Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown

[Colif]

Demo out, it seems rather big for a demo... 44gb

Not overly impressed with its performance so far... character models look outdated.

I played TDU2 on my PS3. It was fun though i didn't really play game as expected. It had a DLC casino that I spent most of my time in earning money to buy cars. My internet connection when I played game was so bad I never bothered trying to race anyone. I enjoyed game collecting cars/houses.

I don't know how deep this is, the one person I was hoping would show me rejected game when it asked him to link his steam account to something else. I will wait for actual release and see what its thought of then.

 

[ZedClampet]

Demo out, it seems rather big for a demo... 44gb

Not overly impressed with its performance so far... character models look outdated.

I played TDU2 on my PS3. It was fun though i didn't really play game as expected. It had a DLC casino that I spent most of my time in earning money to buy cars. My internet connection when I played game was so bad I never bothered trying to race anyone. I enjoyed game collecting cars/houses.

I don't know how deep this is, the one person I was hoping would show me rejected game when it asked him to link his steam account to something else. I will wait for actual release and see what its thought of then.

Thanks. Going to download it now.

 

[ZedClampet]

While this downloads, what is this trying to compete against? Forza or Need for Speed? Those are two completely different groups of gamers.

 

[Colif]

I don't know what new games it is aiming at as its 13 years since the last game was released. Back then, it wasn't really aimed at either audience... its more likely after whoever plays The Crew series as it was very much like it. After 13 years it could be anything now.

I wasn't overly impressed by the character models but the cars look okay. Responsiveness on controller is slow, the two people I watched a little of, both complained about that. Since I don't have a wheel, I might wait and see if its fixed by time they release game.

 

[ZedClampet]

LOL my first thought was, "Jesus, the AI are terrible," and then I realized it wasn't AI. I was racing actual people. I won the first race by 35 seconds. Second race was much better, but I started at the back and got rammed quite a bit. Only won by 6 seconds. Everyone but me was playing on "novice" with full driver assist, so this is definitely not the Forza crowd.

Driving reminded me of The Crew. It's more arcade than sim, but not so arcade that it's like Need for Speed. Complaints about input delay were probably related to the servers. In any event, I didn't experience it, so the servers must be doing better this morning than over the weekend.

Graphics were mediocre, but I didn't check my graphics settings. Being on a laptop, games usually default to lower settings. Still, the city looked pretty decent at night.

I enjoyed it, but wasn't in the mood to to get slammed around the track by randoms this morning (plus, it was taking awhile to get a full race), so I quit after the second race. May hop back in this afternoon.

 

[ZedClampet]

I forgot to mention that based on the user names there were a couple of bots in both races, and they DNF'd, so playing against bots may not be a great idea at this point.

 

[Colif]

getting rammed... reminds me of TDU2. Every time I saw a Bugatti I was expecting to me rammed. Though my internet connection was so bad back then they may not have seen me. My download speed is 100X faster now than it was then.

I bought a bugatti but didn't really like them in the game. I was collecting all the Pagani's instead.

The game requirements are still showing TBD so its difficult to judge if they will get any better.

Is it open world? TDU2 had two islands, the starter one and Oahu (Hawaii). I spent most of my time doing laps of the island. Looking at it now... it doesn't stand up well.

There was a bug in game where if you went fast enough, the game couldn't draw traffic so you had open roads until you slowed down or transitioned onto another server. Could suddenly hit a car that wasn't there before when you drove into a new server. They fixed that with a patch which made me sad... They never fixed some roads.

You could drive into the surface (I don't mean clipping, i mean front of car would hit the road and cause you to come to dead stop or crash) and it helped to slow down in those areas of road. It only happened in some spots and I had learned where they were as I used to do laps of the island. It was pretty big, take about 30 minutes or more... i had worked out a route.

i got so bored I started to go into areas you not supposed to be in, like the golf courses lol. They were just meant to be background. Not a lot of out of bounds in game... can't escape map when its surrounded by water. You could mostly go everywhere on the island, game had 4 wheel drives for some areas.

 

[ZedClampet]

I bought a bugatti but didn't really like them in the game. I was collecting all the Pagani's instead.

A PCG writer said that it would take 200 hours in Test Drive to by a Bugatti. No idea if that is accurate, but it doesn't feel right.

The game requirements are still showing TBD so its difficult to judge if they will get any better.

I didn't have my FPS counter on, but the game felt fine to me as far as performance went, but I didn't check my graphics settings, so I could have been on Low.

Is it open world?

Yep, the city is a lot of fun to drive around.


I'm very concerned that you can't just race against AI. If there aren't a ton of people playing the game, you are going to have to sit and wait awhile for races to start, and that's not my favorite thing to do. I'm probably going to pass on this unless they add the option for single-player.

 

[Colif]

TDU2 had a campaign, I only saw players in open world.

TDU2 had a dlc casino where you could win 2 cars and earn money. I spend most of my time in there earning money and then just buying cars/houses. I didn't win many races as my internet was pathetic.

 

[ZedClampet]

TDU2 had a campaign, I only saw players in open world.

