After the pleasure and joy of the first Test Drive Unlimited, and other great open-world racing games, this game, TDU2, just falls completely flat in SO many ways! Decided to pick it back up off the shelf, after getting bored with Forza Horizon 3's end-game grind, and at least there you can reasonably reach end-game!
First of all, even though the world is open-world and even a bit pretty in its own right, the gameplay is EXTREMELY linear and layered. You need to acquire specific licenses before you can get the cars requiring those licenses in order to win races to make money which then is used to purchase properties and clothes which are only unlocked once you reach a certain level of exploration, etc.
So, here's where the problem begins, which gets even more complicated given how unstable and buggy this game is (especially if attempting to use something like ENB to try and make the graphics look a bit more reasonable and not quite so dated). The licenses are the biggest bottleneck... they remind me so much of the Stuntman games and why I completely abhored that entire series and am glad it faded away into the lost and forgotten games of the past as a learning experience on the mistake that it was.
The license tests are so abysmal in the fact that after the initial license tests, they give JUST ENOUGH time to get all the way through from start to finish... meaning you can't over-skid, you can't bump anything, you have to do each test 100% perfect more or less with only perhaps a 1% spacing for even slight error. Which then each test couples in their own challenges, from a timer, to having to dodge and/or not hit other cars, along with having to navigate barrels/barricades. Some will have time-penalties for going off the road too much, but others are instant fail... if another car hits you, or you just BARELY graze a barricade/barrel, it's instant failure and having to start back over from scratch. The instant failure and restart might not be so bad on smaller tests, but when you're in a test with 49+ checkpoints, and you happen to barely graze a barel or a barricade (even when it doesn't look like you do on your screen) due to even a slight hiccup for any reason... you have to start back over from the first checkpoint. (Also worth noting that each of about 9-18 [the categories with different tiers to each] licenses have 8 test or so each! Making a LOT of these abysmal tests!!!)
Another huge issue is completely borked physics and handling. Even with a mod that's supposed to make the handling like TDU1, there's still so much constant fussing with the sliders to try and get the perfect handling for your experience, and it never quite hits the mark. From vehicle to vehicle it changes... so for one vehicle where you might need steering dampening all the way to the right, for others you might need it in the center, or all the way to the left... then the same applies to the other 5 or so sliders to fine-tune your control... ultimately to deliver one of the biggest cluster-!@#!s in a racing-game to date.
Furthermore another huge issue is the fact the world seems SO empty compared to TDU1... perhaps I'm recalling TDU1 incorrectly, but the world felt more alive with more to do. There's something like 4 or 5 clothing stores, several car dealerships, Casino, real-estate agencies, safehouses, and other bits... but the fact they seperate them into different categories so only so much shows on the map at a time, along with the fact the maps are huge with having them so far spread out... it sadly has a Just Cause "empty lifeless village" feeling pretty much everywhere. Becomes even more painful when you hit lvl10 and start going to Hawaii from the airport... you drive through the hugest city area of Hawaii and actually have to drive aimlessly for quite sometime before you find even one point of interest, which is a massive shame!
Was also rather disappointing that they had finally added motorcycles to the game, but was more just for vanity, as (unless I'm completely missing something) there doesn't seem to be anything single-player/offline to do with them... haven't found any way to paint/sticker a motorcycle, no way to improve motorcycle license, no motorcycle races, no motorcycle tuner upgrades... the motorcycles just seem to be there, and for anybody that's a massive enthusiast of motorcycles like I am, it's VERY disappointing!
Then there's the issue that there are SEVERAL cars (as well as the motorcycles) that are locked behind cash-shop purchases (DLC) that require tokens. Not sure if the website still sells tokens, but luckily I was able to buy the Harley Davidson before the official shutdown. In game, I seem to have the option to purchase the other motorcycles if I wish, but come across several cars that say they're a DLC purchase and download, yet the source/download appears not to be available... so you get to stare at a car model that you'll never be able to access! For the DLC content that is availabe, that you have to spend tokens to unlock (which I still have 440 tokens left but am hesitant to use them in fear of there being an error with no support to help with such error), even after you've unlocked them, you still have to have the in-game currency to buy them... which refer to the second paragraph and the massive headache involved in making money.
Then the issue with making in-game currency... there are some collectible challenges that will earn you chump-change, but the only real reasonable way to make money is winning races, which again, there's a gigantic headache/nightmare involved in evolving on that front.
Even the time-sync and patience required might be doable if I was still younger and had a lot more time to invest... problem is, when you work all the time, want to hop in, have a decent chance to make money and buy cars, to find it's a giant cluster-!@#!, it kills off most any real casual gameplay, which is sad coming from me who's usually a die-hard player at most games!
Overall, in an attempt by Atari to upgrade beyond TDU1 and evolve to something better in TDU2, it's sadly just the opposite, much worse. Which is an even bigger shame considering they completely shutdown TDU1 in order to keep TDU2 up and remaining functional (term used very lightly here!), and even more disappointing when so many fans of Test Drive want to feel like between TDU1 and TDU2, Atari could have had a chance to really learn from mistakes, and make the perfect game in a TDU3, but now that the developers/publishers behind this are no more, that will sadly never happen.
Disclaimer: I'm hard-pressed to have to say all this, especially considering I'm a massive old-school gamer, and the first major racing/driving game I ever played, beyond Turbo for ColecoVision or Pole Position for Atari, was the original Test Drive in all its splendid CGA greatness back in 1987! :(
PS - After having unshelved this game for a total of about 3-5 days, modding it up, and giving it an honest college-try go, I'm already ready to shelf it again, as well as uninstall it to free up the drive-space, while quickly realizing why I've shelved it so many times in the past. -_-
PPS - Other games, like Burnout Paradise, manage to pull off a license-mechanic rather well... whereas in this, licenses are just beating your head against a brick-wall that's covering a titanium-door, only to find the key for that door is locked behind 20 other things you have to tackle first. xD
EDIT: I even tried getting a trainer to freeze timer during license-tests & still found them unbelievably stressful and frustrating just driving through them at a casual pace, not to mention mind-numbingly boring! Coupled with constant off and on crashes every 10+ minutes (that were there even before the use of a trainer, FYI)!
System Specs:
MSI Apache-Pro VR-Ready GE72VR GRF
Intel Core i7-3.0+ Ghz (/w Turbo-boost)
nVidia GeForce GTX 1060 /w 6GB vRam
16GB Ram, 1.25TB Storage
(@First, not bad; but longer u play the more it crashes!)
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