| Publisher: |
Developer: |
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| Infogrames |
Pitbull Syndicate |
Driving |
1 - 2 |
Teen |
Test Drive
Reviewed by: Bagel
Did you enjoy the movie Fast and the Furious? Test Drive will have you at the edge of your seat with the explosive, heart stopping action introduced from drag racing. Don't have a hot import car like the movie? Try out Test Drive to get the Fast and Furious action.
Gameplay: There are many different modes in Test Drive. Starting with Quick Race, which will put you behind the wheel of a car where you will face 5 other opponents. You can also choose between Single Race; inside of Single Race you have – Linear, Circuit, Navigation Challenge, Drag Race, and Cop Chase. In Linear you will go against 5 other cars and race. The Navigation Challenge option, you have a certain amount of time to complete a lap. Drag Race will square you off against an opponent. And in Cop Chase, you are the cop and you must get all the racers before they finish. There’s also a Multiplayer mode thrown in there so you can have fun with a friend, where you will be able to choose between Linear, Circuit, and Drag Race.
The main mode in Test Drive is the Underground mode. Where you are Dennis Black and you must prove yourself by winning races. You will be rewarded with cars along with money for winning the races, as well as unlocking tracks, and cars for the other modes within the game.
The first thing you must do is complete a lap in a certain amount of time, to prove how fast you are. Once you get through with that, basically for the rest of the game all you will do is race, race, and race.
Test Drives AI is using something called Rubber Band AI. Where the opponents will basically stick to you like a rubber band. For instance, if you stop, they stop, if you slow down, they slow down. The point is for the not so “hardcore” gamers, that way if your “not so good” when the race is over you won’t think so bad of yourself, and instead you will say something like “Wow, I guess I didn’t do so bad.”
Graphics: Test Drive looks pretty good, all of the cars look like what they are modeled after, the reflections off the cars look nice, and everything just looks nice and smooth. All of the environments are nicely detailed and look great as well.
The lighting in the game is pretty good, but can become quite a problem in some cases. For instance, at some night time levels, the lighting is a real pain. Many times you will bump into walls, because you didn’t see it, or cars, or poles, things like that. You may think it’s not a big deal but it will be when you notice you just lost the race because of an accidental crash.
Controls: Not much is going on here. Like most racing games, you got your accelerate and brake, you know, the usual. Test Drive isn’t any different.
Replay: There isn’t much replay value in this game, the story mode will take you about a weekend to get through and after that there’s really nothing left. The multiplayer mode helps the game out a little, but that can only last you so long.
Sound: The sound has its pluses and its minuses. On the plus side, the game has a nice sound track featuring Ja Rule, DMX, Saliva, and more. On the minus end, listening to those over and over again can get pretty annoying. You can however, listen to your own soundtrack, but unfortunately you can’t customize the track list, nor can you even listen to more then one soundtrack, only the one you select on the main screen. I can only wish for a little more freedom on the custom soundtracks in the next installment. The sound effects in the game aren’t bad, but aren’t good. The engines sound like crap; producing sounds comparable to a 16 bit racing game. It’s pretty disappointing to have Camaro's and Supra's mixed in a game with completely different sounding engines in real life, but in the game, they sound alike.
Overall Presentation: Test Drive is a pretty cool game, if you’re a fan of arcade style racing games. Definitely give this one nothing more then a rental.
Scores:
Gameplay:  7
Graphics:  8
Controls: 7
Replay:  5
Sound: 7
Total Score:  6.8
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