Test Drive (video game)

Test Drive is the name of one of the longest running and most popular racing game franchises ever. Originally published by Accolade, which was bought by Infogrames, the first title saw the light of day in 1987 and has since been followed by a stream of sequels. The Test Drive games are now published by Atari.

Overview

In Test Drive, the player typically gets into some hot wheels and must race to the finish line while avoiding traffic and the police.

The games

Test Drive (1987)

Test Drive was a car game released in 1987 by Accolade, it is the original that created the sub-genre of racing hot cars while outrunning the police, a concept successfully copied by newer franchises such as Need for Speed. In fact, Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit features an ode to Test Drive: one of the tracks consists of roads along the side of a mountain. Test Drive was released in 1987 for DOS, the Atari ST and Commodore 64. The game was the first real racing game for DOS. In 1988 it was released for the Apple II and Amiga.

In this first version of the game, the player is given the choice of a variety of different sports cars such as Ferrari Testarossa, Lotus Turbo Esprit, Porsche 911 Turbo, Lamborghini Countach and C4 Chevrolet Corvette. The player then must race up a narrow mountain highway, avoiding the oncoming traffic, police and the guardrail-free cliff. If the player successfully makes it to the top within the time limit, they are given the (virtual) car for free to keep. The game's graphic was considered as impressive for the standards of the day. Atari ST and Amiga versions of the first Test Drive have the most advanced graphics.

Test Drive II: The Duel

In the sequel to Test Drive, the player doesn't just run away from the police and try to reach the finish line as fast as possible - they must also beat an opponent to the finish line. While the first Test Drive had only one type of scenery - brown rocky cliff - the second Test Drive contains many different sceneries.

The cars featured were the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959. The Musclecars addon added the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray, 1968 Shelby GT500 Cobra, 1967 Pontiac GTO, 1969 COPO 9560 ZL-1 Camaro and a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona. The Supercars addon added the 1988 Lotus Turbo Esprit, Ferrari Testarossa, Porsche 911 RUF, 1988 Lamborghini Countach 5000S and a 1989 Corvette ZR1.

Due to its popularity, there were a host of add-on disks released for Test Drive II:

Test Drive II: The Duel Add-on Scenery Disk: California Challenge
Test Drive II: The Duel Add-on Scenery Disk: European Challenge
Test Drive II: The Duel Add-on Car Disk: The Supercars
Test Drive II: The Duel Add-on Car Disk: The Musclecars
Test Drive II: The Duel: The Collection

Test Drive III: The Passion

The third game in the series, released in late 1990, was completely new, featuring 256-color VGA graphics and a true 3D environment, albeit with simple objects and no textures. TD3 presented five sections of a California course, and each section offered multiple routes to the finish line. In addition, the player could drive off-road anywhere on the course map, as long as they didn't crash. Scenery additions included rain and snow, hills, farms, traffic lights, billboards, ponds and rivers, livestock, and culs-de-sac. Three cars were featured: the Chevrolet CERV III, Lamborghini Diablo, and Pininfarina Mythos. Only the Diablo was ever available in the real world; the other two were show cars.

While the environment in TD3 was far more realistic than the previous Test Drive games, the driving experience was notorious for being unrealistic and often uncontrollable. The speed of the game was dependent on the speed of the PC, with the intended speed exhibited on an 386 processor. Running on anything faster, the game clock would speed up - as fast as ten seconds game speed to one second real speed on a more modern PC. TD3 offered "radio stations" for the driver's listening pleasure, a concept revived in modern games like Grand Theft Auto III, but the music in TD3 was composed of MIDI instruments rather than digitally recorded soundtracks.

TD3 was only released on the PC; there were no other platform conversions. There was one add-on released, titled Road & Car. It added two cars: the Acura NSX and Dodge Stealth, and a New England course: Cape Cod to Niagara.

Test Drive 4

The re-launch of the franchise came seven years later with Test Drive 4. TD4 was the first Windows game in the series. Unlike TD3, TD4 returned to linear, closed tracks where the player was no longer free to drive off the road.

Test Drive 5

Hot on the heels of the success of Test Drive 4 came Test Drive 5. It was very similar to its predecessor but much more polished. It had a wider selection of cars, and although it sold over one million units, it received low ratings. It also featured a soundtrack including groups such as KMFDM and Fear Factory.

Test Drive 6

A speedy release to capitalize on the Test Drive name. Includes a few songs from popular bands. Many licensed cars are also featured in this game. Such of these are Dodge, Ford and many others. Tracks are featured from all over the world and are unlockable through tournaments. Of all the games in the series, this one received bad reviews from critics due to lack-luster graphics, overly-reused soundtrack that loop during gameplay, sluggish and choppy framerate, unresponsive controls and unrealistic gameplay, despite the fact that the game leans more towards being arcade than simulation.

Test Drive: Le Mans

This game focuses on the 24 Heures du Mans, the famous 24-hour race in the French city of Le Mans, which is arguably one of the world's most beloved sporting events. For over 70 years, daredevil car jockeys have congregated in Le Mans to find out who the real iron man of racing is. The game was considered the best in the series so far, with colorful and detailed graphics, smooth framerate, tight controls, good sound and audio, and enjoyable gameplay.

Test Drive (2002)

This release kicked off the Test Drive series' life on next-generation consoles. It differed from its predecessors in that featured a storyline.

Test Drive: Eve of Destruction

The latest installment, Eve of Destruction is remniscent of the old Destruction Derby games. Players use a variety of visually recoginzeable vehicles (notably cars similar to a late-70's Chrysler LeBaron and Ford Maverick) in several methods of destruction derby-style racing. Included in the two-player mode is "Attack", where two players face off in a field or track in cars that have special ammunition: chickens with explosives tied around them. The chickens can be shot at the other vehicle; once shot it takes a few seconds to re-load.

Test Drive Off-Road

A spin-off from the original franchise. Four installments have been released thus far:

Test Drive Off-Road
Test Drive Off-Road 2
Test Drive Off-Road 3
Test Drive Wide Open (played on three different locations: Moab Deserts, Yosemite and Hawaii)

Demolition Racer

Other spin-off from the Test Drive franchise. Based on the Test Drive 5 engine, it is a destruction race with fantasy named-cars and wild in-game musics. It is for PC and Sega Dreamcast also.

Test Drive: Unlimited

Confirmed for Xbox 360, PC, PS2 and PSP, the new Test Drive will have more than 125 licensed cars, including classic and modern cars, along with motorcycles. The action will take place on the fully-modeled Hawaiian island Oahu. Atari have confirmed that the gameplay will be based around an MMO (also called MOOR, Massively Open Online Racing) style; each server will have hundreds of players, free to create street races, buy cars from each other, or just roam at will around the island.

A free demo, playable for 15 minutes, was available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace beginning May 8, 2006, to coincide with E3. The demo features 3 driveable vehicles to choose from: a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, a Shelby GT-500, and a Lotus Exige. The player is free to roam around a small portion of Oahu, practice racing, or challenge other online players to a race.

The full game is due to be released on the 1st of September 2006 on the Xbox 360 in Europe.

External links

Test Drive | Test Drive

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