If you take a shoebox and paint it like an Aston Martin you won't get a winner driving-sim
However 15 minuttes after starting up the game it was back in it's box n hidden in my collection classified a dud.
About 1 and a half week ago I decided to give it another chance mostly because I hate tossing my money at games I won't play and I could've been mistaken about it (that has happened in the past...I'm sure...I must have...) but lo and behold even though I don't hate it as much now I still consider it a broken game and here's why;
Being a driving-sim the things that matters most has to be the way the cars handle and the way the surroundings respond. Firstly the car models are rather floaty with the TCS activated and even when turned off the car doesn't give you the feeling of driving a vehicle with 4 wheels and cars handle quite the same save for how much it takes for them to spin out - simply put they act like boxes with wheels and both your own car, and the odd car you might hit show this behaviour visually as well - car bowling come to mind.
Secondly this being a game about the love for driving the hawaiian island upon which it takes place is a treacherous place indeed. Driving from one event to the next should be a trek of enjoyment but instead you will be risking your hide even if you try to abide by the traffic laws - at least when there is police cars around (these will show up on your map as red dots).
These will give chase should you drive (way) too fast, collide with other trafficants, or drive dangerously.
This should sound fair enough but if you add the broken AI that will have your gps repeatedly directing you down one-way roads insisting that "you are driving in the wrong direction" should you try to change lanes. Some trafficants will be driving like drunks changing lanes or being unable to make a turn without driving into the opposite lane, and most annoyingly must be the ones stopping before a red light and then beginning to wobble only to back into the car behind (happened to me twice - one of the times I was being rammed by a police vehicle and fined 450 credits!).
The races are little more than getting there first by any means-races as the opposition will behave like they were driving sunday amateur crash instead of pricey pieces of machinery, sure there's time-attack, face-offs, and speeding by a series of phototraps, but none are much fun mostly due to abovementioned physics.
The test before you buy a car and rental options are a nice touch however.
Visually the game is a little bland, the cars look pretty good but the surroundings are a bit dull even if the changing skies (as to hint time passing) is a neat touch. In the game you will be buying houses to hold your car collection garage-wise (and to flat out on your couch looking at your telly showing you a Test Driver-logo) - while these are showing some variations they too suffer from the bland-philter they must've used coding the game.
Cars have a couple of angles to be driven from, 2 outside (so you can pretend it's a big rc-car), 1 drivers seat (with far too little view of the ongoings outside), and one bumper-cam. As I prefer the bonnet cams when playing driving games I was missing that option, and none of the views has a rearview mirror? boo! :p
Menues and general interface is informative but are quite dull and uninspired, and the usage isn't always intuitive.
Engine sounds as well as the general sounds are decent, and the soundtrack is rather good with lots of tunes to choose from - you can even make yourself a favorites list.
As this game was originally developed for the 360 Atari's Melbourne House might've been wiser not to try and cram this onto a ps2 disc, but they did, and it didn't really turn out all that well, which might explain why Ferrari insisted that their cars would only appear in the original version.
After 10hrs I'm at a 13% completion of the game so there's obviously alot to uncover, sadly this will only be more of the same so this game is bound to become one of the games I will dust off and play every now and then for a few hours only to hide it away again - I won't be finishing this anytime soon if ever.