As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Eden
Platform: Xbox 360
Rated: Teen
Released: February 8, 2011
Visuals:
The visuals for Test Drive: Unlimited 2 are good but not great at all, I personally did not like the detail to the cars in this game to me they looked a little to cartoon-ish and not just the cars that I drove but even the non-playable-cars as well and I to did not like that one bit and their is damage that will appear on your car an you will even lose a bumper or two. Now the one thing that I did love about the visuals are the detail to the environments and I liked the use of the lighting and the right use of brightness that was used to make the environments really nice and lush which is the one great thing about this game and the absolute worst thing in this game that I had to look at was the detail to the character's in this game, they are the worst and they seem to be a mix between The Sims and from the last gen game's that were on the the original X-box and PS2 and for this day and age that can be a good thing but in this case it was not and it is the only one of the few things that I did not like in this game. So in short the detail to the cars and the character's could've been been better. Oh I almost forgot about in this game in the visuals is that the day/night cycles are ok and the weather change and effects are good but seem to old school to me.
Audio:
Now the audio in Test Drive: Unlimited 2, well where do I start on this part of the game, the sound of the cars or the voice work. I think I'll talk about the sounds of the cars which to me did not sound authentic enough unlike some other racing/driving simulator's I simply did not like the sounds the cars made at all. Now the voice work is just horrible I heard better voice over work in a Jakie Chan film that was dubbed into English and that is saying much, so simply the voice work really suck's in this game. Now I'll talk about the music in this game and the music in this game is not bad but it's not great either and it still is good and I did like it any way and it is probably one of the few things that I did like in this game and their is not much variety of music and stations to choose from though and on the radio are only two station's one just play's dance, house, euro and some pop and the other station just play's rock and not any good music and some of the commercial's you might hear in this game are ok. So to sum up the audio in this game it is ok and nothing to get excited over.
Game-play:
Well what can I say about the game-play in this game and here it is I find it absolutely boring and too simplistic, I did like like the fact that the control's are easy to use so that is a really good thing for this title, and now with that being said I'm going to mention that I personally did not like the handling of the cars and to me they just did not handle right. I also did not like what my guess was suppose to be a tutorial with that was a brief free ride session that took place which was lame and not fun at all, plus it took about an hour to actually get to some sort of racing which by the way is fun when I got my hand's on some racing in this game and I did like the racing but still I did not like the handling of the car's which rendered the fun for me, and I also did not like this open world aspect cause it took forever to get to the location's of my objective's and then I figured out the fast travel action which I really loved just for the fact that I did not have go through all the lame and boring driving just to get from point A to point B.
The last thing I will mention that I did not like about some of the mechanic's in the game is the fact that when you it a guard rail or any kind of pole and telephone pole never gets knocked over and when you do hit it you just pounce off of it and the same goes for anything else you hit you just pounce off it like a pin ball machine which I hated so much cause I do like like my realistic racer's/driving simulator games and this game-play is more of a arcadic racer. The damage to most of the car are only cosmetic which was ok but still not as great as some of the other racers out their.
The story to this game is just lame and boring it is very simplistic as once you are done with race circuit you have to wait for a phone call to get your next objective which by the way would be to either get your next license so you can get your next race circuit unlocked which buy the way makes this game boring but again fun when you actually do the race's in this game but I just don't like the free roam aspect in this title. I have one last thing that I do not like at all about this game and I do not know if it was in the last Test Drive or not but I did not like how the game automatically connect's you to the community in the free roam part of the single player which I found it completely annoying but it did not render my experience with it but I still did not like that aspect of the game but maybe some of you out their does like this feature, but for me I do not like it at all.
Now I'll talk about the customization in this game and some of the other aspects to this game now if you are in to customization in game's and their seems to be enough in this game to customize from your character and cars all the way the houses you can purchase and you own almost everything in this game from cars, clothes and even home's but as soon as earn enough cash from racing, but the customization seems to be cool enough for the one's who like that in game's like this. Their is one more feature that I think is cool and that is their is a meter in thi game called the (F.R.I.M) meter which it allow's you to bank cash from any close miss's from dodging on coming traffic and avoiding the cars that are going in the same direction as you and it tracks for jumps and and some other this but do not go of the road and you could lose the cash you built up if you are not ready to bank but you could still bank the cash at any point just as long as you do not go off the road.
Multi-player:
Now the multi-player in Test Drive: Unlimited 2 is ok since it basically put's you right in to the multi-player while you are in your own single player free roam, I have never played a MMO but I know what they are like and this game while you are in your own free roam basically turn's into a driving MMO simulator more than just a regular driving sim, but enough about that. I'm going to talk about some of the modes and one of them is a Challenge Editor which is basically what it sounds like and in this mode you can create challenges for other player's to compete in which is pretty cool but may not be for everyone. There are some good multi-player game mode's which I'll tell you about right now and they are instant action which is what mean's, you can create you own club or join one which can allow you to have club v.s club which can be fun, their is follow the leader, keep your distance and police chase which is fun trying to out run the cops. So simply challenge the world in multiple way's on line.
Overall:
So the overall point on Test Drive: Unlimited 2 is the fact that this is a hard sell for me cause of some of the problem's I found with it and for the price on this title it is worth picking up, but you should still wait for it to drop it's price a little bit before checking it out even though the price tag on this game basically hover's on the line of being a budget title. So in short good visual's, decent enough sound and the single player is a little boring and the Multi-player is fun and it has some lag and server issue's.
7 out of 10