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The story begins travelling to the Island of Oahu, Hawaii. The
Island is dedicated to the sole purpose of racing fast cars.
Following-on from the Xbox360 release of the same name; the player
can drive anywhere on the
 Island finding Events on the way. These
events consist of racing against a single car, racing against a
number of cars, doing the fastest speed past speed cameras and doing
time trials. There are also invites to Car Clubs where, if you beat
all of the members, you become president of the club and receive a
bonus; either a new car or a free upgrade for a car.
As the name of the game suggests, you are able to test drive any car
from any dealer on the island. If you like the car and have enough
money then you have the option to purchase it. This is a very nice
feature as you can compare cars’ performance before making the
choice, or you can simply keep testing out cars with no commitment
to buy.
The first task when you reach the Island is to buy a property to
store your cars and to buy a car. When you purchase the property it
becomes the games’ HUB, where messages are received. These messages
invite you to Car Clubs and let you know when you have won either a
car or an upgrade.
There are car dealers situated all around the Island. You don’t have
much money to start with so you need to buy a lower class car and
work-your-way-up by winning events and buying better and faster
cars.
With a wide variety of Events to compete in, it’ll take some time
for the player to realise the full-extent of the title. The car
handling varies dramatically as
Test Drive: Unlimited tries to find some middle-ground niche
between Arcade and Simulation; and it does well to find a sweet-spot
offering enough of a difference, yet still running on gut reflex
Analogue Stick reactions.
At all times, the player must drive the car across the island to the
start line of the race, but if you have driven over a
 section of
road already then you can select a spot to immediately place your
vehicle using the Map feature. This feature saves a lot of driving
around the Island simply to get to where the next race is. You must
be careful between races as there are Police cars that try to
apprehend you if you are breaking the law. If you are caught then
you have to pay a fine. Try not to get caught too often as the fines
rise rapidly as you progress through the title’s Ranking System.
You can choose what type of music you wish to listen to using the
car radio. Although there are not any particularly well-known
artists featured in the game, but there is a wide choice which
should satisfy but it is not amazing. The sound effects of the cars
are very realistic adding depth to the game.
There
is a Sat Nav feature with a Map in the bottom left corner and a
woman’s voice guiding you through the Courses. This is very useful
but sometimes when driving fast the commands to turn are given too
late meaning close attention must be paid to the Map.
The Graphics are good for the Playstation2 with reflections on the
cars and smoke coming off tyres when accelerating or going around
corners. The views are amazing giving you a real feel for the
island, and you know that you can drive to any point that you can
see, giving it a very Grand Theft Auto feel (without leaving
the car).
This is a very acceptable and enjoyable driving game with a
different angle to most in the genre. It is very nice that there is
total Free-Roaming within the island making it a lot more realistic.
The title suffers when compared to it’s well-established Xbox360
counter-part; but now we’ve truly entered the new
Current-Generation, that’s to be expected.
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