Test Drive Unlimited 2

[BaronSqwelch]

One review mentioned that some achievements can only be done if you have the preordered casino game. I think I'll go for getting the full 1000 on the first one before I think about this one.

wonder which ones? the 1000g seems obtainable without it looking at the list...it does add
195 extra points tho. am quite hyped for this now, got a fair few friends buying it too so online will hopefully be good!

mine is enroute from HMV so hopefully arrives tomorrow as I am off to Blackpool for the weekend!!

[Jei]

My 360 copy from Zavvi (of all places) arrived today and I'm really enjoying it. My experience is from someone who overlooked TDU 1 btw.

Haven't had much time on the multiplayer side of things as the TDU servers seem to have been tempremental to say the least. Although I can forgive that seeing as the official release date it tomorrow anyway.

Single Player is striking me as what I always imagined a next gen Need for Speed would be like. (I'm basing this on the original 3DO version). The game starts with you selecting your character from a small selection of about 6 but don't worry you can subject your player to a whole mass of plastic surgery later in the game. Yes you did read that right! There is a nice little background story to your player but I'll leave that out.

After choosing your character its straight into the driving license phase. Its a much more cut down and enjoyable version of the Gran Turismo type and is split between Asphalt, Off road and Classic. Once you have your first license and car its as you'd expect and you're free to do whatever you want.

Each single player championship requires a car from a specific class. For example the Asphalt Class has around 7-8 different ones numbered A1-A8, each requiring a matching car class. Similar to GT in that respect. Complete the championship and it unlocks a higher version of it to gain you more money, exp and also the ability to beat the rivial in that championships car at the end of it.

I took a side mission pretty early on where this woman asked me if I could take her Aston Martin DBS (I think) for a service. Had to get it there with as little damage as possible, each small scrape taking money off the fee. The difference in driving that compared to my Lancia was unreal, foot to the floor and it was spin central

Multiplayer is obviously where this game shines (I'll be setting up an NTSC-UK club in the morning!) But until I've experienced more of it I'm witholding opinion unless there's something specific someone wants to know. What I've experienced up to now is you can either approach another user that's driving around, flash your headlights which engages a quick battle (a bit like tokyo highway). The wager on the race is set in the options so its a nice quick way of just blasting through and earning some cash.

The other way is there are predetermined courses on the map that you can go to and wait in an online lobby for other users. Whilst waiting you walk around like in the sims with your cars waiting, emotes etc are all here including the option to get in your car and rev the nuts off it. Something someone did to me when I challenged a guy in a Ferrari in my Lancia. I lost obviously but it was a kind of "oh crap" moment when he fired it up!

Races I've seen up to now are straight up race to the finish line, fastest in a series of speed cameras, maintain the highest speed throughout, follow the leader, keep distance and the usual time trial etc.

Overall it doesn't have the finesse of GT or the flashiness of some of the NFS series but its not let me down with what I expected. An enjoyable racer with decent multiplayer elements, not too much sim and not too much arcade. It kinda sits right in the middle!

I don't normally do First Play posts so sorry if this is a bore, if however anyone wants to know more I'll gladly continue

Oh and my username on it is Jeimuzu if anyone wants to add

[Family Fry]

Zavvi pre order codes should be sent tomorrow.
Got my copy today and done the first driving test, story is a bit odd but at least it will move things forward. It's nice to see the map is pretty big again, I can't wait to zoom all around the Ibiza.

[Largo]

how does it play, is it GT realism or NFS arcady drifty?

[Jei]

There are 3 different handling settings you choose early on, 1 is with all handling aids on, then there is sport and hardcore.

I chose sport because I want a bit of realism but nothing over the top.

I'd personally say what I've experienced is that its a fine mix of the two. You can tell a huge difference between cars and like when I did the side mission with the aston martin my entire driving style had to change from the FWD car I'd be playing in the hour or so before.

For reference I thought the handling in hot pursuit was awful, not even arcady. I think TDU2 can be whichever u want deciding on which setting you choose.

