Offical Xbox Magazine Preview
[splr]For a certain kind of person, there's something very wrong with driving miles along a road just to get back to where you started. And when you're dealing with some of the most powerful, luxurious and desirable cars in automotive history, some might argue that it's down downright inhumane. You wouldn't keep a cheetah locked inside a cage, so why keep a Pagani Zonda locked inside a track? The makers of Test Drive have always agreed. Since its debut in 1987, this series has been the Gumballer's game of choice - as much about what's outside the bonnet as what's inside. Adventure and discovery are it's highway codes, not science and perfectionism. And even early-on, when it was just a linear affair with an iconic in-car view, it was a series that gave you the world. "I remember the mountains, the cliffs and the roads, "smiles David Nadal, head of Lyon's Eden Studios. "It's why we chose islands over towns. It's what drives our creativity."
Ocean Drive
One of the islands he's referring to is Oahu, Hawaii, home to the TV show Lost and, more importantly for us, Test Drive Unlimited. Eden's first game in the series, which still attracts 6,000 players a day online, is more than just a sequel or reboot. One of the first genuine MMORs (Massively Multiplayer Online Racers), it gives you a diverse, naturally enclosed driving universe to play in. You step off the plane, buy your first car and house, flick on the stereo and put your foot down and that's where the tutorial ends. Coast to coast, city to city: where you race is your own business.
Extending that freedom to who you raced with, TDU was the game that galvanised Xbox Live, proving the concept of drop-in/drop-out multiplayer. For a while it had the luxury of being unmatched in its scope and technology, not to mention the course. "A community-driven game needs a live team to follow it every day." says Nadal. "The was our mistake. We made the tools, the game and some DLC packs of cars, then left it to live on its own. But the community repsonded really well; we were lucky." TDU2, he suggests, is leaving a whole lot less to chance.
Given it's the burning question on any fan's lips, the locations of TDU2 is mentioned rather late in our presentation. By the time we discover that it's Ibiza, a beautiful and surprising island blighted by boozy Britons, we've already been given a tour of one of its cars. Fetishists rejoice: the new game doesn't just feature two paint layers for each chassis, but a metallic flake layer, sandwiched between them. There's stitching on the seats, bespoke leather and velvet effects for the interiors, swatches from the official catalogues, and a deeply customisable sticker layer for that personal finish. Whatever will the manufacturers say? "They'll complain of course," laughs Nadal. "They're freaking."
But that's the whole point of TDU: pride of ownership. Pimp a car in TDU2 and it looks identical online and off, so whatever you've added can be seen by passing players. The game's avatar, garage and lobby systems have been drastically expanded, the options between racers now much closer to those of an MMORPG. Players can not only walk freely around their cars - even when they're sat on the starting line waiting for a race - but, more importantly, around their friend's cars. They can sit in each other's passenger seats, meet up in showrooms for a friendly spot of shopping, then throw down the gauntlet and bet on the result.
Up to 32 avatars can do this at once, showing off the usual clothes and accessories. So if you're wondering how a game with no pedestrians could ever hope to create the clubbing capital of the world, that's as good an answer as you're going to get. "it's not a Sims game, so we haven't pushed those elements," says senior producer Nour Polloni," but people will still recognise the main streets and cities."
"We chose it for the topology, the weather and because it's a perfect fit for the meeting and inviting friends," adds Nadal. "It makes a huge difference. There won't be pedestrians, but having up to 32 avatars running around changes the entire thing." So no aquaplaining on beer and vomit, then, or mowing down people who arguably deserve it. They give with one hand...
Social climber
Eden's keeping quiet about Twitter and Facebook support, but the most exciting aspect aspect of its new social scene is co-op. That's right, you don't have to leave your buddy's car when they start it up. Should you choose to be their wingman for a race or csual drive, you can use voice chat or instructional icons to make yourself useful, checking the map for routes and shortcuts. Those could be anywhere in TDU2 thanks to some other new arrivals: off-road 4x4s.
Just like Oahu, Ibiza has more than its fair share of ups and downs. But unlike TDU, the sequel makes them as attractive a destination as any on level ground. Take (or bulldoze with your fender) the road less travelled and you'll come across wrecks that award you exclusive cars. You'll also rack up some persistent stats: Competition, Discovery, Social, Collection and Global. Taking a cue from another open world racer, Burnout Paradise, TDU2 offers constant rewards for simply playing it as intended. That could mean visiting your friend's new yacht (the most prestigious in-game purchase) and sitting in their jacuzzi, powering into oncoming traffic without trading paint, or just charting some of the game's 930km of roads.
