Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown – Review

The last few years have been great for racing enthusiasts, especially thanks to Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport. These two franchises stand tall over the competition, and we still find ourselves returning to said titles quite often. Some current gamers may be a bit too young to remember another great series, namely Test Drive Unlimited. This franchise made a name for itself all the way back in 2006, ultimately spawning a sequel in 2011. After this, however, it seemed that the finish line was crossed and the series had ultimately cashed in and called it quits. That is, until 2020 when a new title was teased. This title, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, happens to be the subject of today’s review. Was it truly worth waiting over a decade for this series to make a return?

Story

Even though trailers may suggest that Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown offers a deep and engaging storyline, this isn’t all that accurate. There is a fleshed-out narrative present, but it’s a fairly cliché affair. You’ll be selected to participate in the Solar Crown tournament, which is basically an illegal underground racing tournament. As you progress, you’ll get to know a few new characters, join a clan, and work on your reputation. It’s a fairly traditional story of being the rookie that rises to fame, to become the ultimate racer. All in all, there’s nothing wrong with the story, but it simply isn’t all that captivating.

Graphics

Graphically, Solar Crown left us with mixed feelings. The car models look great, for the most part, and so do the interiors. Everything else, however, doesn’t look too great. We respect the effort that was put into creating an accurate model of Hong Kong and there is quite a bit of visual variety to be found when cruising around the many streets of the island. Sadly, everything looks rough around the edges and frame drops are the standard and not the exception. More than once none of the textures loaded, other cars ping out of existence, and sadly this list goes on. Nothing breaks immersion more than seeing a tree break down Minecraft-style when you hit it. The island also feels extremely empty, with hardly any traffic, pedestrians being limited to small closed-off streets, and there is simply no outside commotion. The character models look as if they are directly ported from a dated Sims game, and we simply couldn’t vibe with any of the characters because of the wooden animations and the overall low quality.

Sound

All in all, the game’s sound design wasn’t too bad. The soundtrack didn’t blow us away, but there are a few tracks that do get you in the mood to put the pedal to the metal. Most of the tunes here are, however, license-free, making them a bit more generic than you’d want them to be. It always feels harder and harder to find racing games that evoke the feeling of old-school racing titles, and Solar Crown is no exception here. We reckon the license-free approach is to ensure streamers can stream the game without any copyright claims. The voice acting is also quite decent, but it’s nothing that truly stands out. The engine sounds for all the different luxury cars, however, were great. We could clearly hear what was under the hood of the many different cars, which was extremely satisfying.

Gameplay

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is stuck somewhere in between a racing sim and an arcade racing game. The game offers plenty of options to gearheads to tune their favorite luxury cars while also providing newcomers with the option to keep things a bit simpler. That being said, this is not an easy game, and you’ll have to find your footing if you actively want to keep making progress. At the start, you’ll be able to choose out of a limited number of cars as your starting vehicle, to gradually buy more and more luxury cars and become a legend in the Solar Crown competition.

The controls of the game and the general responsiveness of the cars were a bit underwhelming. The game has all the assists turned on when you begin, and this is usually fine for most games. But all the assists held us back, and we had to turn everything off to have a bit of control over our favorite cars. We recommend trying out different settings to find what works for you. Making minor mistakes in races can cost you the first place, as the game does not have a rewind function and even a simple restart button seems to be missing. The AI drivers are seemingly on rails, as the top contenders during races never make any mistakes and can even approach turns at full speed to then perfectly glide through them.

If you’re used to games like Forza Horizon, you’ll notice that Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is quite grind-heavy. It will take some time to unlock multiple cars, not only because you need additional funds to do so, but your reputation also needs to be high enough. You’ll raise your reputation by completing challenges when driving around, but also by finishing first in races. The game is always online, which is extremely bothersome. We absolutely don’t understand this design choice, as the servers clearly aren’t stable either. We lost progress more times than we could count, and on multiple occasions, the servers were completely down. We feel an offline mode should have also been added, as there is nothing more annoying than disconnecting right before finishing a race.

It’s a shame that technical issues and a general lack of polish plague this title. As a whole, the gameplay loop is quite enjoyable, and it’s fun cruising around the (nearly empty) streets of Hong Kong. We can actually see that the developers poured a lot of love into this one, but we also feel as if either funding ran out or a deadline had to be met. We hope the game keeps receiving support, as with a few patches this one could turn out to be really interesting.

Conclusion

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown feels like a missed opportunity through and through. The game suffers from odd design choices, technical issues, and the overall impression that this was a last-gen project. The online-only format messes up the overall flow of the game, especially when you constantly lose progress due to connection issues. When everything works as it should, you see glimpses of a great racing title, but sadly these moments are few and far between. As it currently stands, we suggest spending time with titles such as Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo 7. Negative remarks aside, we are hoping for a lot of patches in the near future to fix all the current wrongs.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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