TDU2 had a dlc casino where you could win 2 cars and earn money. I spend most of my time in there earning money and then just buying cars/houses. I didn't win many races as my internet was pathetic.

I'm just going by a post on the Steam forums. I guess we'll see.

 

[Colif]

I only bought a Bugatti as I had run out of any other cars I might have actually wanted. I didn't really like it much. I think there were about 5 or 6 Pagani in game, I had them all at one stage. I bought all the fast cars and tried them out. Most were pretty lame.

I know this new one won't be anything like the previous one in some ways.
You could buy houses in TDU2 and each one came with a garage that could hold a different amount of cars depending on price of house. I had cars all over the island... easy to lose track of one if you leave it at wrong garage. I don't recall if you could fast travel to houses or had to actually drive to them.
Houses won't be in this one...
TDU2 had parts of old cars you could find around map and once you had them all, combine them to get the car. One from memory was a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Cobra from memory. That was fun until you had all the cars - they were fun to drive but finding them was more fun.
I spent most of my time grinding the casino to buy the cars/houses I wanted.
Think I just got bored once I had all the stuff I wanted... took about a year or so.

 

[ZedClampet]

I only bought a Bugatti as I had run out of any other cars I might have actually wanted. I didn't really like it much. I think there were about 5 or 6 Pagani in game, I had them all at one stage. I bought all the fast cars and tried them out. Most were pretty lame.

I know this new one won't be anything like the previous one in some ways.
You could buy houses in TDU2 and each one came with a garage that could hold a different amount of cars depending on price of house. I had cars all over the island... easy to lose track of one if you leave it at wrong garage. I don't recall if you could fast travel to houses or had to actually drive to them.
Houses won't be in this one...
TDU2 had parts of old cars you could find around map and once you had them all, combine them to get the car. One from memory was a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Cobra from memory. That was fun until you had all the cars - they were fun to drive but finding them was more fun.
I spent most of my time grinding the casino to buy the cars/houses I wanted.
Think I just got bored once I had all the stuff I wanted... took about a year or so.

Heck, if they just redid that game, I'd buy it today.

 

[Colif]

I was sad when Atari turned its servers off. I had stopped playing by then but it was still the end.

It was reported in December 2016 that French publisher Bigben Interactive (now called Nacon) acquired the Test Drive intellectual property from Atari, with plans to reboot the franchise

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So its not made by same people at all. How much of the old games are in it is questionable. Could be they wanted to continue a series they saw as languishing

you didn't mention fact traffic is on left hand side... its meant to be according to Wiki

so it has a campaign. Have you tried it or do you have to race against players to compete in it?
might be trial doesn't have it?

I know there are car dealerships...
Hmm, video starts in his garage... I wonder if it does have houses you buy?
Seems you have to drive to car rooms here too, the scale of inside car rooms is a bit unbelievable.

 

[Colif]

No houses, everyone starts in same location.
All players will be based at the 120-floor Solar Hotel, a fictional building located in-game in Hong Kong Island's Victoria Park.

oh well. so many possibilities but anyway.

It seems the DLC for this game might be Ibiza... which was the intro island in TDU2, and where the casino is as its confirmed to be in the game. It was DLC in TDU2 so that makes sense. Hope its not pay to win.

Clearly they want me to buy this lol.

 

[Colif]

handling is meant to be good... rest of game not so much.

listening to what isn't included just makes me sad. Pretty much all the fun things. Its Test Drive in name only.
No police? I mean, they were crazy in TDU2... now none? Full speed everywhere.
No clubs... no guilds, no club house... I mean, we didn't use ours a lot but it was there.
no houses. I think casino is DLC but he didn't have it. Still... I bet they want you to use real money in that casino.
He didn't mention anything about upgrading cars. Or how many are in it, or the multiple different versions of the game you have to buy to have some cars in game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tdu3/comments/1d40dxv/test_drive_unlimited_solar_crown_all_editions_and

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/tdu3/comments/1d40dxv/test_drive_unlimited_solar_crown_all_editions_and/#lightbox


This looks like a trap. Not sure game actually awards cars for winning races. Might expect you to pay.

his reaction reminds me of how I reacted to Sacred 3. Part 3 of a lot of series is where it all comes apart.

I was curious about this game... now I see its about as good as The Crew 3... there is that 3 thing again. Crew Motorsport lol.

 

[ZedClampet]

handling is meant to be good... rest of game not so much.

listening to what isn't included just makes me sad. Pretty much all the fun things. Its Test Drive in name only.
No police? I mean, they were crazy in TDU2... now none? Full speed everywhere.
No clubs... no guilds, no club house... I mean, we didn't use ours a lot but it was there.
no houses. I think casino is DLC but he didn't have it. Still... I bet they want you to use real money in that casino.
He didn't mention anything about upgrading cars. Or how many are in it, or the multiple different versions of the game you have to buy to have some cars in game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tdu3/comments/1d40dxv/test_drive_unlimited_solar_crown_all_editions_and

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/tdu3/comments/1d40dxv/test_drive_unlimited_solar_crown_all_editions_and/#lightbox


This looks like a trap. Not sure game actually awards cars for winning races. Might expect you to pay.

his reaction reminds me of how I reacted to Sacred 3. Part 3 of a lot of series is where it all comes apart.

