Test Drive Unlimited gets a lot of fans that loves the realism in "hard core mode." Personally, I really don't care. Simulation or arcade, the objective is the same: win. I'll cope either way.
I'm surprised you have to ask. I got so many of those damn civy cars stuck in my grill I'm just itching for another...and another...and another...
But yeah, they annoy me. It's probably because I always drive bumper so I really can't see too far ahead. Ah well, you get some and lose some I suppose.
Let me recap the series...
I'll start at Porsche Unleashed because that's the first one I played. The multiplayer capability on the PSX is endless fun having open maps and cop chase mode (who ever came up with cop chase on closed circuit maps needs to be shot). The PC wasn't near as good for multiplayer but single player events had a lot more variety to them (not to mention far superior graphics). Both had excellent game play including a lot of intriguing Porsche history, great tunes, an excellent Test Driver mode (some of them are extremely challenging). They were both very well rounded games and provided days of entertainment.
Score: 5/5
Then came Hot Pursuit 2. Again, excellent tunes and decent graphics. Um, that's really all there is to say here. It is mostly just mindless racing with no back story or anything that hasn't already been seen in the series. It's pretty average: doesn't stand out and wasn't miserable to play either.
Score: 3/5
Then came Underground. I wasn't thrilled by the idea of r!cers but overall, the game was executed well. It had a large library of good tunes and interesting new play modes like drift. It was a good change but it still isn't something you ever want to come back to.
Score: 4/5
And its sequel, Underground 2. The only thing good here is the return of an open track. The music had only one noteworthy song. The graphics are virtually unchanged. And instead of having the lovely Brooke Burke in full motion video, they made it into a damned comic strip with voice overs (LAME!). And oh so repetitive. The only saving grace here is the open track...
Score: 2/5
Then comes Most Wanted. This is the first NFS game I actually
wanted to play in a LONG time. Unfortunately, DirectX was being a bitch so I had to format my HDDs before I could play (building up the anticipation
). When I did finally get to play it, it was great fun. I actually wasn't forced to make my cars look like fecal matter and I had that lovely rap sheet to keep track of my ePenis! It was great! Good music (not as good as Porsche Unleashed and Underground but still good) and decent graphics. There was only a few places where graphics would visibly slow down. Overall, a great game but it just didn't quite touch the greatness of Porsche Unleashed because it focused on God/Bad cop and doesn't have intrinsic value beyond that like PU did.
Score: 4.5/5
And its half-sequel Carbon. Put it in the toilet and flush it. Or take a match and burn it. Its got all the crappiness of Underground 2 with the theme of Most Wanted. The result is an epic fail. It didn't even have any noteable music. Simply pathetic.
Score: 1/5
Then we have ProStreet. Hmm... good music and decent gameplay. Lacks variety in play modes. Drift simply sucked. All the races were obscenely easy except against that Chen guy (Porsche Turbo I think) in circuit and the very last series of races. The games is also poorly coded having severe FPS problems on just two year old hardware on the lowest of settings. It's not great but it's also not stuff that belongs in the trash...
Score: 3/5
And finally, Undercover--the true game play sequel to Most Wanted. Because this really offered nothing new and exciting, it's old and boring. The music was pretty good but there was also several odd balls in there (one of them sounds like it was ripped from a old NES game). There's some music in there that doesn't belong either (like that NiN song). But really, that's all that's noteworthy here (the music) and that's a bad thing. Extract the music out of it and burn it too...
Score: 2/5
So yeah, it's pretty obvious the series has been in serious decline since 2005. :x
