- 85,108
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Available as Free Steam Demo Until June 17
- Thread starter Famine
- 33 comments
- 7,244 views
- 310
- Miami, FL, CUBA
- mistamontiel00
A release date!? Could this be Gran Turismo 5 again
- 4,210
- SoCal
- GTP_MooCow
OK, let's see your reviews now... get it or skip it ?
I have a feeling this aint my cup of tea, and probably not what TDU used to be...
I have a feeling this aint my cup of tea, and probably not what TDU used to be...
- 488
- United States
After watching gameplay and seeing the info I'm not even going to hold back but this game looks absolutely wack. Compared to Horizon 5, The Crew and even NFS this does not seem to challenge them at all in anyway with the exception of maybe free roaming a car dealership, casinos and using cars interior features. The graphics alone looks like Xbox 360/PS3 era games.
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- 383
I'll probably try the demo. The Driving never had to be GT level but some sort of solid-ness nonetheless. I really enjoyed the millionaire lifestyle simulator of TDU 2 and especially the casino part! The way you could do the 9 line slot machine and card games. I've got a feeling this one will fall short and the only hooks it has is in people's nostalgia.
McLaren
Premium
- 44,684
- Texas
Check this page & the next. Not a lot of optimism so far. Users noting how poorly optimized the game is for the PC.
A Test Drive Unlimited Sequel is On Its Way From WRC Developer Kylotonn
Wow, PvP only, need a PS Plus account, charging exorbitant sums to unlock in-game cars early. Any other incentives? They really laid on the peanut butter for this one....
www.gtplanet.net
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- 1,344
- Poland
- J_Chmielinski
The main problem seems to be optimization. PC players get very offended when their multi-thousand-dollar setups can't run a game at 144FPS on the highest settings, so that's always going to be a problem, especially given that this build is likely at least couple of months old and we're 3 months away from release.
It doesn't look fanstastic, so if you care the most about graphics you can skip it.
There's some janky stuff like a weird bobble effect when changing the camera or looking back, destructible trees that slow you down too much and things like that.
The whole vide has that uncanny cringe feeling like in TDU2, where I physically couldn't stand to listen to the custscenes.
Overall, it's not perfect, but the driving is good, it has all the cool little features we expect from TDU, like buying cars at dealers, getting to pick some factory options on your car, garages, etc. If they get the progression right and support it, it may be good. I feel like there's generally a very negative attitude towards this game, similar to how it was with KT's WRC games, which I never understood. If you can, download and play the demo and form your own opinion about it.
- 105
- Canada
Did you even try the demo? The physics in this game are way more realistic than what you get in Need for Speed or the crew. It's also important to remember that comparing a small AA studio to big AAA corporations isn't fair—those big companies pour high eight or even nine figures into their games. Nacon isn't trying to challenge Forza or NFS directly; Tdu is the og open-world mmo racing game. Plus, the game won't even be priced like a AAA title.
It seems like you're just repeating what IGN says. I have a high-end PC, and the demo looks decent for a current-gen title. Sure, it needs optimization, but to say it looks like a PS3 game is an exaggeration. We need to support smaller studios and give them a chance to innovate, not shut them down and then whine when Ubisoft or EA pump out the same crap every year with microtransactions and corporate BS
- 488
- United States
I'm open minded, im not saying the game will be a complete failure way down the line. But to me as it stands right now from the tiny car roster, to the meh graphics, to how the cars sound/drive and the overall presentation of the game it just does not seem like it's on the level of it's rivals. The eye test to me tells me its a 10 year old looking game. Now through updates and much DLC it could become a great game like it's predecessors.
- 241
- United Kingdom
Biggest gripe I have is the map being so life-less. It'd be cool if it had rush-hour traffic at certain times on certain parts of the map and you're weaving in and out of traffic. At the very least it should have a fair amount of cars on the road, not barely a handful.
- 1,010
- Madison, WI
- FerrariF1GT
- FerrariFan24
I gave the demo a shot this morning for about an hour. The driving/handling is pretty good; it feels ‘realistic’ without being overwhelming and it overall just felt nice to drive with an Xbox controller. Combined with the narrower city streets, it’s a welcome change of pace from the wide roads and high grip in the FH5 meta.
Re: graphics- I’m not expecting anything earth-shattering, but I think it looks fine in motion, even on the low presets. It’s easy to notice the blemishes when stopped, but I don’t notice them while driving where it counts. Traffic phasing in rather than visible from a distance is quite annoying, however.
