Case of the Wannabees
Test Drive Unlimited 2 was released yesterday (Tuesday, Feb. 8th, 2011) for Xbox360, PS3 and PC. I picked it up for 360. This game is a “value” title priced at only $49.99 instead of the usual $59.99. Unfortunately, if you buy it, you’ll wish they put that extra $10 worth in the game.
TDU2 has a bad case of the wannabees.
- It’s races wanna be Need for Speed
- It’s graphics wanna be current-gen but look like an HD overhaul of last-gen
- It’s radio stations wanna be Grand Theft Auto 4’s
- It’s open world is a wanna be Midnight Club: LA
- It’s voice actors wanna be good but are as bad (or worse) than Just Cause 2
- It’s vehicle decal creator/editor is a wanna be Forza 3 system (yeah right)
- It’s cell phone calling feature is a wanna be NFS: Underground 2 system
- It’s various race types wanna be like NFS: Underground (but can’t)
TDU2 tries to implement all these things, yet falls short on all of them. The car customization is so sparse that players who have played the NFS: Underground series or Forza 3 will be sorely disappointed/underwhelmed.
Need for Speed: Underground is my favorite racing game. Ever.
Though TDU2’s races are a bit more interesting that Forza 3’s boring circuits, they fall short of NFS: Underground’s unbeatable arcade race/drag/drift combo. Even though the NFS: Underground series was released 8 years ago, it still remains the most entertaining racing series of all time IMO. Even playing Forza 3 simply made me wish for a new NFS: Underground w/ a vinyl graphic editor on par w/ Forza 3. Oh to have NFS: Underground 3….. I digress.
One TDU2’s big selling points is the community features. However, many of these features are either currently unavailable or are plagued w/ bugs. Try to enter a multiplayer challenge and you receive a message informing you the TDU2 servers are unavailable. Try to search through the various multiplayer clubs and the game hangs as it attempts to load the list. If you find another racer driving around in the open world and challenge them to a race, 9 times out of 10 they will refuse, which isn’t the developer’s fault, but is still a problem.
One of my biggest beefs w/ TDU2 is when walking around buildings in first-person mode there is no option to invert the Y-axis. Seriously? EVERY game has this option these days.
Overall I can’t recommend this game at its $50 price point, but when it goes down to around $20 it could scratch your racing itch until we see a AAA racing title like Forza 4 or Split/Second 2 released.
