They probably acquired licenseing for the game during the beginning of development in 2018/2017 and didn’t think the game would take half a decade to develop The original tdu was developed in under 2 years
Yeah & not to mention there's only like a few Japanese cars compared to past titles. To add salt to the wounds, Mazda & Mitsubishi still have not appeared in a single Test Drive game to this day. No Lancer Evolution or RX-7.
This game genuinely made me play Test Drive Unlimited 1 again... ON THE PS2. So yeah, it lived up to its legacy by reminding me how much more immersive the older games are xD
@@Kuli24000 TDU in PS2/PSP has the club system for more progression instead of just championships. In my eyes, it add a sense of achievement. I hope you'll enjoy the PS2 version as I did 👍
They should have named it "Test Drive Limitations: Some Event". They had the nerve to use the word Unlimited in the most limited version of the Unlimited series. Online only, small car list, less features, less gameplay, less customization, less feel. This isn't Unlimited at all. Worst of all, from what I see from every review, the "Solar Crown" doesn't even feel like a event and more like just an intro.
@@Deadsphere The amount of customization you had in TDU1/2 with your cars is about the reality of where some of us would land with the actual customization to the cars offered, aside from the lower end ones which were supposed to share the point of being "starter cars". In reality, a very small number of us even have the resources to be able to buy a lambo right now, so if we did, I doubt with all the shock and awe of owning the car, that we'd be running right out to get it liberty walk body kits and custom rims. TDU did what made sense. We got to pick factory colors. We got to pick factory wheels. We got to pick factory interiors. It really hammered in that the experience was about gaining and then driving the car, in a way that someone who literally just got a lambo from a cheap beater would actually act.
@@Deadsphere TDU never was about car customization because that breaks with the pure car aesthetics from original manufactures, and keep the "rich guy who keep his supercar stock" TDU 1 and 2 did it right by allow tuning with the oficial tuning companies like Nismo, etc. Brainless tuning would turn TDU into another Forza, NFS, etc.
TDU is never about a over the top customization, only a small but elegant customization The word "UNLIMITED" in the series stands for the limitless driving experience with a seamless luxuries life and many of people interconnected around the world (but not really forcing that online feature like this game was)
They are just using the TDU name for a quick cash grab, it doesn’t have any TDU dna. They focused too much on making it a Forza Horizon copy, they ended up losing all the TDU dna of the game, which is really disappointing considering the fact that original Forza Horizon was inspired by TDU franchise. And with the way developers are completely ignoring their player base, I don’t think anybody will be playing this game in a year.
Shit became a massive red flag for me already when the news about the poor working condition for the KT developers began circulating around a few years beforehand. It's unfortunate what the game has become as of now, but I'm glad I've been maintaining my hype level low, knowing that it was developed by KT Racing when it was announced in the first place.
@@mrxbas so is this the main reason why people don’t like it? Yes, it’s always online Yes, we don’t have houses. Yes, it’s a little bit different from the art style and gameplay of the other previous games. it’s kind of trying to be like Forza horizon which Forza horizon tried to copy test drive. It’s in a weird state of racing games right now or everyone is trying to do the same thing instead of standing out and it’s just feeling… The same
Once Blackpanthaa played it in that weird live event, I remember everyone defending the game saying it’s still in beta, but some of us could tell it was hollow and empty compared to the previous games
Exactly. From this live event onwards, the whole thing started to crumble. And with every message from the developers afterwards, things went even further downhill.
I remember a lot of Blackpanthaa's complaints were about missing elements or features as well. People saying "it's still in beta" fail to understand that developers do not push a game into a Beta branch unless it's feature-complete. If there's features missing by the time it hits its Beta debut, those features are not going to be in the release branch either.
they were wrong from very begining. They too much focus on forza, tc and even nfs and they don't realize their game had different concept with actual tdu games. Making online mode was the bad choice obviously. One i critics the most by making unlimited car storage. If i play nfs, forza or tc, i don't really care about houses. Only on tdu, we start in very noob situations with cheap cars, live in caravan, and limited storage cars also force us to grain money to make life better. i think in SC we start in op situations by gaining property with unlimited storage, adding silver and gold pass too make it easier, with that thing then why we need to buy property when we already got unlimited storage
They should have forced each Dev to play this game for at least 300 hours before they were even able to start. I don't feel like anyone who made this really understood the assignment. They were supposed to make TDU3, not just Test Drive:Hong Kong Island". If they would have named it that, this game would have got slightly better reviews because they wouldn't have been held to the "Unlimited" quality and expectations. They didn't though and now this game and possibly the company are going to suffer severely from this. Honestly though, online only and no pause during races? Come the heck on.
Imagine if the story started off with the player as a member of the Streets. They start off with a low tier JDM vehicle like a 350Z or a GT86 and initially have a rivalry with the Sharps. They race with the Streets to unlock cars and customisation and the cars themselves are bought from an online used car dealer while the player races the Sharps to earn reputation and even have boss races against the Sharps. Eventually one of the Sharps offers the player a chance to join them and get access to the highest end cars or stick with the Streets instead. If the player sides with the Sharps then the progression flips: now the player races Sharps to unlock cars and customisation and they buy them from high-end dealerships while they race the Streets for reputation and have boss battles against their former friends. The final race could be between the player and the leader of the Sharps if they stuck with the Streets or the player against the leader of the Streets if they switched sides. But then they get a surprise "final" final race against either the Sharp that tried to get them to join or the Street that got them into the clan in the first place. Idk what else to add to that but I think it could have worked because as Dove said, Test Drive Unlimited is supposed to be a rich person simulator featuring the buying of high-end cars, outfits and houses so the idea of playing as a weird kind of Underground street racer doesn't fit with the vibe that the game was trying to go for.
@@CyanRooper I think that would be a lovely scenario but still takes away too much from what the original game vibe was about. Racing was not high priority in prior games. You could do it to progress faster or make some big money but you could also ignore it for the majority of the game and just make your money off of missions, FRIM, and other features. This game lacks all that made this game fun. They went for a "Race Festival" concept to fit in with the crowd but this game was never a CROWD game. It was a YOU game. You decided what crowd you wanted to be around. You could star your own clan and race with people who just loved classics or you could get in with the serious-racers and be on the track almost every day, you could hang with explorers and go unlock the roads, or you could hang with the gamblers and sit in the casino buying overpriced drinks while laughing at your bad hand. This game does not have ANY of the things it should. The story itself seems like it wasn't even a major factor after looking at these reviews and gameplay footage. While your idea for the game story would have been great to see over what they gave, I would have preferred they just stuck true to earning your way to the high life, exploring the world, finding friends, and getting skills. No infinite garages. No always online. No reduced payouts to prevent grinding the same missions. LET ME DO WHAT THE HECK I WANT IN WHATEVER CAR I WANT! Give us REAL dealerships. Give us REAL SPEEDOMETERS! Give us back HOUSES! Give us MORE CARS! I don't give a crap if I can mess with my lighting and signals if I only have a crap list of cars without even the basics of car games in them (Where is the huge muscle collection? How do we have such a limited JDM collection IN ASIA?!?!?!?!? Take your high-horse-heads out of your own asses, stop trying to make the game you think is going to rocket you into money-printer-freedom, and MAKE A REAL DAMN VERSION OF TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED! If you can't do that, change this to Test Drive: Hong Kong Island" and then re-release it so people won't even consider this as part of Unlimited, because I definitely don't. While they work on that, I will be playing my OFFLINE version of TDU2 to start a new save, because that is what GOOD GAMES DO! They make themselves available to you whenever you want it and they are playable!
@@yourpststudios wait you're right, they basically tried to copy the success of Forza Horizon which itself copied ideas from the first TDU game and the end result is somehow worse than either of them. Makes me realise how hard they actually fumbled this game.
