Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’s technical issues, both online and performance-wise, took a toll on the novel and detailed game world.
It seems a little strange, even unfair, to complain about technical instabilities when reviewing a game. After all, the server issues that Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown experienced during its “Gold Edition” Early Access period were hopefully only a blip in the life of the game, and nobody’s going to complain that Michelangelo took longer than expected to get the Sistine Chapel right, right?
The problem is, if you read the reviews before you get distracted by something on the sidebar and don’t mention this, then everything is going to go horribly wrong. Even with the relatively small number of Gold Edition purchasers, the servers were crashing faster than a soaked digestive biscuit. Often, you’d be stuck on the login screen, unable to start the game at all. If you were lucky enough to be playing on the tarmac on Hong Kong Island, you still might not be able to start a match, even against AI-controlled opponents, because you had to log into the server before every match. Worse, you might actually finish a match but still lose progress because the game would ping the server again before the results screen. I found myself having to play the game between six and nine in the morning specifically to ensure a reliable connection, squinting at Apex with bleary eyes. And, to reiterate, this was all before the influx of new players that arrived on the day of the game’s official launch.
Another reason it’s worth mentioning early in this review is that, while the always-online service has become slightly more stable, it instinctively feels unnecessary. The game is perfectly capable of throwing AI cars into races instead of seamlessly adding other real-world players, so why force checking those in? What’s more, unlike many games (including fellow title The Crew), Test Drive Unlimited doesn’t insist on you spending real money to top up your in-game balance, so it doesn’t feel like a delicate real-world-virtual economy that needs to be stubbornly policed by a constant online connection. The lack of microtransactions should be something to celebrate, but we’ve inherited the plethora of inconveniences that usually accompany them. In fact, the worst part is the existence of the original Test Drive Unlimited, which managed to handle the blending of online and offline play more elegantly nearly two decades ago in 2006.
So assuming – and that’s a big if – that the game is playable, what exactly is in it? First up, a roughly one-to-one recreation of Hong Kong Island serves as your occasional online, moderately multiplayer automotive playground. Hong Kong might seem an odd choice initially, as it’s known for dense urban areas, but the winding mountain roads and off-road trails leading to the center of the island are plentiful. Perhaps it’s this that gave developer KT Racing the confidence to retain some of the narrower city streets, rather than widening them to accommodate higher speeds and less careful driving. Some of the best races Solar Crown offers involve moments like navigating the narrow Macau ferry terminal or dashing through a messy alleyway. Hong Kong Island proves to be a brilliant choice of location, and its true scale is refreshing after playing so many games that only offer simplified versions of real locations.
Unfortunately, while the maps are pleasing to the eye in terms of detail, the game engine simply can’t keep up. This is either a very poorly optimized game or an engine that’s fundamentally not up to the task. The console versions are particularly bad, offering two options: a performance mode that offers higher frame rates but only allows for a 1080p resolution, and a “graphics” mode that slightly increases the resolution and fidelity but doesn’t consistently hit 30 frames per second. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not talking about Sophie’s Choice here, but both options feel inherently compromised and, dare I say it, distinctly last-gen. It’s a shame, because the featured maps are ruined, and the game does have rare moments of beauty, but they’re usually tied to lighting and atmospheric effects. I was particularly impressed by the representation of morning fog in the bay, which I strongly associate with that part of the world.
I wouldn’t use the word “personality” to describe it. figure In-game, be warned. Solar Crown’s plot is some by-the-book nonsense about elite street racing, played out by a cast of forgettable, dead-eyed puppets. There’s a general feeling that the game has a bypass of personality, which is evident in the events and activities you’ll take part in as you build a reputation for one of the game’s two clans. There are the odd mix of cars and tracks, like an early duel with a single Mini Cooper opponent at a cargo port, but the scale and ambition are very different from the showcase events in Forza Horizon, or even the themed playlists at The Crew Motorfest.
Campaign progression can also feel slow; the most desirable cars are ridiculously expensive and require a certain reputation level to unlock, so you’ll spend more time with individual vehicles than with games like Horizon, which offer exotic supercars like brightly colored candy. To some extent, I respect this decision, as it’s designed to give you a real sense of connection and ownership with your fleet, something the original TDU did so well. However, it also feels a bit like a smokescreen to hide the fact that Solar Crown’s overall car list is smaller than that of its bigger-budget open-world competitors.
At least the core of the racing game is pretty fun. The game has a weird handling model that produces a lot of understeer when braking into a turn, but a lot of oversteer when accelerating out of a turn at medium to high speeds. It feels unnatural, and while you eventually get used to these quirks, it’s odd that a studio that made a series of realistic World Rally Championship games would decide to go with a feel that’s so different from driving a real car.
Almost uniquely, Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown’s fate will likely be determined not by races and events, handling or an extremely minimal storyline, but by how players accept Hong Kong Island as a place to hang out with friends in virtual cars. When the original Test Drive Unlimited came out in 2006, it was hard to overstate how different it was from any other racing game. It was essentially a social driving game, with players generally spending more time cruising the map in groups than participating in formal events.
These days, though, players have plenty of other options to satisfy the same urge, most notably Forza Horizon and The Crew Motorfest, the latter from the successor to original Test Drive Unlimited developer Eden Studios. Faced with such stiff competition, Test Drive Unlimited: Crown of the Sun’s only hope is to keep its technical issues in check and hope that its fresh, lovingly recreated recreation of Hong Kong Island is enough to earn a cult following among fellow game enthusiasts and digital tourists alike.
Nacon provided a copy of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown for review.
