Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown offers up a lot of fun both on the track and in its simulated world. A lot of work was put in to make Hong Kong Island feel like a realistic place with far more exploration than one is used to in a racing game. Some of those elements don't hit perfectly, but the on-track performance is what counts the most and Solar Crown largely succeeds there. Races are fun and even on-foot exploration offers up something that helps Solar Crown stand out. Unfortunately, the online-only component of things complicates far more of the experience than it benefits and causes odd problems to occur that makes it tough to fully recommend Solar Crown.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a driving game that might serve if you’re looking for something new. However, server errors, mechanical driving, poorly planned progression, rather poor performance, and technical issues turn this promise into a big lie. Car enthusiasts may enjoy it, as long as they don’t look at other games that are available. And it’s because everyone can find cheaper alternatives that are more faithful to what this game should have been.

Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown sits in a bit of an unfortunate spot on the road. It wants so badly to be like its older brothers, Forza Horizon and The Crew. Yet it misses its mark due to a laundry list of immersion-wrecking faults and bugs, a lack of technical details, and an unremarkable collection of cars. To Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown’s credit, Hong Kong can be an absolutely gorgeous sandbox with its impressive mix of urban and natural environments. Despite these shortcomings and its occasionally spotty steering and quirky rearview mirrors, there’s something worthwhile trapped under the hood. Buried somewhere underneath the attempts at realism, you can almost catch a glimpse of the fun arcade racer Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown is better suited to be.

Despite a robust handling model, some fairly impressive visuals, and a few nice ideas, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown fails to deliver on its open-world racing remit, with a dearth of things to do, broken online servers, and a tacked-on story that does little to draw you in. This one's stalled at the starting line.

There was reason to be happy about the return of Test Drive Unlimited: offering a gigantic map based on the faithful reproduction of Hong Kong Island and always with this immersive aspect specific to the series, Solar Crown had good arguments to seduce. The bottom line is that the title relies on a repetitive and frustrating progression that almost never rewards the player brave enough to invest hours of hard work; worse still, its alarming technical aspect simply prevents us from enjoying the gameplay and artistic direction that are nevertheless successful. Instead, we will have to make do with a mandatory internet connection that degrades the experience to the point of sometimes making it unplayable and indigestible; we will also have to put up with uneven graphics and a broken framerate, bugs galore and an unbalanced AI that pushes to recurring nervous breakdowns. Fortunately, the sensations and effects of speed are good, the number of cars is correct and the environment pleasant, but it is difficult to appreciate them at their true value for all the pitfalls in question.