@@CyanRooper Exactly! The first TDU was just sort of an alternative to what was going on at the time. EA and Rockstar were primarily focused on Open World Tuner style arcade racers, but they had some of the same elements. Find a dealer, buy cars, get more places to store cars, race, explore, unlock, and make your own thing out of it. TDU1 did just that but it changed it from being about a hardcore underground scene to just being your average person starting out with a old car and working your way up to your dream garage. TDU2 expanded upon that by giving us better cars, better houses, more to do in those houses, more customization, bigger world, another island, and more missions, along with police and stuff. This game lost it. Not one thing I can say from the above can be said about this game except "another island". Our only hope now is that Rockstar has been plotting this entire time entire time to make Midnight Club again but with everything TDU3 forgot to add. They already have the framework from the GTA racing and character/customization/tuning. Let us have it Rockstar! It's obvious Forza, TDU, The Crew, and damn near every other crowd/festival/event racing game isn't going to figure this out until the money runs dry and they are forced to go back to offline mode.
There are mutliple reasons to why it failed : 1 : not the same devs. The original TDU devs created their studio named "ivory tower". They developed this little franchise called "the crew" 2 : online only. The servers are NEVER working 3 : optimization on PC. The game looks worse than forza 5 and runs worse 4 : Nothing that makes TDU special is present. It's just yet another generic racing game 5 : Everything feels outdated.
I got a chance to play the beta and I was slightly optimistic, the handling is good, the map isn't filled with sand everywhere and the progression was quite alright. That optimism went down when all these disconnection errors and optimization issues popped up. TDU SC has the underpinnings of a good game but the issues plaguing it right now just leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I honestly hope that they will get rid of region locking the servers and fixing all the issues mentioned in the video at some point. This was a great video to watch through, props to you and your editor for uploading this. Definitely worth the watch if you're thinking about buying TDU SC.
@OpaqueCypress nope KT & Alex Vll are more guilty than the publisher. Those two literally manipulate people to buy this game n pull a actual bait & switch & are lying that there's no issues with the game but there is & they're gonna take the money & run eventually
It's getting annoying how games release in a "good enough" state that they aren't worth buying at first but the potential is there for it to improve with updates. It results in players having a mindset that I can best describe as "let the devs cook." You basically have to wait 2 or even 3 times longer than expected to play a game because it needs updates to fix and improve itself which just begs the question: why even release it in the first place if it still needs time to cook? And I say this as someone whose name and profile picture are taken from NFS Prostreet and NFS Carbon respectively: 2 games that needed more time to cook before they were released.
To Ubisoft, it is great that you are addressing the Online only issue, but it is to little to late, The Crew (1) is still unplayable and I will never buy one of your games again, the damage is already done.
I don’t understand why people are so upset with the end of the crew 1 specifically. It’s a mid racing game thats been out for a decade that’s had two sequels come out. There are plenty of MMO and online only games that have did that have gotten a lot worse.
@@rexthewolf3149 I really like The Crew (1) and much preferred its darker, grittier tone and car class system to the sequel. I actually liked the story and frequently played it up until Ubisoft shut it down, in fact I played it more than The Crew 2 even after I got my hands on the sequel.. And I haven’t played The Crew Motor fest because I’m boycotting all Ubisoft games since The Crew shut down news broke. I’m quite sick and tired of hearing the argument that they are basically the same, they are not, personally I think The Crew (1) was better because: It had a story, unlike The Crew 2 It had a more mature darker tone, I personally like when games doesn’t feel like they are watered down and censored to get 3 or 7 age rating. Another example of that is Forza Horizon (1) which has some of the best in game radio host dialogues/commentary. Better in game “radio” or soundtrack, The Crew 2 has like two to choose from.. Better car class system The map felt more detailed in certain places (which it isn’t) You could get into police chases (ruined by the calling all units DLC) -- Im also really sick of hearing it is a MMO and can’t be made to be played alone, I played most of the game solo and there was allegedly a single player mode that was scrapped pretty late in the development, so that is straight bull sh**
@@klaspeppar5619 Yeah I’ve heard that, but you didn’t answer my question. Why is this the game that got the ball rolling and Not the dozens of much better online only games that didn’t get sequel or were online for much less time. All of the crew games are different flavors of mid.
and an older, deprecated harder than Ubisoft's stock market ones at that, such as first gen R35 GT-R (CBA) and 370Z instead of 3rd gen R35 GT-R (4BA) and RZ34 Nissan Z like what in the world are they thinking? especially when Gran Turismo is gonna have the newest GT-R R35 T Spec (2nd gen 4BA) in the upcoming update along with Evo 8 (CT9A) and some obscure Japanese Minibus and the godawful TDU2 model only adds more fuel to the fire to this whole discussion
Please Remember that there is *Extreme* Political Hostility between Japan and Communist China, so the Chances are a lot of the Japanese Companies may have Possibly been *Forbidden by the Japanese Government* to Grant Licenses to the Game due to it being set in Communist China. Nissan being owned by the French, would be Exempt *If* this was the Case, so, it makes sense IMO.
Where are all the shhhh t they said it was already in the game? This feels like a "let's drive in Hong Kong island with expensive cars game" and that's it
It does not even feel like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the most crowded city in the world full of dilapidated but lively buildings, not an empty futuristic sterile city. They should have chosen PyongYang instead.
Hong Kong island would even be better when it was more realistic. It looks like some futuristic city, whilst in real life half of the buildings there are tearing apart and there are dead dogs on the streets. That'd be more realistic, more real, better.
I believe the term your looking for is "Grit" and I completely agree. The game looks way too clean even for the more fantastical, futuristic look they're going for. Some or a lot of grittiness would've helped a lot and not make it look generic.
Its absolutely mind bending that tdu 2 a game that's made on custom engine - only physics used havok- I am pretty sure without any of the current day bullshit Dev assistants could cram in 101 cars but nacon could only get 99 cars with all of of that Dev time
after seeing this game first major patch and their Dev Diary video, I'm convinced that Solar Crown is pretty much beyond saving at this point like they're trying everything in their power to brush off all the complaints people had with this game including the offline mode under the rug on that interview video
@@ZA-7and it turns out the first major patch brought even more performance & connection issues back, on top of price buffs of some cars as cherry on top :v
@adlibbed2138 exactly! I knew it was time to let go when they started out the dev diary by saying , “things are going better cause players can access the game” like what 😂 that should’ve always been possible the fact that people are comparing this piece of trash to the other racing games we have is just insane graphics suck , handling is ok , progression sucks (feels like I just left my job and clocked into another one) and I can go on but!🤷🏽♂️😂
TDU 1 was a legendary game. Once I got my first Thrustmaster wheel I played the shit out of it in the summer of 2008. TDU 2 was undrivable for me, I quickly let go of it. TDU SC just seems like a mess and a heartless, soulless tech demo. Sorry but when Motorfest, Horizon, GT7 and countless other games are available and provide fun and seamless experiences, Solar Crown just doesn't cut it (in its current form). A real shame.
