I remember being told when I was younger, “It is not about how much you spend on a car, it is about how you as the driver treats your car when your behind the wheel!” I didn’t understand at all what the person was saying until I saw my first race and some amateur in a fully custom mustang stalled his engine because he didn’t know how to shift properly. In the world of Test Drive, as the driver you only need to worry about style, how your car looks and getting different licenses while in Spain. The question I need to ask you eager racers out there is Test Drive Unlimited 2 the MMO racer you have been looking for or has it fallen short of its hype? It is time to dress in your best and get on that flight to Spain because we are landing in Ibiza thanks to Bifuteki Airlines in this review of Test Drive Unlimited 2.

In TDU2, the developers did not just want to make a game where you drive a vehicle, but they give the players a fantasy of being able to walk into a showroom and able to afford cars that you wouldn’t normally buy. It is all about living the life of someone who can pick an expensive car, change the colors, paint it, add rims, owning a sweet mansion, clothes, even yachts while spending your time in exotic locations with other rich people. Bottom line you get to be a rich person with champagne wishes and caviar dreams. I am not too fond of any of that I just want to drive! TDU2 will feature a storyline once you have chosen a preset character and than basically the game turns into a reality show, so expect a lot of cheesy dialogue. There’s also a casino mode where you gamble in a social group, which was DLC that came out a week ago. I couldn’t really fully use the feature at the time, so I can’t really comment.

TDU2, an open world MMO where decisions determine the storyline, has always been a favorite of mine, since you have the choice of going around driving on your own, until a racer passes by to challenge you. It is all about you being in the game on a long vacation, free roaming anywhere over, which is double the area of the first game. I found it cool to drive and take snap shots of yourself. The sad part is not many online players at the moment, as I drove around only saw about six or seven which is a bit disappointing on the PS3, however the 360 version had 30+ users. I am hoping in time it will grow like in the first game.

The graphics in the game are a bit hit or miss, for example the car details are amazing and they added damage to the vehicles this time. If you drive from street to off road, your car will show where it has been with dirt marks, but that can all be taken off if you take it to the bikini wash. The weird thing is the environment seems to be lacking a bit, the same with the characters roaming around the world too. The cars driving mechanics is a bit of a problem as well, since it feels like someone buttered the tracks and you end up sliding all over the map.

TDU2 features double the challenges from 350 to 650+, World Auto-Update, Single player Narrative, Car Decals, Car Damage, Dirt, Online Cops Mode, Day/Night transitions, Weather changes, Story, Out of car mode, Social/connected, Off Road Vehicle Clubs (Guilds), Co-Op game modes, Avatar mode, Custom Houses, Custom Non-competitive game modes, and Game/Web integration. Those were the things missing in TDU, which are all nice on paper, but it all comes down to the car controls and frankly it is a bit disappointing. The car mechanics, they need some fine-tuning. They do feel a bit of a difference switching to off road vehicles vs. regular cars, but sadly that slip and slide when making the slightest turns is freaking annoying. I even tried switching the modes from full active assist to no assist and it all still felt the same. I was interested in the cop chase aspect of the game but they seem to have unreal homing signals on you and no real structure with their tactics.

I have considered my final verdict and it was tough, but TDU2 is a Rent. It felt like more of a step down from TDU1 even with all the features, I do not believe it was necessary to have a story mode when the challenges and our imaginations was enough to make the game fun. If anything try out the 360 version, it might offer you more fun, however I still can’t say it is a buy. It was a nice effort but hopefully you can at least fix the driving with an update.

Thanks for stopping by gamers and please be sure to check out our live streams @ Justin.tv/bifuteki, Justin.tv/Amazonagent and  Justin.tv/Samuraikuma to see live game footage and great laughs. As always stay frosty gamers!