be pretty close. Test Drive's characters, though, adhere a bit more closely to cartoonish archetypes, which, depending on your attitude, may make them that much more amusing.

At its core, though, Test Drive is all about fast and explosive arcade-style racing, with an emphasis on the handbrake. You'll get to drive more than 20 cars, both domestic and exotic, and abuse them with impunity. Once you become a fairly established underground street racer, your "stable" will be equipped with things like '68 Mustangs, Pontiac GTOs, Dodge Vipers, Lotus Esprits, Corvettes, Jaguar XK-Rs, Plymouth 'Cudas, Dodge Chargers, and many others. The mix seems to be just about even, in regards to classic domestics versus modern and concept exotics, which should satisfy those of either inclination. The courses on which your races will be set are almost as varied--they'll take place in four basic locations, each of which will house several different track configurations. The four locations are San Francisco, Tokyo, Monaco, and London, and they're all quite faithfully modeled in real time. Entire neighborhoods have been re-created, and you'll find them full of notable landmarks that you'll recognize, if you're familiar with the area. San Francisco's races, for instance, have you traveling through many different parts of the winding, hilly city, from the bayside Embarcadero area, all the way through the financial district, into the marina, and all the way onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything is rendered to scale, and, even in this prefinal state, it all looks quite nice when things are moving along at a brisk rate.

The police will make a nuisance of themselves as always.

You'll engage in a few different types of races. Most will be lap-based, in the traditional sense, but a good few will be linear stretches. You'll even encounter the occasional drag race, during which you'll be forced to use a manual transmission. You'll want to maximize your acceleration by mastering the shift envelope for your particular car anyway, so being forced to use this option is certainly a good thing. In most races, your employer--the mysterious Mr. Clark--will require you to place in the top three, in order to proceed, though, in some special cases, the requirements are a bit more stringent. Clark is a demanding employer. Make no mistake, though--if you do him right, you'll be nicely rewarded. He's quite rich, and he'll stock his garage with all manner of new rides as you progress through the races in his stead.

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