Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Review

I thought the Test Drive series was all but dead. We hadn’t seen a new entry in the Unlimited series since 2011’s Test Drive Unlimited 2, and it was never a series that seemed to gain much traction with gamers. That’s why I was so surprised when I learned that a new entry in the series was on its way in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. I was as happy as anybody because I love good racing games, and I plan to cover most of them on this channel. My first introduction to the series was in 2006 when I began to see commercials for Test Drive Unlimited. At the time, I only had a PS2. Despite the 360 version being superior, I bought a copy. I played it for a little while and never touched it again. I haven’t played any of the games in the series since then, so I’m very excited to see how this series has evolved on modern consoles.

Customization

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown begins with a character customization suite that looks straight out of 2006. The character models evoke memories of the PS2 era, and customization options are limited. I don’t even see the point of having it, given how much of an afterthought it is. You might as well use a random generic character. You’ll only see them after winning races or in the very minor interactions you have in some of the buildings across the island. You’re invited to the Solar Crown festival and given a Lamborghini to drive around for a few practice races after completing the character creation.

Hong Kong

The game features a 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong. Not many racing games have been set in this area in the past, and not to this scale. It was a nice change of pace. The map has been adapted to the game. It’s not a perfect recreation, but it does a good job of staying true to life. It’s not all roses, though. Some areas of the city feel very lonely. There isn’t much traffic at all. You can look at any game with traffic in the last fifteen years; the density was way higher and more realistic in most other games with traffic in them. It’s the same few cars over and over. It doesn’t feel alive. It’s not a place where I could see people living. It feels like you’re just driving around an island by yourself. That criticism extends to the generic storefronts and copy-and-paste scenery. The saving grace here is night driving, in which everything has a pop to it with the city’s lights.

Gameplay

You are given money to buy your first car after your first races. This is the car you’ll have for a long time, so you have to choose wisely, even though you only have a few choices. I love the idea of sticking with a car and upgrading it. I enjoy being rewarded with new cars in games like Forza, but it is nice to be able to work towards something. You aim to work through the Solar Crown competition and join a clan to move up the ranks of the Streets or Sharps. The gameplay loop is familiar, going through races, time trials, and speed traps. A domination event also awards points for passing each checkpoint, but nothing reinvents the wheel. There are also off-road races, which add a little variety to the otherwise all-too-similar street races.

Hong Kong’s districts offer numerous points of interest to explore. You begin at the Solar Hotel, where you can change your outfit, and that’s about it. You can change your car at Car Meetups, dealerships, or upgrade stations.. A gas station can also repair cosmetic damage to your vehicle. Credits are hidden all over the map, and finding them will give you some extra cash or clan XP. There are even wrecks to find, much like barn finds in Forza Horizon. I was required to hit reputation milestones before events in a new region were unlocked. More events are also unlocked as you gain reputation in one of the clans. It’s a grind to gain levels, especially early on in the game when you’re still uncovering much of the map and don’t have as many fast travel points.

Driving

The driving in the game is generally pretty average. It feels like a weird mix between arcade and simulation. It seems like the game doesn’t know what it wants to be. Whenever I went into a corner, no matter how fast, I was never confident that the car would turn as I expected. I experimented with the setups, turning the assists down and off, but it still felt off. I was still winning most of the races, but I wasn’t a fan of the cornering. The hit-and-miss physics made this even worse, where you can run through a barrier one moment and spin out from a slight bump the next. I ran over a very short curb slowly on the last lap of the race, and it spun me out, forcing me to restart the entire race. The AI is equally as frustrating. They are either spinning out in the rain, on a corner, or pulling away from you at the start of the race. There’s no in-between. The CPU was 40 seconds ahead of me in one race in a car that was equal to mine, in which I raced flawlessly. How is that even possible?

Server Issues

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is always online. It’s unfortunate that a game like this has experienced numerous server issues at launch, and there is no offline option. I’ve personally never been in a race with another human. It just hasn’t happened. I’ve seen other people on the map, but they’re just there for fun. The performance mode on PS5 struggles to maintain 60fps, and I’ve noticed it has particular issues whenever there is on-screen destruction, such as running through a telephone booth.

Final Thoughts

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown feels unfinished. That’s the best way I can describe a game like this. The ideas are present, and the roadmap is there, but it isn’t ready for the masses yet. The online features are still not working perfectly as of the time of writing this review, and the game feels somewhat barren so far. The bones are decent here, but I don’t know if I’ll stick with this game long enough to see its true potential. If they had this much trouble with the launch, I would question their ability to deliver the post-launch content they had planned. The racing here can be fun, but the technical issues always happen at the worst moments, ruining my experience. It’s an average driving game at best in its current state.