Don't you think it's a bit much to use 22 minutes to just say yes? To think that a TDU game made in 2024 is significantly lacking in features present in the original from 2006, it's simply embarrassing
@@_blankface original thumbnail was "was tdusc a failure?" so that's why how i started my comment. Didn't know it was changed, but still the rest of my comment stands
The creative director maybe the same guy that worked on Eden Games for 2 previous title of TDU but keep it mind that most of the creative team that worked on previous TDU team aren't even there (they were in Ivory Tower) so it won't utilize the entire idea from the Director of what the direction of the game should be And again KT games aren't having a good portofolio of developing a full open world scale racing games, most of the game that they developed are linear racing games (probably only Isle of Man series that has "a little bit" open world aspect but not fully open world) also considering KT racing is a mid tier scale developer as well To me Putting a responsible to KT Racing for developing TDU Solar Crown is already a mistake from begining, Nacon should consider another capable developer to develop the game from start
@@FrozenDrone12 That would explain some of the design choices. Although I'm still somewhat convinced that Nacon wanted them to make a Live service game because it's often the publishers that push this narrative that every game has to be a live service so the players keep coming back. I'd rather have a full game with as much content as possible and the option to get more content by paying for it via DLC than to get a product that is half finished with the rest of it being part of the live service updates -_-
@@Pokefan220195 literally the only way to saving this game is to screwed the freaking up that always online MMO crap, this game almost has no room for improvement anymore for now, it's already too late, even if they trying to updating the game as much as they can If they remove that always online MMO feature maybe community can help fixing this already broken game (well you know what I am talking about) it's sad that how KT Racing ruin literally one of the most influential and cult classic racing games
@@FrozenDrone12 Yeah I never understood that MMO crap to begin with. It's clearly not in their wheelhouse to develop something that big, especially when they set up such strict limitations like no crossplay or, even crazier, not even the ability to play with people from different countries. And the first couple of days they didn't even had the server capacity to begin with (and they still don't have the full capacity otherwise the amount of disconnects would be nearly 0, at least from their end). They should really just drop all the online stuff or make it at least optional, then they could focus on fixing bugs and adding stuff instead of trying to keep this barely functional MMO online
@@Pokefan220195 announcing this game as online only is already a hype dropping in the first place, I was hyping up when they show the demo first time in 2023 Nacon Presentation, but once they announced that this game will be a MMO online only games then I know that will not going work well, players are dropping the hype even before the game release and when the beta demo released then yep I was right, this game was wrong even when the full release arrived it's still wrong
I’m a huge fan of this series but when TDUSC dropped I tried my best to like it as much as I did with the previous ones. in my opinion many things have been left out and doesn’t really feel like a TDU game, even so it’s made me revert back to playing the older Test drives 😂
I played TDU2 and here's what I like about the game: >A fun story to set the theme. >Broke ahh underdog player character. >Immersive game world, just short of a full fledged GTA. >Player housing. This in particular set TDU1-2 apart from other racing games. I as the player do not come here randomly for a race. No, I LIVE HERE. I am not a random "tourist", I'm the local. TDU is that racing game that didn't waste the whole map just for a race track. >Good side activities. >Progression by skills, done through trials and errors. This further played into the nature of the game itself: Test Drive. You take a license test and only way to get it is to git gud. Ain't no reputation exp gonna help you here. >Some may say outdated graphics but that's where you're dead wrong. Graphics through the ages distinguishes one game from the other, it's different each time, makes games stand apart from each other. TDU2 graphics is colorful and vibrant. Haven't play the first game yet so can't say anything about it. >Single player game, multiplayer is 100% optional. Even on emulator the game just runs -which is my way to play the game because by the time I discovered it the PC version was gone. TDU Solar Crown is geared toward MMO always-online because hahaha following trend is fun. Bet even when offline mode is added, 90% of activities will be unvailable because offline is not how TDU Solar Crown should be played. No you are meant to go online, pvp with players and then some more to unlock the Battlepass, so you can buy more Battlepasses and the cycle repeat. The game is playing you, not you playing it.
I was on the fence until I watched this video. I ended up redownloading TDU2 from Steam again, lol. This game is basically a demo compared to TDU2 and the additional mods available for it
"in the end everyone just started in the house and went freeriding, it became a solo experiance" Yeah no sh*t that's exactly what we want 🤦🏻♂️ Test Drive Unlimited was special unlike Forza Horizon because it wasn't a racing game it was a driving game, the buying houses, driving across the city to different dealerships, discovering stuff, buying clothes aftera a long driving there and driving to casinos, it could be played offline or with friends, no Internet connection but more fun with others, it was a slow burn you didn't start off with a Multi Million Dollar Fleet of Super/Sports Cars you started off with a cheap, street racer type car and the grind up to the point where you finally got a good car and nice house felt special Alain Jarniou and the devs don't seem to understand that 🙄
Games are taking YEARS to make and still incomplete. Stronger consoles, more money, more people and yet not one single game today can come out with out maintenance or patches like make it make sense
I kinda have an idea of how they could have made the rivalry between the Sharps and the Streets make sense: Imagine if the story started off with the player arriving to Hong Kong as an experienced street racer and getting introduced to the Streets and then becomes a member of the Streets. They start off with a low tier JDM vehicle like a 350Z or a GT86 and initially have a rivalry with the Sharps. They race with the Streets to unlock cars and customisation and the cars themselves are bought from an online used car dealer while the player races the Sharps to earn reputation and even have boss races (involving pink slips) against the Sharps. Eventually one of the Sharps offers the player a chance to join them and get access to the highest end cars or stick with the Streets instead. If the player sides with the Sharps then the progression flips: now the player races Sharps to unlock cars and customisation and they buy them from high-end dealerships while they race the Streets for reputation and have boss battles against their former friends. The final race could be between the player and the leader of the Sharps if they stuck with the Streets or the player against the leader of the Streets if they switched sides. But then they get a surprise "final" final race against either the Sharp that tried to get them to join or the Street that got them into the clan in the first place. Idk what else to add to that but I think it could have worked because as Dove said, Test Drive Unlimited is supposed to be a rich person simulator featuring the buying of expensive cars, outfits and houses so the idea of playing as a weird kind of Underground street racer doesn't fit with the vibe that the game was trying to go for.
They could make it so that the 1st half is progression with the Streets, mainly focusing only on racing and visual + performance upgrades to slowly teach players about tuning. After a while or maybe have a mission objective of purchasing a supercar/hypercar, that caught the Sharps attention towards the player, becoming the 2nd half of the game, getting players into more high stakes racing, gambling and stuff like Fashion, Real estate, etc eventually going into the high stakes multiplayer stuff. But alas the current state of the game just cannot support that idea, they're just purely visual as it is.
@@Sharicite yeah, there was a lot of potential for good progression similar to like a "rags to riches" type of story. Though someone like Dove would argue that the kind of single player mode that you and I described fits a Need for Speed or Midnight Club type of game better than a Test Drive Unlimited game.
This game soon will be like Concord if dev is not fixing those issues ASAP or could possibly like The Crew 2 when they already got offline mode previously.
I grew up with both tdu1&2 the only problem I've had with tdusc is the insane rubberbanding making almost any race above 500 nearly impossible not because of a lack of skill or having a slow car, No, the rubberbanding is so bad that the only race I can do to progress is literally impossible because the ai's are just gone after 4 turns
Car balancing is also so bad. I've spent 6 or 8 hours looking for secret car wrecks, finally got myself offroad VW Beetle Buggy, and guess what - it's useless. Not only it can barely get to 300PR (when most events will ask for 500-600 PR and higher), but it's also the only RWD car in class, and it just sucks, it's unplayable and undriveable.
2 месяца назад+2
this game have a problem of "lack of reason to play", which is a very big problem for a new release.
@@fizzisoda7113 No he is not, I have Played Games from far smaller Companies, and made on far smaller Budgets, than this, albeit in the FPS Genre (although I will not touch that Genre with a Ten Foot Driveshaft these Days) such as Dusk, Amid Evil, Ion Fury, etc, that are absolute *Masterpiece* Level. Being a Small Team on a Small Budget is *no* Excuse. Katie Racing are Incompetent, and the Game is Objectively Bad! Period.
Ah yes, releasing and selling a game that should still be in beta testing due to scope creep, mismanagement and asking for features while giving unattainable timelines. Every developer's dream come true! Could be a good game in a year.
Somehow not surprised the lack of certain Asian brands. Other racing games also seem to be missing key players like Toyota, at the very least. Licensing I guess is more complicated or stupid than we think.
I’m sad to say despite loving the driving mechanic and hon Kong island itself everything else has been a complete letdown. It’s unbelievable just sad how the game literally has so many missing features of what made Past TTU games great in the first place. It’s even more laughable when the so called 300 patch fixes while did fix some things it actually somewhat worst in other areas and still a lot of people are having issues with the severs and connections. It’s just a shit show one after another.
Not trivial?!?! what are you smoking? I tried to do it on my PC. I don’t know how every time I try. It doesn’t work and on the 360. It runs like complete dog crap.