But the fact that races are multiplayer-only is quite the turnoff for me. I know multiplayer was a major aspect of both previous TDU games, but they at least have decent single-player modes that make them worth coming back to despite the servers shutting down. Will I be able to find a race easily when the game gets released at full price? How about several months down the line when the honeymoon period ends and I’m more likely to get it on sale? What actions will be taken to mitigate ramming?
Overall the demo brought a decent first impression, but between what I liked and disliked, it didn’t swing me one way or another.
Re: graphics- I’m not expecting anything earth-shattering, but I think it looks fine in motion, even on the low presets. It’s easy to notice the blemishes when stopped, but I don’t notice them while driving where it counts. Traffic phasing in rather than visible from a distance is quite annoying, however.
But the fact that races are multiplayer-only is quite the turnoff for me. I know multiplayer was a major aspect of both previous TDU games, but they at least have decent single-player modes that make them worth coming back to despite the servers shutting down. Will I be able to find a race easily when the game gets released at full price? How about several months down the line when the honeymoon period ends and I’m more likely to get it on sale? What actions will be taken to mitigate ramming?
Overall the demo brought a decent first impression, but between what I liked and disliked, it didn’t swing me one way or another.
- 9,073
- United Kingdom
- neema_t
The 1060 was a middling 1080p card from around 2017 though, it's three generations old. Unoptimised or not, it's unreasonable to expect 2024 games with high fidelity graphics to run well on such old cards.1060 for 720p30 is further proof this is unoptimized garbage. They bit off more than they can chew by trying to replicate a real location with current generation graphics.
Buuut at the same time, I doubt this game is for me and my Deck. If it contains a 1:1 replica of HK island I'd definitely be interested - I was never a fan of TDU2 for its physics after all - but other than that, meh. I feel like Forza Horizon 4 was the pinnacle of the genre and the failure of 5 to live up to it has soured me on the concept, this doesn't look like it'll change my mind.
- 8,393
- The Black Lodge
With one qualifier: If those 2024 games don't look like they're from 2017.
Demo mentions it's an early build though, and at least on AMD side there is no updated driver or anything that I am aware of.I got 720p/30FPS at medium settings @20W (fixed, no bursts) on my ROG Ally, BTW.
That said: I gave it a few quick ruyns, and I feel like @FerrariF1GT : mixed feelings. On one end they captured the look and feel of TDU1 (especially if you turn down settings
), but the always online part, even for the single player stuff, is already breaking under pressure during this test. If the servers have issues or are slow you can not race, at all. I felt right at home at the dealership and picked a 370Z. It felt like TDU, driving was fine with the controller, but the network stuff is kind of an elephantr in the room.
- 812
- United Kingdom
Yeah I think people are catastrophizing a bit about the general game. It’s good for an AA game, I’d be much more concerned if it was a Horizon game.
The optimisation and multiplayer only races are inexcusable though, they really need to iron those out come release or else they won’t be getting my money for a little while.
- 1,119
- India
wouldn't describe it as such
it cant hit 60fps on 1080p res on a 2070Super and a 5600 (close to PS5 spec)
- 1,757
- Sweden
Tried it for a bit the handling model is decent more simular to forza horizon than nfs and the crew. Sounds are quite decent as well,
The graphics is okay nothing groundbreaking,
But if they dont fix a way to play against standard ai i will not buy it
There is pontential just hope they dont waste it.
The graphics is okay nothing groundbreaking,
But if they dont fix a way to play against standard ai i will not buy it
There is pontential just hope they dont waste it.
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- 1
- Greece
I played it and it's way better than the last 5 NFS games in terms of handling you are in control of the car when you drift and the game does not feel laggy, the cars feel fun to play with from the start actually. It feels like a racing game with character! It's rough around the edges but it's not the final product and I don't think that they had NFS money to spend.
The atmosphere of the game is very well done it looks great and there is something almost dream like about it in certain moments of the day.
I would suggest that you should give it a try, we need more bold racing games with actual art direction and not another generic " wow you are the best ever dude" racing game
Totally agree, it gets on my nerves when somebody has an opinion on a game that they just watched on YT.
TDSC has ALOT of potential from my point of view glad to see that I am not the only one who sees this.
You can have a 500+ car list and the game still be bland and generic
The crew cars handled like boats most of the time.
I bought NFS heat played it for an hour and never touched it again.
It's not about volume
NFS and the crew are bad examples of open world racing games
Forza horizon 1-2 is great and the series as a whole is good enough but they are trying so hard all the time to please the player by throwing cars at him without actually focusing on a smaller amount of cars with more details.
