Test Drive
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Game Information
Release Date: May 27, 2002
Developers: Pitbull Syndicate
Publishers: Infogrames
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 2, Xbox
Genre: Racing
Players: 1-2

Intro

Synopsis
Rocket through crowded cities, opponents and the law on your tail, in the ultimate test of man and machine. Features over 20 of the hottest licensed exotic sports cars and all-American muscle cars; 4 stunningly realistic and highly-detailed real-world cities; and fully interactive environments including competitive AI, unpredictable cross-traffic, reactive pedestrians, gravity-defying jumps, smashable street-side objects and relentless cops.

Plot
Amongst the streets of San Francisco, an illegal street racer named Dennis begins talking to an English fellow named Donald. Donald requested if Dennis could be his substitute for a world wide racing tournament that he will be racing in a few weeks. Questioning why Donald needs a substitute is because of his injury and has to maintain in a wheelchair for several weeks. Dennis then asked Donald whats in it for him. By winning each race to come, Dennis will receive each other racer's car and the wealth and fame that comes with it, but Donald still withholds the vehicles under his name so as long as Dennis is with Donald, the cars are free to use. With that, Dennis agrees and begins racing in the tournament and to proceeds to race through other parts of the world.

Gameplay
Players will experience a much better and enhanced gameplay unlike older installments of the Test Drive series. First off, the mechanics for collisions against the AI racer's vehicles, traffic vehicles, and the player's vehicles are the same unlike previous installments where the AI's vehicles seemed to be tougher and harder to wreck while the player could easily be swept off the road and wreck easier, making the race in favor of the AIs. During the race, the cop chase mechanic has had a little enhancement that gives the player a little advantage during a race. Upon coming in contact with a police unit, the new cop detector notifies the player when a cop is coming within range of them and by knowing that, the player can slow down to avoid having the cop start pursuing them. But if the player initiates a cop chase, then the player will have to exceed a certain distance until the cop decides to stop pursuing them. With the police detector during a chase, the player will know when the cop gave up by seeing the lights on the detector slowly diminishing. Although the game does feature a variety of different characters to interact with and hear the conversations between them before a race, but during throughout each race, there is no source of conversations at all. The player will race through checkpoint races at various locations like San Francisco, Monte Carlo, London, and Tokyo. After the player wins all the races at a certain location, the player will go on a one on one drag race for the other racer's vehicles to store in the player's garage.

Graphics
For being a game at its time, the graphics were surprisingly substantial and great. The textures on each of the vehicles were excellent and gave an ideal similarity of the actual vehicle itself, except for the traffic cars as they have minimal detail implemented on them and are difficult to distinguish of what vehicle they are. The buildings in the game are nicely detailed and have various textures implemented on various buildings. The smoke from the burnouts of the tires and sliding on the road are remarkable and look exquisite to see. The details on the faces of the characters aren't the best since players will never actually get to view them in person as they are only seen from the monitor when they are speaking to the player's character so its difficult to see the details on each of their faces since the screen adds a blurriness effect to them. The weather in the game actually affects the area of the race and the racer's vehicles show their tires spinning out the water from the rear of their tires which is a cool feature too see back during those times. Overall, the graphics are great and not too bad to cause players to dislike the game.

Controls
The controls are very different compared to the older installments of the Test Drive series. The buttons to accelerate and decelerate are swapped to the left and right triggers instead of the typical A,X configuration. When playing on manual transmission, the controls to shift gears are the A,X buttons instead of the triggers. But if playing on the Playstation 2, the controls are just the same as they were on the older installments. Overall, the controls aren't any different unless the player is playing the game on the Xbox since the Test Drive series games never appeared on the Xbox until this game came out.

Rating
Gameplay: 9.4/10
Graphics: 9.2/10
Controls: 9.5/10
Overall: 9.3/10

Extra Information
In Europe, the title is Test Drive Overdrive: The Brother of Speed.
The game is also known as Test Drive Overdrive.