TDU1 clips is how I got introduced to Test Drive and it took me a decade to realize it was a franchise dating back to 1987, before Unlimited stepped the game up. I remember seeing the trailer for Solar Crown years ago, and when it came out, it's now similar to a franchise that was literally influenced by TDU 💀
In short, a lot went wrong. I'm sure the publisher will learn all the wrong lessons from this. Too many little things that really don't fit, not to mention the live service model. Tdu1 and 2 are still playable even online to this day and the official servers went down long ago. Also the art direction is all over the place.
Too many cooks at once. They wanted TDU but also Forza Horizon. They wanted online live-servive but also full priced retail game. They wanted Hong Kong but also futiristic sterile fantasy world. They wanted walking in first person out the cars, but also have no pedestarians anywhere. These goals have no unifying vision behind it.
I'm never supporting anything published by Nacon ever again. Burned me with the WRC games that they abandoned for this trainwreck, and also the Session skate sim game. I hope they get their asses sued into oblivion by the French Ministry of Labor.
Was it a desaster? Dove writing like the game will never be fully finished with all features and DLC. On the other hand the roadmap is very sluggish and we can only wait for change. If they dont pull a Cyberpunk the game is dead next year, and Nacon/ KT aint known for quick world changing updates that actually make the game better...
Nothing went wrong with it, it's exactly what Nacon intended for it to be. They are a shovelware company, this is the type of game they make. If anyone is disappointed by this game it's because of their own ignorance.
Honestly, the people who made and released TDU:SC should really be held accountable for this failure. This is simply not OK. The game never should've been released in its current state. It fails at even the most basic of things: decent performance. And having features on a roadmap a year out? Yeah, no thanks. I already knew this was going to be bad, but this bad was a surprise even for me. Nobody involved should ever work in this business ever again.
Yeah, as always game was overhyped and then launched with lots of problems, but don't worry it will be fixed to quite fun/playable state in one year of patches like Cyberpunk. Seems to be the norm nowadays.
My big issue with the game is that other than having hong kong as the map, it has little to do with hong kong car culture at all. All car collectors in Hong Kong own all the JDM Legendary cars (r34, rx7, nsx etc). Also, where are all the chinese ppl? Lol. Would it kill ya to at least have pedestrians that run out of the way like in NFS? What about cantonese voices for npc's in the background? Nothing in this game honours the location it represents.
Honestly this seems so lifeless and dull. Nothing of any interest, in my opinion obviously. Some full features missing upon release. I just don't get why you would release a game with the preface of features 'coming in the future'. Why would you buy a game where the developer says such a thing? Idk if I'm just okd now. But god, so many AAA/AA games these days are just meh. Just another cookie cutter racing game from the mainstream. Games like Wreckfest, BeamNG, Art of Rally etc are keeping the genre alive. Not stuff like this. So glad the indie sector is there with original ideas as well, with games that are interesting and do not rely on online this and that. Anyway, rant over. Hoping you are keeping well Dove.
Aside from gameplay, graphics and everything else (which to me is no big deal), the ONE MAJOR thing that went wrong with TDUSC...........................................ONLINE ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. NO racing games nowadays SHOULD NOT be online only or require ANY server or internet connection for said game to work.
This is this is one of those games that you wait a few months until it's half off on steam, then you buy it. All the bugs are fixed and it's a playable game. This is what I did with forza Motorsport, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
This at 16:14 GTA5 did that in 2013 with over 500 vehicles, TDU 1 and 2 did it as well with twice as many vehicles as this game, I don't understand why people always have to try and find "redeeming qualities" in shovelware crap like this.
Nope. No way they can ever save this game now. The latest server patch as they call it seems to be causing more issues than fixing it. The driving still feels floaty & graphics are some of the worst I've seen on a newer game. A big let down & a disappointment.
It's kinda ironic that they went with this ultra futuristic setting but the car list is "outdated".
They probably acquired licenseing for the game during the beginning of development in 2018/2017 and didn’t think the game would take half a decade to develop
The original tdu was developed in under 2 years
Still more up to date than NFS, or even Forza to some extent
@@blackshadow7192😂
@@blackshadow7192
Heat updated NFS's exotic car roster to be up-to-date for 2019.
I think NFS is doing fine in relation to their car relevancy
Yeah & not to mention there's only like a few Japanese cars compared to past titles. To add salt to the wounds, Mazda & Mitsubishi still have not appeared in a single Test Drive game to this day. No Lancer Evolution or RX-7.
This game genuinely made me play Test Drive Unlimited 1 again... ON THE PS2. So yeah, it lived up to its legacy by reminding me how much more immersive the older games are xD
Same here, my first TDU experience is the PS2/PSP version. It shocked me that the PC version is very different
do you not like the platinum version, mr gt guy?
@@michaeldavid1566 I do, I just wanted to see the older gen console version and even that has more features than Solar Crown xD
@@kagakuryu639 What really??? All I've ever tried is the pc version. I have a ps2 ready to go, so I guess I'll try it out! Thanks.
@@Kuli24000 TDU in PS2/PSP has the club system for more progression instead of just championships. In my eyes, it add a sense of achievement. I hope you'll enjoy the PS2 version as I did 👍
They should have named it "Test Drive Limitations: Some Event".
They had the nerve to use the word Unlimited in the most limited version of the Unlimited series. Online only, small car list, less features, less gameplay, less customization, less feel. This isn't Unlimited at all. Worst of all, from what I see from every review, the "Solar Crown" doesn't even feel like a event and more like just an intro.
TDU1 & 2 didn't allow for much customization either if you consider the lack of exterior mods and upgrades making some cars flat out worse entirely
Test drive limited solar s***
@@Deadsphere The amount of customization you had in TDU1/2 with your cars is about the reality of where some of us would land with the actual customization to the cars offered, aside from the lower end ones which were supposed to share the point of being "starter cars".
In reality, a very small number of us even have the resources to be able to buy a lambo right now, so if we did, I doubt with all the shock and awe of owning the car, that we'd be running right out to get it liberty walk body kits and custom rims.
TDU did what made sense. We got to pick factory colors. We got to pick factory wheels. We got to pick factory interiors. It really hammered in that the experience was about gaining and then driving the car, in a way that someone who literally just got a lambo from a cheap beater would actually act.
@@Deadsphere TDU never was about car customization because that breaks with the pure car aesthetics from original manufactures, and keep the "rich guy who keep his supercar stock" TDU 1 and 2 did it right by allow tuning with the oficial tuning companies like Nismo, etc. Brainless tuning would turn TDU into another Forza, NFS, etc.
TDU is never about a over the top customization, only a small but elegant customization
The word "UNLIMITED" in the series stands for the limitless driving experience with a seamless luxuries life and many of people interconnected around the world (but not really forcing that online feature like this game was)
They are just using the TDU name for a quick cash grab, it doesn’t have any TDU dna. They focused too much on making it a Forza Horizon copy, they ended up losing all the TDU dna of the game, which is really disappointing considering the fact that original Forza Horizon was inspired by TDU franchise. And with the way developers are completely ignoring their player base, I don’t think anybody will be playing this game in a year.
Shit became a massive red flag for me already when the news about the poor working condition for the KT developers began circulating around a few years beforehand. It's unfortunate what the game has become as of now, but I'm glad I've been maintaining my hype level low, knowing that it was developed by KT Racing when it was announced in the first place.
LOGIN ERROR: UNABLE TO LOGIN TO PLATFORM
RACE SERVER ERROR
A server error has occurred. Do you want to leave the lobby?
@@mrxbas so is this the main reason why people don’t like it? Yes, it’s always online Yes, we don’t have houses. Yes, it’s a little bit different from the art style and gameplay of the other previous games. it’s kind of trying to be like Forza horizon which Forza horizon tried to copy test drive. It’s in a weird state of racing games right now or everyone is trying to do the same thing instead of standing out and it’s just feeling… The same
@@BayAreaMike99 Of course there are more reasons, but what tops it all off is the myriad of online-related errors for an MMO out of all things
I canceled my pre order when the beta wasn’t accessible on the last day because of server issues
Once Blackpanthaa played it in that weird live event, I remember everyone defending the game saying it’s still in beta, but some of us could tell it was hollow and empty compared to the previous games
oh
Exactly. From this live event onwards, the whole thing started to crumble. And with every message from the developers afterwards, things went even further downhill.