It feels like nothing when I get a new car on FH because my brain already knows that the car will handle/sound/feel basically the same as the previous one
After playing the demo for 2 hours it's clear to me that TDSC has a clear sense of direction and they are sure about themselves as a studio. They are not trying to please everyone buy making another generic mess and I really like that.
We should applause this and judge it for what it is.
I really hope this game does well
- 827
- Michigan
- JackRyanWMU
- SpeedyDB55
Had multiple crashes to desktop and login errors, but finally managed to get in game and play for around a half-hour or so using my T150 wheel with T3PA pedal set. The force feedback is heavy and rough by default, made the wheel vibrate violently when taking off from a stop in the Mustang. Yet it was also extremely vague, gave me no real indication when I was reaching the limits of grip in a corner. Got to the first race, AI had a crashfest in the first turn that put to shame anything I had seen in the Forza games. Eventually did get clear of the field and was having a nice race with a Mercedes for the lead, game was starting to get fun.
Then I got disconnected. And haven't been able to get back in the game without crashing or a login error since. I'll try the demo again at some other time, because I do think it's a cool concept and I want to give it a fair chance. But my first impressions are just embarrassingly bad. This doesn't feel like a Demo for a near-finished game launching in 3 months, but an Early Beta that needs a lot more polishing.
Then I got disconnected. And haven't been able to get back in the game without crashing or a login error since. I'll try the demo again at some other time, because I do think it's a cool concept and I want to give it a fair chance. But my first impressions are just embarrassingly bad. This doesn't feel like a Demo for a near-finished game launching in 3 months, but an Early Beta that needs a lot more polishing.
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- 11,438
- Marin County
I was hopeful for this game but less so now. It just doesn't look very good. I get that not all studios have the resources to build games with cutting edge visuals...but I feel like they could have gone with an art direction that doesn't look like a AAA game from 5+ years ago. Maybe i'll check in again closer to release, but this is looking like a pass for me. I kind of think you're right about Forza Horizon 4 being the peak of this genre, but really they barely built on the original Forza Horizon and 4 was only marginally better. I think these open world games tend to lack focus (naturally) and end up feeling somewhat generic / soulless. Somehow Forza Horizon 1 did not...and I think that's because they deliberately did not include any kind of city in it. Something to be said about executing a more modest vision excellently than attempting a very ambitious project (particularly on a tight budget) and coming up short. The TxR series comes to mind.
- 13,803
- Adelaide
- Neomone
Having played the demo, it feels like all the work went into making the map and everything else was kinda tacked on. It's fine, it drives fine, it looks okay (even if the performance is kinda dogwater), it has a bunch of stuff to do. Sure, okay, the basics are there.
But I can't help comparing the way that this game has introduced me to itself to the way something like Horizon does. Horizon starts you off with a spectacular overview of the world in a bunch of cars showing you all the awesome and amazing things that you can do. I absolutely get that some people don't like the style or the insane enthusiasm, but it really shows you what you should be getting excited about. If you like Horizon type games, it hard not to be hyped to play when you've gone through one of their intros.
I don't get what I should be excited about here. I got dumped into a showroom to talk to an android, drove around the city a bit, got teleported to a "workshop", had a race. Woo. If that's the best the game has to offer, I emphatically don't care. It was just some generic driving game, and while none of it was awful I don't understand why the developers think I should be spending my money on this. I barely want to play, if anything it's making me want to go and play Horizon and I never even finished FH5 because I'm just kind of over it now.
Right now I would be iffy about paying more than $10 for this. It seems underbaked.
But I can't help comparing the way that this game has introduced me to itself to the way something like Horizon does. Horizon starts you off with a spectacular overview of the world in a bunch of cars showing you all the awesome and amazing things that you can do. I absolutely get that some people don't like the style or the insane enthusiasm, but it really shows you what you should be getting excited about. If you like Horizon type games, it hard not to be hyped to play when you've gone through one of their intros.
I don't get what I should be excited about here. I got dumped into a showroom to talk to an android, drove around the city a bit, got teleported to a "workshop", had a race. Woo. If that's the best the game has to offer, I emphatically don't care. It was just some generic driving game, and while none of it was awful I don't understand why the developers think I should be spending my money on this. I barely want to play, if anything it's making me want to go and play Horizon and I never even finished FH5 because I'm just kind of over it now.
Right now I would be iffy about paying more than $10 for this. It seems underbaked.
