Alternatively you can ignore the GPS altogether and just drive around until you find an event or mission that appeals to you. Your nifty GPS system can be set to automatically direct you to the next race for big cash prizes, or you can call up the satellite map (complete with snazzy "zooming into the sky" effect) and choose your own destinations from the dozens on display. There are motor clubs dedicated to specific manufacturers and models, there are league races and championships, and there are quirky side quests such as the aforementioned hitchhiker or speed trap challenges, where you must blaze past a set number of cameras in a limited time, clocking up the fastest aggregate speed. After that, it's entirely up to you - head off and find some races, or just cruise around the island and admire the view. Stop off at the car rental showroom, choose a temporary vehicle and then set about buying your first speedy motor and a house from which to operate. Quite simply, you arrive in Hawaii with a pocket full of cash and a head full of gasoline-soaked dreams. Phwooooar, check out the bumpers on that! Eh? Eh?įinally, after too many years of being a follower rather than a leader, Test Drive has delivered the sort of tidal shift in structure that should - hopefully - cause a reappraisal of the way racing games are put together in general.
This is rather unfair since Test Drive is hardly a lame duck, introducing as it did some concepts that the racing genre still clings to - most notably the idea of being chased by the cops, something integral to its 1987 incarnation and since co-opted wholesale by the brattish Need for Speed series. Twenty years old this year, there hasn't been a new entry to the series since 1999 and, even in its heyday, it always seemed to be overshadowed in the public's affections by its rivals, from Out Run to Hard Drivin' to Ridge Racer. Of course, nobody really expected the Test Drive series to be the one to shake up the driving game status quo. Or, at the very least, Driving A Hitchhiker To A School.Įxcept that sounds really, really wrong. I suspect that, had she not grown out of such whimsical pursuits, she'd find much the same pleasure in Test Drive Unlimited, a freeform driving game which even includes bonus missions that, if you squint a bit, could pass for Driving Your Daughter To School. Completely ignoring the actual point of the game, she was quite happy to pootle around the wireframe city streets pretending to carry out common domestic chores. The reason for this affectation had less to do with her passion for tracking down drug dealers in bright purple cars, and everything to do with the fact that she decided to rename the game Driving My Daughter To School. Back in the olden days, when 8 bits ruled the Earth, the only game that my younger sister showed even the faintest glimmer of interest in was Durell's Turbo Esprit on the Spectrum.
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