I was curious about this game... now I see its about as good as The Crew 3... there is that 3 thing again. Crew Motorsport lol.

I don't like having the police in racing games, but, yeah, this doesn't sound good. But it has to be better than Need For Speed currently is.

Almost sounds like they were trying to be like Forza Horizon. but their fans were expecting NFS.

 

[Colif]

it was open world, and part of magic of police is you could sometimes take them over and become them to chase down another player. For most part they were nuts though, would drive right at you to stop you. I can't remember what happened if they caught you. TDU2 had a bug where if you drove fast enough no cars would spawn, so that was one way to avoid police. Until you drove into another region and swapped servers.

I am not sure they showed up in races, its years since I played it. Think they were just in open world.

Fans were expecting TDU. They made an open world racer but its missing most of the modes that made it TDU

 

[ZedClampet]

it was open world, and part of magic of police is you could sometimes take them over and become them to chase down another player. For most part they were nuts though, would drive right at you to stop you. I can't remember what happened if they caught you. TDU2 had a bug where if you drove fast enough no cars would spawn, so that was one way to avoid police. Until you drove into another region and swapped servers.

I am not sure they showed up in races, its years since I played it. Think they were just in open world.

Fans were expecting TDU. They made an open world racer but its missing most of the modes that made it TDU

Yeah, not my kind of racing game, but I'm sad that it isn't good for the people who like this sort of thing. It's baffling to me when developers make a sequel and remove so much of what people liked about the previous games. It just doesn't make sense unless they are just short of money, but making a crappy game has never fixed any financial problems that I'm aware of.

 

[Colif]

. It's baffling to me when developers make a sequel and remove so much of what people liked about the previous games. It just doesn't make sense unless they are just short of money, but making a crappy game has never fixed any financial problems that I'm aware of.

its easy to explain when you realise first two games were made by a different Dev, and these people just bought IP to make this one. It does have some of the things that were in last games, just not enough.

 

[ZedClampet]

its easy to explain when you realise first two games were made by a different Dev, and these people just bought IP to make this one. It does have some of the things that were in last games, just not enough.

That makes it harder to explain for me. Why do you break the bank for an IP that you are going to screw up? Obviously they were familiar with the previous games and were so interested in making the next one that they bought the IP. Why half-arse it? If you are going to pay out good money for an IP, one would think you would go above and beyond to make it a great game.

 

[ZedClampet]

Ah, I didn't realize this was made by KT Racing. They've made some good racing games, but nothing like what this was supposed to be. No open worlds with a lot of different activities. All their games were just racing sims where you just selected the next race in your career and raced it. I suspect they might have misjudged the difficulty, money and time that would be involved in making a game like this.

Also, I suspect the reason they bought Test Drive is because they lost the WRC license to Electronic Arts. That was really the only game/series that they ever did.

 

[Colif]

That makes it harder to explain for me. Why do you break the bank for an IP that you are going to screw up? Obviously they were familiar with the previous games and were so interested in making the next one that they bought the IP. Why half-arse it? If you are going to pay out good money for an IP, one would think you would go above and beyond to make it a great game.

That would have been how I reacted to Sacred 3 as well except in that case the people who made that thing were hired by the publishers of the previous 2, who owned the IP still. They spat out Sacred 3 to profit on an IP they still owned and weren't making any money off, hoping to attract the people who didn't look at reviews and just bought the thing.

As for TDU3 you are probably right about why they bought it, but it still doesn't let them off hook for only making half the game.

 

[ZedClampet]

That would have been how I reacted to Sacred 3 as well except in that case the people who made that thing were hired by the publishers of the previous 2, who owned the IP still. They spat out Sacred 3 to profit on an IP they still owned and weren't making any money off, hoping to attract the people who didn't look at reviews and just bought the thing.

As for TDU3 you are probably right about why they bought it, but it still doesn't let them off hook for only making half the game.

They should have made a new IP. No one could say stuff was missing. I really think they just bit off more than they could chew. I doubt they intentionally screwed up their one hope for survival. It's kind of bizarre to assume their thinking went, "Hey, let's screw our customers over and go out of business!"

 

[Colif]

Graphics engine sounds a little wonky, changing resolution from 1440p to 900p doesn't increase frame rate... that doesn't make any sense

Looks like racing is fine, its all the other things that are missing

 

[ZedClampet]

Graphics engine sounds a little wonky, changing resolution from 1440p to 900p doesn't increase frame rate... that doesn't make any sense

Looks like racing is fine, its all the other things that are missing

Doesn't that just mean it is CPU bound? CPU, for the most part, doesn't care what resolution you are playing in since it isn't doing the graphics. CPU jobs like placing clutter and managing draw distance ignore resolution, so far as I know. Forza Horizon is always CPU bound for me. Pretty much every open world game is. Open worlds are always too much for my laptop CPUs. The real problem is some games are still coded to only use 2 to 4 cores, so most of the CPU sits there doing nothing, and single core speeds on a laptop aren't great.