Test Drive Unlimited
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The look of the game is quite good. You get the feeling that the developers have really taken the time to reproduce reality as closely as possible. It feels like you are in a real place as you drive by small one horse towns amidst jungle expanses, on your way to big city environs. The caveat here is that once you get off the road, the beauty quickly fades. Wandering into yards or tucked away alleys will reveal a bevy of blurry textures and blocky buildings. This is forgivable in such an expansive game, with no load screens to speak of.

Police in pursuit.

The cars are very nicely rendered, displaying an accuracy to their real life counterparts that is quite impressive. You can get a real nice look at them with Unlimited's several different driving viewpoints. We did miss having realistic damage modeling on our cars; a feature which is quite conspicuously absent from all the cars you drive in-game. While the prospect of bashing in the front of a Lambo is not all that appealing, it does seem rather silly to plow into a telephone pole at 170 MPH and see only a shaky screen and a puff of smoke as a result. Strangely enough, AI controlled cars do have destructible parts that come off during a collision.
A note of warning to those with mid-range computers; Unlimited is a bit of a system hog. You are going to need a rig with a good amount of RAM and a fast processor to keep up. That's especially true in detailed areas like some of the larger cities, which feature a lot of cars and activity. Those with less than cutting edge comps might want to try out the Xbox 360 version.

Getting it on.
 

Multiplayer is the core feature of Unlimited. The single player game is really just a means of introducing you to the island and giving you an extra place to earn money. You can race against the computer, but the AI is so absurdly bad that it is not worth it. Computer opponents have a way of veering off the road and crashing before the first lap is even over. Obviously this will give you a huge lead, resulting in very few nail biter finishes. We also disliked the police AI, which seems to ignore any infractions you commit, other than hitting AI-controlled vehicles, which immediately alerts every police car on the island. These police pursuits can become absurd, especially after a large number of AI collisions, when roadblocks and violent encounters start happening between you and the police. To put it succinctly, multiplayer is where it is at in Unlimited. If you are looking for a fun single player racer, look elsewhere.






EverWars.com - You have GOT to play this game!