Oddball Update

I just spent some more time with Test Drive Unlimited…holy crap, this is going to be the driving game to own on the Xbox360, no question about it. I discovered that not only is there a cool Lamborghini Gallardo in the demo, there’s also a Lotus Exige…and a sweet, sweet ‘67 Shelby GT500. So I’m sure you can guess what I took out for a spin.

First of all, the garage mode is excellent. You can check out the car from any angle, open the doors/windows, even get in and start her up. While you’re out driving, the in-car view is not only sweet as hell, it’s actually playable — it’s not one of those POVs that just looks cool but hopelessly hampers your field of vision to where you can’t really play the game that way. And let’s hear it for the little details: Not only do you get bug splats on your windshield as you go flying around Oahu, but get this — if you open your windows while you’re racing along, it actually changes the sound dynamic. You hear the rush of wind fade into existence and your bellowing engine gets louder in your ears. Oh my God, cool!

Your car also isn’t the only thing you can customize: There’s a whole character design mode where you can alter the gender and appearance of your avatar character — you know, the person you see sitting behind the wheel. While driving, a check of a third-person cam showed my player character was operating the manual transmission (which sounds oh, so Bullitt-like whilst driving the Shelby!), tapping her fingers on the wheel and just looking like a real person would. An unprecedented amount of realism, for something that has absolutely nothing to do with the driving gameplay itself.

They weren’t up this morning, but now the TDU demo servers seem to be online, meaning I could probably jump online and race against some other folks. More likely, though, I’ll just keep entertaining myself by driving around the island. Unfortunately, as I was executing a wicked powerslide (accompanied by some of the best tire screeching sounds I’ve heard in a game), I rammed into an SUV and my console completely locked up. Oh, well — there’s a disclaimer saying that it’s a work in progress and the code isn’t final, so I won’t be concerned…yet.

If you have a 360, do yourself a favor and try this demo.

Categorized as Games/Console, Games