[Family Fry]

Not having used any other car other than the 1st one I bought (which totally escapes me) I would put it more into a trying to be realistic handling category but with arcade overtones in the gameplay. The handling may not be as spot on as GT (haven't played GT since GT3.) but is certainly not as arcady and throwabout as NFS:HP, when you start a race if you hammer down on the acceleration hard you will wheelspin to hell.
The handling can also be changed via the 3 types of driving aids you can pick, one of them turns all of them off I believe, I went for sports type which is kind of in the middle has a few things off and a few things on, isn't too bad and you can switch these on/off anytime whilst playing. About the arcade overtones, you also have a F.R.I.M (Free Ride Instant Money) meter that rewards you for taking risks on the road in Free Ride mode, you get a X-multiplyer with the more risks you take, you can choose to bank the ammount gained at intervals or venture on for more money, although if you crash you loose the cash you could have banked.

[davek22]

I just bought the PS3 version from Gamestation. I hadn't pre ordered but they gave me the Casino code anyway as they had only had 2 pre orders for PS3 and were sent 10 copies of the Casino codes. Just a heads up as the Casino pack is £7 on PSN.
They also said they had 17 360 pre orders but only received 10 360 codes. Figures!

[Jei]

Well despite what I was saying about this yesterday I've just come back from trading it in.

Today started with online yet again being a mess. The entire club feature is still blocked out on the 360 version due to a bug with it (according to the official forums) and the multiplayer games are touch and go and best. One minute the servers working the next its not.

Sooo, I get my casino code and go to the casino. Everythings fine at first then random games stop half way through, everyone in the group gets booted out and any winnings are lost. Official forum answer - casino working intermittently on 360 version.

To make it worse I even won the bloody Audi R8 on the slot machine to be greeted with "a unknown error has occurred".....great! So I go play a bit of black ops and then go back to it later in the day.

Guess what ...... Save file corrupt. Official forum answer - start again with new character. Known bug on 360 version.

I don't pay 35 quid to be a beta tester. Great prospects with this game but I'm tired of this generation and lazy developers releasing things that aren't ready.

[Anpanman]

I don't pay 35 quid to be a beta tester. Great prospects with this game but I'm tired of this generation and lazy developers releasing things that aren't ready.

This has been voiced before, bloody ridiculous that stuff like this is released.

If there is a bug that crashes the game when say driving one particular car at one particular point in the game whilst pressing a certain combination of buttons with one hand whilst sticking your finger up your arse with the other then it's understandable that particular error won't be found but for ***ks sake how can they not find bugs like that or notice that the framerate goes down to 10fps when driving in a tunnel as I'm hearing elsewhere.

I was looking forward to picking this up 1st hand in a couple of months, now I probably won't get second hand.
Pop-up, ropey graphics I'm more than happy to put up with but huge drops in framerate and software that falls over more than Excel v4.0 or Access v1.0 then forget it.

[Jei]

As you can tell from page 2 I was really optimistic and excited about it but its unforgivable IMO to release something to the general public in this state.

A quick look at the official forum shows stickied threads about corrupt save games where the admin are ASKING us to post every little detail about what we were doing before it corrupted. There's no set thing anyone is doing yet the only answer is that it is "being looked into"

The casino bug is even more common as the day has progressed with more and more people on various platforms experiencing the same and to actually LOCK OUT places on the map like clubs because the servers aren't ready is an absolute joke.

Atari Atari Atari, such a shame

[englishbob]

Even the usually over-keen Sun newspaper gave this a 3 out of 5.

[MartyG]

After putting in about 3 hours, I think I prefer the first game. That was about collecting the cars mostly and driving about the island. The whole story thing and having to go down this race path just seems to go against what TDU is meant to be about - driving the cars.

That said, I'm liking the off-road stuff, but it really isn't grabbing me like the previous game did.

[arcnas]

Ive done about 10 hours the story dosent bother me, and im still liking it, just landed on the second island hawaii, so hope it feels different to ibiza, but i prefer this to GT5 so it cant be all bad.

[Olly C]

I've put in maybe 25 hours, through all of the connections issues etc, the voice acting and story are pretty terrible but that doesnt bother me, love driving around and doing things, have 7 friends that have the game too and the more they fix the connectivity issues the better it gets

I loved the original game and this is more of the same but better, the offroading is a blast in the right vehicle and bombing down the open roads in my Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport is as fun as expected!

I've been frustrated with alot of the issues but I've stuck with it, my mates are the same and they are all enjoying the game too..

[Neon Ignition]

I'm gonna give it a fair chance given the size of the game but so far it has some significant issues and bad design decisions that are making it a real chore at times.