- 126
- Spain
- Marty_Debiru
I tried the demo, but the demo itself is some early version of the game so who knows how old it is.
Still found some stuff I didn't really like:
1. Car customization is near 0. Only OEM wheel options, interior and exterior colors. It has some wacky livery editor but that's it.
2. The game itself is centered about high end sports cars, which I'm sure most of us in this forum don't really care about that much.
3. Handling is weird and feels unfishined, again this could be from the early demo build. When you let go off the steering wheels it goes back to center instantly.
4. Its online all the time, I can already smell another The Crew server shutdown dissaster.
Think I will pass, like other members said, its just another Crew/NFS/Motorfest/Horizon clone with no difference at all.
Still found some stuff I didn't really like:
1. Car customization is near 0. Only OEM wheel options, interior and exterior colors. It has some wacky livery editor but that's it.
2. The game itself is centered about high end sports cars, which I'm sure most of us in this forum don't really care about that much.
3. Handling is weird and feels unfishined, again this could be from the early demo build. When you let go off the steering wheels it goes back to center instantly.
4. Its online all the time, I can already smell another The Crew server shutdown dissaster.
Think I will pass, like other members said, its just another Crew/NFS/Motorfest/Horizon clone with no difference at all.
- 1,611
- Montreal, Canada
- NobleAtreides
be Ramned if you do, and Ramned if you don't
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- 1,757
- Sweden
I dont think tdu solar crown is anything like horizon, the crew or nfs,
Feels more like its own thing, tdu never had great customize options in the past so i am not supriced there, there is pontential with the game, but they killing it if they dont allow people to play as they wish, forced pvp is not the answer,
Feels more like its own thing, tdu never had great customize options in the past so i am not supriced there, there is pontential with the game, but they killing it if they dont allow people to play as they wish, forced pvp is not the answer,
720p30 is PS3 level graphics. That's 2007 not 2017. Any game that can't get 1080p60 out of a 1060 is flawed. When the card came out, it could play most AAA games at max settings.
- 8,393
- The Black Lodge
Computational, bandwidth and memory requirements are completely different today than they were now. Requirements are always increasing over the years, always has been that way and will always be that way. The 1060 today is a sub-budget card. This is not the only new game you won't be able to run on it at 1080/60. Not by a long shot. For similar reasons new games, especially Unreal Engine 5, will require an SSD to properly function (HDD simply cant deliver that bandwidth/throughput when streaming).
And no, current gen graphics at 720p/30 are not PS3 level graphics due to all the advanced techniques that are being used today. It's not just about resolution. And for comparison: I do 720p/30 on an internal GPU with this game, THAT's how far the 1060 has dropped on the list of capable GPUs. It's below low-budget level.
Sure, this game can use optimization. But if you're expecting the same performance out of new games that you got when this card was introduced then you're going to be in for a disappointment.
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INEEDNAWZZZ
Premium
- 1,794
- Lincoln
- EGGSBAWCKS
- DigitalLuke64DD
It wouldn't be a TDU game without some jank ¯\(ツ)/¯
If the full game is gonna be solely online only, it'll be a hard pass from me. I can deal with some crusty performance or weird behaviour if I get that distinct feeling that the originals provide, but pushing it to solely be an MMO a la The Crew doesn't really appeal to my tastes. I know the first two were MMOs, but as others have said, you could fully enjoy them without ever plugging them into the internet.
If the full game is gonna be solely online only, it'll be a hard pass from me. I can deal with some crusty performance or weird behaviour if I get that distinct feeling that the originals provide, but pushing it to solely be an MMO a la The Crew doesn't really appeal to my tastes. I know the first two were MMOs, but as others have said, you could fully enjoy them without ever plugging them into the internet.
Not what I claimed but okay.
So we agree.
I wasn't. I'm expecting it to run 1080p60 on lowest settings. Each generation of the 60 series pretty much came with the expectations of running games at a certain resolution and framerate for a long time. You got away with it by lowering the settings (texture, AA, etc). 660 was expected to run 720p60 on max on release. You could play later titles at 720p60 on lower settings. 960 was expected to do 1080p30. 1060 was expected do (but not in this case) 1080p60 . 2060 @ 1440p60. 3060 @ 1440p120. 4060 @ 4k30. Those are the expectations. If a developer/publisher decides not to waste resources optmising to meet that expectation, they should be called out.
I'm mostly disappointed because the demo isn't on PS5 anyway. I've given up on PC gaming since covid. The price gouging still has its bad taste in my mouth.