@@benn87 hi how you doing?
I remember a lot of Blackpanthaa's complaints were about missing elements or features as well. People saying "it's still in beta" fail to understand that developers do not push a game into a Beta branch unless it's feature-complete. If there's features missing by the time it hits its Beta debut, those features are not going to be in the release branch either.
during open beta: server issues
during release: server issues
Why learn from your mistakes when you can just repeat them kekw
The beta is 3 month before release so expected lol
@@od13166fanboys were saying it was a very very very early beta..
@@od13166Elden Ring beta was smooth as hell
@@michaelskoomamacher5652 even Crew Motofest Beta was smooth as well
@@od13166 TCm was and is trash TC1 is PEAK TC.
they were wrong from very begining. They too much focus on forza, tc and even nfs and they don't realize their game had different concept with actual tdu games. Making online mode was the bad choice obviously. One i critics the most by making unlimited car storage. If i play nfs, forza or tc, i don't really care about houses. Only on tdu, we start in very noob situations with cheap cars, live in caravan, and limited storage cars also force us to grain money to make life better. i think in SC we start in op situations by gaining property with unlimited storage, adding silver and gold pass too make it easier, with that thing then why we need to buy property when we already got unlimited storage
They should have forced each Dev to play this game for at least 300 hours before they were even able to start. I don't feel like anyone who made this really understood the assignment. They were supposed to make TDU3, not just Test Drive:Hong Kong Island". If they would have named it that, this game would have got slightly better reviews because they wouldn't have been held to the "Unlimited" quality and expectations. They didn't though and now this game and possibly the company are going to suffer severely from this. Honestly though, online only and no pause during races? Come the heck on.
Imagine if the story started off with the player as a member of the Streets.
They start off with a low tier JDM vehicle like a 350Z or a GT86 and initially have a rivalry with the Sharps.
They race with the Streets to unlock cars and customisation and the cars themselves are bought from an online used car dealer while the player races the Sharps to earn reputation and even have boss races against the Sharps.
Eventually one of the Sharps offers the player a chance to join them and get access to the highest end cars or stick with the Streets instead.
If the player sides with the Sharps then the progression flips: now the player races Sharps to unlock cars and customisation and they buy them from high-end dealerships while they race the Streets for reputation and have boss battles against their former friends.
The final race could be between the player and the leader of the Sharps if they stuck with the Streets or the player against the leader of the Streets if they switched sides. But then they get a surprise "final" final race against either the Sharp that tried to get them to join or the Street that got them into the clan in the first place.
Idk what else to add to that but I think it could have worked because as Dove said, Test Drive Unlimited is supposed to be a rich person simulator featuring the buying of high-end cars, outfits and houses so the idea of playing as a weird kind of Underground street racer doesn't fit with the vibe that the game was trying to go for.
@@CyanRooper I think that would be a lovely scenario but still takes away too much from what the original game vibe was about. Racing was not high priority in prior games. You could do it to progress faster or make some big money but you could also ignore it for the majority of the game and just make your money off of missions, FRIM, and other features.
This game lacks all that made this game fun. They went for a "Race Festival" concept to fit in with the crowd but this game was never a CROWD game. It was a YOU game. You decided what crowd you wanted to be around. You could star your own clan and race with people who just loved classics or you could get in with the serious-racers and be on the track almost every day, you could hang with explorers and go unlock the roads, or you could hang with the gamblers and sit in the casino buying overpriced drinks while laughing at your bad hand.
This game does not have ANY of the things it should. The story itself seems like it wasn't even a major factor after looking at these reviews and gameplay footage. While your idea for the game story would have been great to see over what they gave, I would have preferred they just stuck true to earning your way to the high life, exploring the world, finding friends, and getting skills. No infinite garages. No always online. No reduced payouts to prevent grinding the same missions.
LET ME DO WHAT THE HECK I WANT IN WHATEVER CAR I WANT! Give us REAL dealerships. Give us REAL SPEEDOMETERS! Give us back HOUSES! Give us MORE CARS! I don't give a crap if I can mess with my lighting and signals if I only have a crap list of cars without even the basics of car games in them (Where is the huge muscle collection? How do we have such a limited JDM collection IN ASIA?!?!?!?!?
Take your high-horse-heads out of your own asses, stop trying to make the game you think is going to rocket you into money-printer-freedom, and MAKE A REAL DAMN VERSION OF TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED! If you can't do that, change this to Test Drive: Hong Kong Island" and then re-release it so people won't even consider this as part of Unlimited, because I definitely don't. While they work on that, I will be playing my OFFLINE version of TDU2 to start a new save, because that is what GOOD GAMES DO! They make themselves available to you whenever you want it and they are playable!
@@yourpststudios wait you're right, they basically tried to copy the success of Forza Horizon which itself copied ideas from the first TDU game and the end result is somehow worse than either of them. Makes me realise how hard they actually fumbled this game.
@@CyanRooper Exactly! The first TDU was just sort of an alternative to what was going on at the time. EA and Rockstar were primarily focused on Open World Tuner style arcade racers, but they had some of the same elements.
Find a dealer, buy cars, get more places to store cars, race, explore, unlock, and make your own thing out of it. TDU1 did just that but it changed it from being about a hardcore underground scene to just being your average person starting out with a old car and working your way up to your dream garage.
TDU2 expanded upon that by giving us better cars, better houses, more to do in those houses, more customization, bigger world, another island, and more missions, along with police and stuff.
This game lost it. Not one thing I can say from the above can be said about this game except "another island".
Our only hope now is that Rockstar has been plotting this entire time entire time to make Midnight Club again but with everything TDU3 forgot to add. They already have the framework from the GTA racing and character/customization/tuning. Let us have it Rockstar! It's obvious Forza, TDU, The Crew, and damn near every other crowd/festival/event racing game isn't going to figure this out until the money runs dry and they are forced to go back to offline mode.
There are mutliple reasons to why it failed :
1 : not the same devs. The original TDU devs created their studio named "ivory tower". They developed this little franchise called "the crew"
2 : online only. The servers are NEVER working
3 : optimization on PC. The game looks worse than forza 5 and runs worse
4 : Nothing that makes TDU special is present. It's just yet another generic racing game
5 : Everything feels outdated.
Forza motorsport 5 and Forza horizon 5 look fine
@@Twiggo_The_Foxxo FH5 is peak
@@thegamingbayskeletor1637 FH5 is so good. Even GT4 is fun twenty years later!
ah yes, the crew. wonder how my favorite game is doing nowadays?
@@unlimitedwater4646 The first game was the true successor to TDU and it was too good, that's why ubisoft killed it
Offline mode + mod support, and I can oversee all the other issues this game has. Wouldn't even mind constant dlcs.
I got a chance to play the beta and I was slightly optimistic, the handling is good, the map isn't filled with sand everywhere and the progression was quite alright. That optimism went down when all these disconnection errors and optimization issues popped up. TDU SC has the underpinnings of a good game but the issues plaguing it right now just leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I honestly hope that they will get rid of region locking the servers and fixing all the issues mentioned in the video at some point. This was a great video to watch through, props to you and your editor for uploading this. Definitely worth the watch if you're thinking about buying TDU SC.
I still feel like the footage I see the map looks very samey
The game doesn't simply look dated, it looks outright unfinished. The materials and lighting look wrong.
It is unfinished. They should’ve just delayed the game another year and waited to release it then
the lighting on the cars is horrendous. The world can look good but the cars look awful
The publisher pushed them to launch it too early. Nacon is the big bad wolf.
@OpaqueCypress nope KT & Alex Vll are more guilty than the publisher. Those two literally manipulate people to buy this game n pull a actual bait & switch & are lying that there's no issues with the game but there is & they're gonna take the money & run eventually
@@Derivedwhale45 alex7 is literally their entire marketing department. they'd better be paying him
It's hard to have a proper perform game on day one these days, isn't it?
