Test Drive Unlimited 2

[Deadlight]

Well I bought this from Steam, but not sure if I'm enjoying it or not!

Rather than making it a driving game (rather than a sim; god, no! Thing is, the Steam forums are full of US-based full-on sim petrol heads whinging that the game isn't that - why the hell did they buy it? Did they it would be a sim, then?) Atari has included a Sim-type (the game 'Sim', not a simulator) sub-game, ie. you can dress your avatar up, and other messing about.

There are other problems too - a lot of pepole can't get the game to run properly. Oh, and there's no DLC, but god, there will be; motorbikes wiill come as DLC, and the car list is woefelly short (there are Ferrari's, but no sniff of a Lambo!) so I'm thinking other cars will be part of DLC too.

For one reason or another, it's seems TDU2 is nothing like what it could of/should have been.

[GheeTsar]

My copy is downloading as a type and have been really looking forward to this game for ages - I loved the first game. Bit worried about the technical issues you mention though.

PS The lambo issue was 'cos they refused to issue the licence to Atari for some reason.

[Terbinator]

Game is utter-toss and they've fixed sod all since TDU.

Give it a miss unless you desperately want to lose £25.

[Andy3536]

Reading this has saved me some money

First game was pretty good too...

[jim]

I thought TDU was crap, hoped this had fixed some of the flaws.

I'm guessing not then. Pity, because it's a great concept.

[GheeTsar]

I've played for 1 hour and I'm pretty disappointed to be honest. It's got a load of potential, but it seems like a step back from TDU1 so far.

[roorooroo]

Yeah, i heard the handling was more like a glider than a car..shame.

[GheeTsar]

Hmmmm. It's certainly getting better, but the NPCs are cringeworthy

[GheeTsar]

If anyone else has this and fancies adding me as a contact - my gamertag is as per my forum username.

[[GSV]Trig]

The boy's gonna be disapointed then if this sucks, he loves TDU and has saved his christmas/pocket money since I told him that this was coming out...

[abaxas]

TDU was a great pick up and play game.

It lived in my PSP for months.

From first look/previews of the 2nd. I wont be buying.

[kalniel]

Over at the official forums (where I'm a moderator, but have no affiliation with Atari) I'm seeing:
- A lot of griping about the handling. I think it's more 'different' than woeful, but it certainly takes a bit of getting used to when you're more familiar with TDU1. If you have a wheel you need to make some adjustments to settings or it's pretty undriveable.
- A lot of the usual new game moaning. I've not seen a recent release where that hasn't happened. Some people are just forum haters I guess
- And remarkably few technical problems. Certainly significantly fewer than happened for the launch of TDU1.

Some of the features have already been taken offline while they patch up exploits that have already been found. Which is either bad news that they didn't discover them before release, or good news that they've already responded so quickly to it.

Some of the code/DLC redemption stuff isn't up and running yet either because it's before the official release date. That's causes some grumbling from people who get the game early, understandably.

I think, so far, that if you're looking for something where you can enjoy the driving model then you'll be disappointed. If you're more into the exploring side (all areas of Oahu and the new island Ibiza are fully explorable now) or collecting or club based events then the handling is a little easier to forgive.

[[GSV]Trig]

Mmmm, if you can drive around in Ferarri's and stuff then the boy will probably be happy enough..

[GheeTsar]

I've not actually had that much issue with the handling. My G25 seemed about right for steering straight off (at least for the bumper cam which I use). Braking is somewhat over-egged though; the pedal response is not very progressive and when you try to slow slightly you can end up coming to a near halt if you are not very careful.

I was a bit disappointed with the performance too - I've had to turn AA off and reduce all of the graphics settings a bit to get a smooth frame rate and that's with an overclocked 5870. Admittedly my E8500 is obviously only dual core, but I'm pretty sure it is well above the recommended spec for the game. While I hope for improved performance from a future patch, I suspect that's my lot for this particular port.

On the plus side, there's no shortage of goals, most of which are pretty fun, and the F.R.I.M. system adds something to driving about outside of an event. (With FRIM the more near misses, drifts and air you get without crashing, the more cash you get, but if you crash it gets reset to 0 with only limited windows of opportunity to bank the cash you've accumulated).

I can't comment much on the community side of things just yet - I've only had a few races where I was up against tuned versions of the same vehicle I was in and then just watched them disappear into the distance, so I'm now going to embark on a search for the relevant car tuner. One thing TDU1 retail edition did come with was a large map showing where tuners etc could be found - TDU2 Steam doesn't even have a manual to download (as yet).

[kalniel]

Lack of map in download products is a known issue that's supposedly being worked on.

Performance wise it does look like it's quite CPU bound, bit like FSX.

[danroyle]

i got it on ps3 yesterday and played around an hour and while it's no sim its not bad alot depends on the car you use i guess, I went for the lancia delta off the start and its not bad i drove the mustang for the first license and that was horrid.


I bought this as i was so fed up with tediousness of Gran turismo that i just wanted a fun arcade style racer and i think it fits the bill perfectly as that so far. Was annoyed my dlc codes wouldnt work yesterday am just about to fire up the ps3 now and see iif they work today.

EDIT currently at 9am my codes dont work