Ibiza, we're told, is a bigger and more interesting place than Oahu, full of spectular views from mountains across plunging valleys, distant townships, and the sparkle of brilliant coasts and lakes. This isn't just PR prattle, either. TDU2 can look dissapointingly familiar from one junction to the next, but it does benefit from a practically infinite draw distance and the ability to actually fill it, rendering waypoints and scenery from dashboard to horizon. This is important. We don't want to rely on a map's reassurance that we're heading towards something. We want to see it, succumb to it, and know at glance what stands in our way.
Just don't expect Crysis . You could argue that a wiser sequel to Test Drive Unlimited would be to and a half times prettier, not larger, but Nadal points out that it's depth the fans expect, not the console-murdering detail. "We're blending technology that's closer to MMO engines than most triple-A games. And the physics in the first one were effectively a sequel to those of the V-Rally games [Eden's earlier series], so we decided to rewrite them from the ground up. Even if you have the experience, that's not an easy route to take. Even the night and day cycle has meant reworking the entire engine."
Lasting two hours of real world time, the new night/day cycle in TDU2 runs the gamut of postcard moods, from 'boiling sunset over beach' and 'moon reflected in gentle waves',to 'forest silhouette in early dawn.' It might well be two-and-a-half times prettier than anything in the first game, but it's too early to say. The new dynamic weather system helps, though, and a thunderstorm in the demo prompts the urgent return of our convertible's hardtop. Rain will also wash off any dirt you aquire while driving off-road, of course, as the wet takes its toll on your handling.
If TDU is an aquired taste, it's not just because of where it chooses to drive. Nadal is the first to admit that the first game's handling and physics wavered throughout development like an F1 car on a skid pan, wildly veering between degrees of simulation. "It's the centre of everything we're doing. We're proposing a line-up of luxurious cars for car lovers, so we have to provide the sensation of actually driving them. We changed the physics in the first game because they were to demanding: there was no feedback to say you were really moving with the cars."
There will be this time, he continues, much of Eden's effort going into things like front-wheel drive versus rear-wheel-drive, or modern versus classic cars. We'll have to take his word on that: there's no hands-on time for this demo, probably because Atari doesn't want cowboy journalists slamming a system that's far from finished. It's a testament to the sequel's dynamic camera that we still get a sense of momentum, the view pulling back as you pick up speed and floating to the side as you skid, suggesting deviation. But you have to wonder if this is tuning we're witnessing or something more, and whether TDU's identity as a racing game is still lagging behind that of a social driving experiment.
Crash Course
Physics aren't up for discussion, either, through Polloni agrees that they "need to make sure you can feel it. We don't want to penalise players for messing around, but it has to be a credible reaction if you crash." A rather ill-advised part of the demo sees our driver crash full-throttle into a lamppost, leaving some basic deformation and lots of cosmetic damage , the car bouncing back like a toy. It's a personality trait as much as anything, this being a series obsessed with outward appearances and the horror of scratches on expensive carbon fibre. Actually totalling a car DiRT-style is beyond TDU's remit and ppossibly even its tech.
Community is this game's dynamic, and in TDU2 it's a evolved to include a dizzying array of clan and party features. Bringing to mind the corporate economics of PC MMO Eve Online, each car club has its own bank account used to finance expansion, accessories and, of course, cars. Purchase options in the demo include Small, Dabbler and Devotte houses, the more prestigious adding their own garages and, to sweeten the deal, exclusives like the Gumpert Apollo supercar. Only one club member can take these cars for a spin, cementing their role as online status symbols. There's passing mention of "stealing" money from rival clans, implying a genuine sense of risk and reward to the game's interclub challeges.
There are a lot of cars in TDU2, and thanks to all kinds of handwringing over licensing deals and such, that's all we're allowed to say. And bikes? Those we can talk about. "We're definitely planning to have bikes," says Polloni, "but what's for sure is they won't be in that initial boxed version. We've completely restructured the car dynamics, and bikes on their own are a huge investment. So we want to make sure each experience isn't spoiled."
Barring some unlikely catastrophe with the handling, it's safe to assume that TDU2 will be a world apart from and above its predecessor. That doesn't automatically mean more fans for this iconoclastic racer, but it's hard to imagine anyone complaining: over 1.2 million unique players enjoyed TDU online, which for a non-FPS is a colossal number. And they have every reason to return, Eden promising a vast, dedicated, community-driven DLC programme lasting "as long as the fans demand it."
What that involves is mystery, though it's suggested that an early batch of pre-canned, traditional DLC will, assuming the forums light up, give way to a more organic cycle of features requests and patches. Based on the vibe during this visit, it could easilly compare to Burnout's "Year of Paradise". The Test Drive universe is expanding, then, and it doesn't look to be stopping any time soon.[/splr]
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