It's getting annoying how games release in a "good enough" state that they aren't worth buying at first but the potential is there for it to improve with updates. It results in players having a mindset that I can best describe as "let the devs cook." You basically have to wait 2 or even 3 times longer than expected to play a game because it needs updates to fix and improve itself which just begs the question: why even release it in the first place if it still needs time to cook? And I say this as someone whose name and profile picture are taken from NFS Prostreet and NFS Carbon respectively: 2 games that needed more time to cook before they were released.
You know it's bad when you include a snippet at the end of Ubisoft doing something right for once.
To Ubisoft, it is great that you are addressing the Online only issue, but it is to little to late, The Crew (1) is still unplayable and I will never buy one of your games again, the damage is already done.
I don’t understand why people are so upset with the end of the crew 1 specifically. It’s a mid racing game thats been out for a decade that’s had two sequels come out. There are plenty of MMO and online only games that have did that have gotten a lot worse.
@@rexthewolf3149 I really like The Crew (1) and much preferred its darker, grittier tone and car class system to the sequel.
I actually liked the story and frequently played it up until Ubisoft shut it down, in fact I played it more than The Crew 2 even after I got my hands on the sequel.. And I haven’t played The Crew Motor fest because I’m boycotting all Ubisoft games since The Crew shut down news broke.
I’m quite sick and tired of hearing the argument that they are basically the same, they are not, personally I think The Crew (1) was better because:
It had a story, unlike The Crew 2
It had a more mature darker tone, I personally like when games doesn’t feel like they are watered down and censored to get 3 or 7 age rating. Another example of that is Forza Horizon (1) which has some of the best in game radio host dialogues/commentary.
Better in game “radio” or soundtrack, The Crew 2 has like two to choose from..
Better car class system
The map felt more detailed in certain places (which it isn’t)
You could get into police chases (ruined by the calling all units DLC)
--
Im also really sick of hearing it is a MMO and can’t be made to be played alone, I played most of the game solo and there was allegedly a single player mode that was scrapped pretty late in the development, so that is straight bull sh**
@@klaspeppar5619 Yeah I’ve heard that, but you didn’t answer my question. Why is this the game that got the ball rolling and Not the dozens of much better online only games that didn’t get sequel or were online for much less time. All of the crew games are different flavors of mid.
Never pre order ever is the best piece of advice one can take these days
Learn from NFS 2016: make an offline version. You know, where you can PAUSE THE GAME
Also learn from NFS: RIvals and The Crew
*NFS 2015
@@TK-qi5nz rivals is still playable and there's mods to unlock dlc and online only rewards
@@indominusrex1652 Well yeah, but I think he's talking about the ability to pause the game
so this game is a Roblox Tycoon on steroids
Biggest insult to a series ever this game
Ubisoft confirming an offline mode for TC2 and Motorfest is the only W they can claim right now
Its mind bogling that they went for a futuristic hongKong but have two nissans in the entire game it's a bummer that they didn't add Subaru 😭
and an older, deprecated harder than Ubisoft's stock market ones at that, such as first gen R35 GT-R (CBA) and 370Z instead of 3rd gen R35 GT-R (4BA) and RZ34 Nissan Z
like what in the world are they thinking? especially when Gran Turismo is gonna have the newest GT-R R35 T Spec (2nd gen 4BA) in the upcoming update along with Evo 8 (CT9A) and some obscure Japanese Minibus
and the godawful TDU2 model only adds more fuel to the fire to this whole discussion
Please Remember that there is *Extreme* Political Hostility between Japan and Communist China, so the Chances are a lot of the Japanese Companies may have Possibly been *Forbidden by the Japanese Government* to Grant Licenses to the Game due to it being set in Communist China. Nissan being owned by the French, would be Exempt *If* this was the Case, so, it makes sense IMO.
Where are all the shhhh t they said it was already in the game? This feels like a "let's drive in Hong Kong island with expensive cars game" and that's it
It does not even feel like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the most crowded city in the world full of dilapidated but lively buildings, not an empty futuristic sterile city.
They should have chosen PyongYang instead.
Hong Kong island would even be better when it was more realistic. It looks like some futuristic city, whilst in real life half of the buildings there are tearing apart and there are dead dogs on the streets. That'd be more realistic, more real, better.
I agree, the game has a weird visual style and it looks too digital and unnatural
I believe the term your looking for is "Grit" and I completely agree. The game looks way too clean even for the more fantastical, futuristic look they're going for. Some or a lot of grittiness would've helped a lot and not make it look generic.
Test Drive limited Solar Clown
Its absolutely mind bending that tdu 2 a game that's made on custom engine - only physics used havok- I am pretty sure without any of the current day bullshit Dev assistants could cram in 101 cars but nacon could only get 99 cars with all of of that Dev time
TDUSC is the equivalent of running head first against the wall, just to try it again right after failing the first time
I will fondly remember test drive unlimited on the psp. It was such an ambitious title.
I'm actually playing that again rn on the ps2 as we speak, Hella burnt put on these new uninnovating games
after seeing this game first major patch and their Dev Diary video, I'm convinced that Solar Crown is pretty much beyond saving at this point
like they're trying everything in their power to brush off all the complaints people had with this game including the offline mode under the rug on that interview video
Fanboys like: "they said they will add / fix that in the first big update" 🤡
@@ZA-7and it turns out the first major patch brought even more performance & connection issues back, on top of price buffs of some cars as cherry on top :v
@adlibbed2138 exactly! I knew it was time to let go when they started out the dev diary by saying , “things are going better cause players can access the game” like what 😂 that should’ve always been possible the fact that people are comparing this piece of trash to the other racing games we have is just insane graphics suck , handling is ok , progression sucks (feels like I just left my job and clocked into another one) and I can go on but!🤷🏽♂️😂
It *WAS* a disaster. A game we've been waiting for years, getting launched in a disgustingly poor state.
Not was, it IS a disaster.
I just remember every unintelligent person saying “ItS JUsT a beTA”
Beta for a game when actual game release 3 month isnt beta
Its Demo
@@od13166 exactly
@@od13166exactly, but fanboys crying saying it was an early demo from 2000 B.C.
@@ZA-7 because it was
@@MrQuicheProductions and where are the houses they said they already had? 🤡
How am I the only one smelling the undeveloped smell of the game since the teaser trailer? it's so obvious
It was a massive red flag from the start on the get go like saints row 2022
Gamers are helpless optimists.
Could've been better if it was offline
Short answer: literally EVERYTHING
TDU 1 was a legendary game. Once I got my first Thrustmaster wheel I played the shit out of it in the summer of 2008. TDU 2 was undrivable for me, I quickly let go of it. TDU SC just seems like a mess and a heartless, soulless tech demo. Sorry but when Motorfest, Horizon, GT7 and countless other games are available and provide fun and seamless experiences, Solar Crown just doesn't cut it (in its current form). A real shame.
Looks like a high fidelity mobile game
The progression system with the excessive grinding through the same races and FRIM collecting are all from Mobil Racing Games.
Don't you think it's a bit much to use 22 minutes to just say yes?
To think that a TDU game made in 2024 is significantly lacking in features present in the original from 2006, it's simply embarrassing
It’s embarrassing, but not surprising at all to me. It’s gaming in 2024. The whole industry has been embarrassing for a decade
Yes to what? The name of the title doesn't require the answer yes. Jesus pay attention
@@_blankface original thumbnail was "was tdusc a failure?" so that's why how i started my comment. Didn't know it was changed, but still the rest of my comment stands
Wait, it's the same creative director who worked on TDU1 and TDU2, yet Solar Crown still turned out this shitty?
