Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown review – Technical issues hamper original name’s return to open-world racers

It seems odd, perhaps even unfair, to begin a game review by grumbling about its technically shaky launch. After all, the server issues that plagued Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown during its “Gold Edition” early access period are hopefully fleeting in the context of the game’s lifespan, and no one’s complaining that it took Michelangelo a little longer than expected to get the Sistine Chapel right, right?

The problem is, not mentioning it in the bit of the review you read before you get distracted by something in the sidebar would underplay how spectacularly bad things went. Even with only the relatively modest population of Gold Edition buyers, the servers crashed faster than a submerged Digestive. More often than not, you’d be stuck at the login screen, unable to start the game at all. If you were lucky enough to land on the tarmac of Hong Kong Island, you might still be unable to start a race, even against AI-driven opponents, due to a mandatory check-in with the servers before each event. Worse yet, you could actually complete a race and still lose that progress because the game would re-ping the server for the results screen. I found myself playing the game exclusively between 6 and 9 AM to ensure a reliable connection, peering at the peaks with bleary, tired eyes. And, to reiterate, this all happened before the floods of new players arrived on the game’s official launch day.

The other reason it’s worth mentioning early on in the review is that, while the always-online service has become a little more stable, it instinctively feels unnecessary. The game is perfectly capable of filling its races with AI cars rather than its preference for seamlessly adding other real players, so why make control mandatory for those players? Furthermore, unlike many games, including genre stablemate The Crew, Test Drive Unlimited isn’t keen on making you spend real money to top up your in-game balance, so it’s not like there’s some delicate real-to-fattend economy to doggedly police over a constant online connection. The lack of microtransactions should be something to celebrate, but we’ve inherited a fair share of the inconveniences that usually accompany them. Most damning of all, really, is the existence of the original Test Drive Unlimited, which managed to handle the blend of online and offline play much more elegantly than it did nearly two decades ago in 2006.

So, assuming – and this is a big assumption – that the game is functional at all, what exactly is there? Well, firstly, a more or less one-to-one recreation of Hong Kong Island to serve as your occasional online, modestly multiplayer car playground. Hong Kong might seem like an odd choice at first, given that it’s best known for its dense urban areas, but there’s a wealth of winding mountain routes and off-road trails heading into the island’s centre. Perhaps it’s this that gives developer KT Racing the confidence to stick to some of the narrower city streets, rather than widening them to allow for higher speeds and less cautious driving. Some of the best racing that Solar Crown serves up involves moments like barreling through the cramped Macao ferry terminal or down a cluttered side street. Hong Kong Island proves to be an inspired choice of location, and its authentic scale is refreshing after so many games that offer only an abridged representation of a real place.

Unfortunately, while the map has a pleasing attention to detail, the game engine simply can’t keep up. This is either a game that’s been extremely poorly optimised or an engine that’s fundamentally unequipped to deliver what’s being asked of it. The console versions in particular suffer from this, with a choice between a performance mode that offers higher frame rates but only at 1080p resolution, or a ‘graphics’ mode that slightly increases the resolution and fidelity, but only at a frame rate that can’t consistently hit 30 frames per second. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t exactly Sophie’s Choice we’re talking about here, but both of these options feel inherently compromised and, dare I say it, distinctly last-gen. It’s a shame, because the characterful map is let down and the game does have rare moments of beauty, but these are mostly to do with the lighting and atmospheric effects. I was particularly struck by the depiction of the morning mist across the bay, which I strongly associate with that part of the world.

Characterful is not the word I would use to describe the actual characters in the game, mind you. Solar Crown’s plot is some nonsense about elite street racing, delivered by a bunch of forgettable, dead-eyed puppets. Endemic to it is a general sense that the game has suffered a personality bypass, something that’s evident in the events and activities you’ll partake in as you build up a reputation with one of the game’s two clans. There’s the odd memorable combination of car and track, such as an early duel against a lone opponent in a Mini Cooper through a cargo bay, but there’s nothing of the scale and ambition of Forza Horizon’s showcase events, or even The Crew Motorfest’s themed playlists.

Progress through the campaign can also feel sluggish; the most desirable cars are eye-wateringly expensive and require a certain reputation level to unlock, so you’ll spend more time in individual vehicles than you would in a game like Horizon which hands out exotic supercars like brightly coloured candy. To a certain extent I respect the decision, which aims to give you a real sense of connection and ownership over your fleet of vehicles, something the original TDU did so well. However, it also feels like a bit of a smokescreen to disguise the fact that Solar Crown’s overall car list is more modest than its bigger-budget open-world competitors.

At least the meat and potatoes of the racing are reasonably entertaining. The game has an odd handling model, which generates copious amounts of understeer as you brake for corners, but dishs out armfuls of oversteer as you lift off into medium and high-speed corners. It feels unnatural, and while you’ll inevitably get used to these quirks, it’s odd that a studio that’s produced a series of realistic World Rally Championship games has opted for something that feels so little like driving a real car.

Almost uniquely, the fate of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown will likely be determined not by its races and events, its handling, or its extremely lightweight storyline, but by how players embrace Hong Kong Island as a place to hang out with friends in virtual cars. It’s hard to overstate how differently the original Test Drive Unlimited played than any other racing game when it released in 2006. At its core, it was a social driving game, with players often spending more time cruising the map in groups than competing in formalized events.

Nowadays, though, gamers have plenty of alternative options to scratch that same itch, most notably Forza Horizon and The Crew Motorfest, the latter of which was built by a studio that rose from the ashes of original Test Drive Unlimited developer Eden Studios. With such daunting competition, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’s only hope is that it can keep its technical issues in check and that its lovingly crafted new recreation of Hong Kong Island is enough to earn it cult status among genre fans and digital tourists alike.

Nacon provided a copy of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown for review.