I'm baffled
The creative director maybe the same guy that worked on Eden Games for 2 previous title of TDU but keep it mind that most of the creative team that worked on previous TDU team aren't even there (they were in Ivory Tower) so it won't utilize the entire idea from the Director of what the direction of the game should be
And again KT games aren't having a good portofolio of developing a full open world scale racing games, most of the game that they developed are linear racing games (probably only Isle of Man series that has "a little bit" open world aspect but not fully open world) also considering KT racing is a mid tier scale developer as well
To me Putting a responsible to KT Racing for developing TDU Solar Crown is already a mistake from begining, Nacon should consider another capable developer to develop the game from start
@@FrozenDrone12 That would explain some of the design choices. Although I'm still somewhat convinced that Nacon wanted them to make a Live service game because it's often the publishers that push this narrative that every game has to be a live service so the players keep coming back. I'd rather have a full game with as much content as possible and the option to get more content by paying for it via DLC than to get a product that is half finished with the rest of it being part of the live service updates -_-
@@Pokefan220195 literally the only way to saving this game is to screwed the freaking up that always online MMO crap, this game almost has no room for improvement anymore for now, it's already too late, even if they trying to updating the game as much as they can
If they remove that always online MMO feature maybe community can help fixing this already broken game (well you know what I am talking about) it's sad that how KT Racing ruin literally one of the most influential and cult classic racing games
@@FrozenDrone12 Yeah I never understood that MMO crap to begin with. It's clearly not in their wheelhouse to develop something that big, especially when they set up such strict limitations like no crossplay or, even crazier, not even the ability to play with people from different countries. And the first couple of days they didn't even had the server capacity to begin with (and they still don't have the full capacity otherwise the amount of disconnects would be nearly 0, at least from their end).
They should really just drop all the online stuff or make it at least optional, then they could focus on fixing bugs and adding stuff instead of trying to keep this barely functional MMO online
@@Pokefan220195 announcing this game as online only is already a hype dropping in the first place, I was hyping up when they show the demo first time in 2023 Nacon Presentation, but once they announced that this game will be a MMO online only games then I know that will not going work well, players are dropping the hype even before the game release and when the beta demo released then yep I was right, this game was wrong even when the full release arrived it's still wrong
All I'm saying is that the devs should at least get another shot on improving this before moving onto the next game
i hope they pull a no man's sky with this game. it had so much potential
10:06 I think this has to do with the fact most car manufactures don’t want you to “ street race endangering other drivers”
Seems lke a game to get next year after it get out of the PAY BETA TEST and on a massive sale for less than 15
I’m a huge fan of this series but when TDUSC dropped I tried my best to like it as much as I did with the previous ones. in my opinion many things have been left out and doesn’t really feel like a TDU game, even so it’s made me revert back to playing the older Test drives 😂
Solarcrown was so underwhelming for me, I really wish the developers can implement the CORE Test Drive aspects in Solarcrown before the game dies
The racing arrows look like they came straight from NFS Underground 2. Reputation is an NFS thing too
I played TDU2 and here's what I like about the game:
>A fun story to set the theme.
>Broke ahh underdog player character.
>Immersive game world, just short of a full fledged GTA.
>Player housing. This in particular set TDU1-2 apart from other racing games. I as the player do not come here randomly for a race. No, I LIVE HERE. I am not a random "tourist", I'm the local. TDU is that racing game that didn't waste the whole map just for a race track.
>Good side activities.
>Progression by skills, done through trials and errors. This further played into the nature of the game itself: Test Drive. You take a license test and only way to get it is to git gud. Ain't no reputation exp gonna help you here.
>Some may say outdated graphics but that's where you're dead wrong. Graphics through the ages distinguishes one game from the other, it's different each time, makes games stand apart from each other. TDU2 graphics is colorful and vibrant. Haven't play the first game yet so can't say anything about it.
>Single player game, multiplayer is 100% optional. Even on emulator the game just runs -which is my way to play the game because by the time I discovered it the PC version was gone.
TDU Solar Crown is geared toward MMO always-online because hahaha following trend is fun. Bet even when offline mode is added, 90% of activities will be unvailable because offline is not how TDU Solar Crown should be played. No you are meant to go online, pvp with players and then some more to unlock the Battlepass, so you can buy more Battlepasses and the cycle repeat. The game is playing you, not you playing it.
Beautifly said lol
I was on the fence until I watched this video.
I ended up redownloading TDU2 from Steam again, lol. This game is basically a demo compared to TDU2 and the additional mods available for it
Test drive 1 & 2 remake is a must
"in the end everyone just started in the house and went freeriding, it became a solo experiance" Yeah no sh*t that's exactly what we want 🤦🏻♂️
Test Drive Unlimited was special unlike Forza Horizon because it wasn't a racing game it was a driving game, the buying houses, driving across the city to different dealerships, discovering stuff, buying clothes aftera a long driving there and driving to casinos, it could be played offline or with friends, no Internet connection but more fun with others, it was a slow burn you didn't start off with a Multi Million Dollar Fleet of Super/Sports Cars you started off with a cheap, street racer type car and the grind up to the point where you finally got a good car and nice house felt special Alain Jarniou and the devs don't seem to understand that 🙄
Games are taking YEARS to make and still incomplete. Stronger consoles, more money, more people and yet not one single game today can come out with out maintenance or patches like make it make sense
"Soon to be added housing system"
Oh that's cuuute..
You poor soul, you have no idea..
Game will be dead end of year just watch..
19:50 Collecting error codes, that's a new one lmao
I kinda have an idea of how they could have made the rivalry between the Sharps and the Streets make sense:
Imagine if the story started off with the player arriving to Hong Kong as an experienced street racer and getting introduced to the Streets and then becomes a member of the Streets.
They start off with a low tier JDM vehicle like a 350Z or a GT86 and initially have a rivalry with the Sharps.
They race with the Streets to unlock cars and customisation and the cars themselves are bought from an online used car dealer while the player races the Sharps to earn reputation and even have boss races (involving pink slips) against the Sharps.
Eventually one of the Sharps offers the player a chance to join them and get access to the highest end cars or stick with the Streets instead.
If the player sides with the Sharps then the progression flips: now the player races Sharps to unlock cars and customisation and they buy them from high-end dealerships while they race the Streets for reputation and have boss battles against their former friends.
The final race could be between the player and the leader of the Sharps if they stuck with the Streets or the player against the leader of the Streets if they switched sides. But then they get a surprise "final" final race against either the Sharp that tried to get them to join or the Street that got them into the clan in the first place.
Idk what else to add to that but I think it could have worked because as Dove said, Test Drive Unlimited is supposed to be a rich person simulator featuring the buying of expensive cars, outfits and houses so the idea of playing as a weird kind of Underground street racer doesn't fit with the vibe that the game was trying to go for.
They could make it so that the 1st half is progression with the Streets, mainly focusing only on racing and visual + performance upgrades to slowly teach players about tuning.
After a while or maybe have a mission objective of purchasing a supercar/hypercar, that caught the Sharps attention towards the player, becoming the 2nd half of the game, getting players into more high stakes racing, gambling and stuff like Fashion, Real estate, etc eventually going into the high stakes multiplayer stuff.
But alas the current state of the game just cannot support that idea, they're just purely visual as it is.
@@Sharicite yeah, there was a lot of potential for good progression similar to like a "rags to riches" type of story. Though someone like Dove would argue that the kind of single player mode that you and I described fits a Need for Speed or Midnight Club type of game better than a Test Drive Unlimited game.
Carxstreet is still the best investment. At least they care
Most older japanese cars are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars now. More than most of these supposed luxury cars in this game 😂
3:32 I see you there with the Sleeping Dogs theme
Now to wait if the game will live long enough to add Oahu in 2025/6
SLEEPING DOGS MUSIC REFERENCE
I liked that you could spend ages playing dress up before hitting the road in TDU. Can you still do that in solar crown?
you can but the default selection is not that many + a lot of the fashion stuff are locked behind clan, side quest and levelling grind
This game soon will be like Concord if dev is not fixing those issues ASAP or could possibly like The Crew 2 when they already got offline mode previously.
Solar Crown was made by Nacon… the same publisher who made the Gollum game.
Enough said.
but also the same publisher for Robocop Rogue City, which was pretty great
Nacon was the publisher, but it was KT lKylotonn) who made this game.
I grew up with both tdu1&2 the only problem I've had with tdusc is the insane rubberbanding making almost any race above 500 nearly impossible not because of a lack of skill or having a slow car, No, the rubberbanding is so bad that the only race I can do to progress is literally impossible because the ai's are just gone after 4 turns
Car balancing is also so bad. I've spent 6 or 8 hours looking for secret car wrecks, finally got myself offroad VW Beetle Buggy, and guess what - it's useless. Not only it can barely get to 300PR (when most events will ask for 500-600 PR and higher), but it's also the only RWD car in class, and it just sucks, it's unplayable and undriveable.
this game have a problem of "lack of reason to play", which is a very big problem for a new release.
You're way too positive and nice about this disaster game
You're way too negative and mean about this AA game.
@@fizzisoda7113 haha good joke
@@fizzisoda7113typical AA excuse, that doesn't change that is a bad bad game
@@fizzisoda7113 No he is not, I have Played Games from far smaller Companies, and made on far smaller Budgets, than this, albeit in the FPS Genre (although I will not touch that Genre with a Ten Foot Driveshaft these Days) such as Dusk, Amid Evil, Ion Fury, etc, that are absolute *Masterpiece* Level. Being a Small Team on a Small Budget is *no* Excuse. Katie Racing are Incompetent, and the Game is Objectively Bad! Period.
Ah yes, releasing and selling a game that should still be in beta testing due to scope creep, mismanagement and asking for features while giving unattainable timelines. Every developer's dream come true! Could be a good game in a year.
Somehow not surprised the lack of certain Asian brands. Other racing games also seem to be missing key players like Toyota, at the very least. Licensing I guess is more complicated or stupid than we think.
KT Engine, always online only and ps3 graphics that why the game already fall down since demo.
KT Engine is fine, I like their WRC games.
I like how you used a song from the Driver 1 soundtrack from PS1. Pure nostalgia.
This game somehow made forza motorsport's launch look normal (and that's concerning)
I’m sad to say despite loving the driving mechanic and hon Kong island itself everything else has been a complete letdown. It’s unbelievable just sad how the game literally has so many missing features of what made Past TTU games great in the first place. It’s even more laughable when the so called 300 patch fixes while did fix some things it actually somewhat worst in other areas and still a lot of people are having issues with the severs and connections. It’s just a shit show one after another.
For real now...i would rather play a remaster of TDU2 than Solar Crown...
It's not that trivial to get TDU1 and 2 up and running.
Not trivial?!?! what are you smoking? I tried to do it on my PC. I don’t know how every time I try. It doesn’t work and on the 360. It runs like complete dog crap.
TDU1 clips is how I got introduced to Test Drive and it took me a decade to realize it was a franchise dating back to 1987, before Unlimited stepped the game up.
I remember seeing the trailer for Solar Crown years ago, and when it came out, it's now similar to a franchise that was literally influenced by TDU 💀
11:30 not the Tekken 7 song 💀
"Soon to be added housing system"? @7:50??
You know something concrete the rest of us don't?
They mentioned they will add it later? lol
@DoVe_7 they mentioned its on the table for discussion. They certainly did not say its being added definitely and way way less 'soon' lol
In short, a lot went wrong. I'm sure the publisher will learn all the wrong lessons from this.
Too many little things that really don't fit, not to mention the live service model. Tdu1 and 2 are still playable even online to this day and the official servers went down long ago. Also the art direction is all over the place.
Too many cooks at once. They wanted TDU but also Forza Horizon. They wanted online live-servive but also full priced retail game. They wanted Hong Kong but also futiristic sterile fantasy world. They wanted walking in first person out the cars, but also have no pedestarians anywhere.
These goals have no unifying vision behind it.
Makes me want to play Test Drive Eve of Destruction again
Testical Drive Unlimited Swollen Crown
Maybe the PS6 will have enough power to run fun games, like the PS2 did.
Even Gran Turismo 4 is better than GT7.
Content wise yea, handling wise god no.
I'm never supporting anything published by Nacon ever again. Burned me with the WRC games that they abandoned for this trainwreck, and also the Session skate sim game. I hope they get their asses sued into oblivion by the French Ministry of Labor.
It’s so frustrating. I loved the old game and Im so disappointed by the lack of thought they put into this.
Whoa whoa whoa… TD 4x4 was a blast. That Grand Cherokee would rip.
Was it a desaster? Dove writing like the game will never be fully finished with all features and DLC. On the other hand the roadmap is very sluggish and we can only wait for change. If they dont pull a Cyberpunk the game is dead next year, and Nacon/ KT aint known for quick world changing updates that actually make the game better...
Cyberpunk punk took two years to fix. It was a year of small patches. and a year of nothing before overhauling core mechanics for phantom liberty.
We need side missions, that was what made tdu fun, it wasnt just about racing and grinding.
Nothing went wrong with it, it's exactly what Nacon intended for it to be. They are a shovelware company, this is the type of game they make. If anyone is disappointed by this game it's because of their own ignorance.
Honestly, the people who made and released TDU:SC should really be held accountable for this failure. This is simply not OK. The game never should've been released in its current state. It fails at even the most basic of things: decent performance. And having features on a roadmap a year out? Yeah, no thanks. I already knew this was going to be bad, but this bad was a surprise even for me. Nobody involved should ever work in this business ever again.
Yeah, as always game was overhyped and then launched with lots of problems, but don't worry it will be fixed to quite fun/playable state in one year of patches like Cyberpunk. Seems to be the norm nowadays.
My big issue with the game is that other than having hong kong as the map, it has little to do with hong kong car culture at all. All car collectors in Hong Kong own all the JDM Legendary cars (r34, rx7, nsx etc). Also, where are all the chinese ppl? Lol. Would it kill ya to at least have pedestrians that run out of the way like in NFS? What about cantonese voices for npc's in the background? Nothing in this game honours the location it represents.
Cashgrab hope the worst for nacon with this game.
look how they massacred my boi
Honestly this seems so lifeless and dull. Nothing of any interest, in my opinion obviously. Some full features missing upon release. I just don't get why you would release a game with the preface of features 'coming in the future'. Why would you buy a game where the developer says such a thing? Idk if I'm just okd now. But god, so many AAA/AA games these days are just meh. Just another cookie cutter racing game from the mainstream. Games like Wreckfest, BeamNG, Art of Rally etc are keeping the genre alive. Not stuff like this. So glad the indie sector is there with original ideas as well, with games that are interesting and do not rely on online this and that. Anyway, rant over. Hoping you are keeping well Dove.
No it did not once it announced it was online only it failed immediately
No it didn't
Another racing game completely underwhelming and over promising?
I wonder where I heard that before?
Forza Motorsport 2023
Aside from gameplay, graphics and everything else (which to me is no big deal), the ONE MAJOR thing that went wrong with TDUSC...........................................ONLINE ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. NO racing games nowadays SHOULD NOT be online only or require ANY server or internet connection for said game to work.
This is this is one of those games that you wait a few months until it's half off on steam, then you buy it. All the bugs are fixed and it's a playable game. This is what I did with forza Motorsport, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
my favorite part of solar crown is the car sounds, it just sounds so good 🔥🔥🗿🗿
This at 16:14 GTA5 did that in 2013 with over 500 vehicles, TDU 1 and 2 did it as well with twice as many vehicles as this game, I don't understand why people always have to try and find "redeeming qualities" in shovelware crap like this.
Short Answer. Not really no, i wasnt that hyped for this game so i was not really expecting anything
Nope. No way they can ever save this game now. The latest server patch as they call it seems to be causing more issues than fixing it. The driving still feels floaty & graphics are some of the worst I've seen on a newer game. A big let down & a disappointment.
I kinda dig the progression system, however it seems to fail at what made TDU great. Car list is also uninteresting, but that's personal
Sadly everything has to be a Forza Horizon clone... TDU SC seems to have nothing that makes TDU.. well, TDU.