- 87,230
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Free to Play on PlayStation this Weekend
- Thread starter Famine
- 30 comments
- 3,698 views
- 1,484
- United Kingdom
- evildave333
Gonna at least have a mooch around the map, im guessing I will delete it the same day though lol
- 1,484
- United Kingdom
- evildave333
Don't even waste your time on a free demo... just wow looks like a PS3 game & drives terrible. When a games that bad a free trial is not going to bring in any customers whatsoever.
- 87,230
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
As I note in the article, I've been dipping into the game on and off for a while and never had a time I've logged in without seeing this:
It hasn't majorly affected anything, as far as I can tell, although again I've never actually had a race against humans at all, from the one day I could review the game before launch (and I'm glad I didn't put that off, because it was offline the next day) until today.
The physics are still :| though, offroad especially. You'll occasionally get a daily challenge to jump [so far] and it just highlights how utterly ridiculous the jump physics are (incidentally, go to the golf course on the south of the island; there's two humpback bridges on the path around the course and you can hit every jump target on them).
I still don't get why you can't get road exploration/discovery from doing races on those roads though.
It hasn't majorly affected anything, as far as I can tell, although again I've never actually had a race against humans at all, from the one day I could review the game before launch (and I'm glad I didn't put that off, because it was offline the next day) until today.
The physics are still :| though, offroad especially. You'll occasionally get a daily challenge to jump [so far] and it just highlights how utterly ridiculous the jump physics are (incidentally, go to the golf course on the south of the island; there's two humpback bridges on the path around the course and you can hit every jump target on them).
I still don't get why you can't get road exploration/discovery from doing races on those roads though.
- 67
- Canada
- Emily-Haines
- Emily Haines
Waiting to login in. Stuck in a queue.
Great job guys. Great job. This is why you implement an offline mode.
EDIT: after about 2 hours of the game, uninstalled it.
Great job guys. Great job. This is why you implement an offline mode.
EDIT: after about 2 hours of the game, uninstalled it.
- Handling bleh on the 370z that I tried as the first car
- A lot of popups and slowdowns as assets were being streamed in, which was more evident on a drive down to Shek-O
- Absence of basis options such as invert look and switching-off adaptive triggers on the Dualsense controller
- Why can't I drive the red taxi eh?
- Radio/music mix distinctly un-local. Could it have hurt to have a Cantopop station?
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- 16,352
- Melbourne
- ScottPuss20
- CheetahsMeow
I still won't play it.
- 1,753
- PletdeKoe
Glad I didn’t buy it. I think it just dull. The graphics are dull ( frame drops and pop-up is huge), the driving is dull (does suspension even exist in the game?), races are dull, story is dull (drive to impress rich people to let you race in a city… what is this, a new version of running man?)
I might have loved it when I was 9 years old, not knowing how good games could be. I remember being you and playing a PS2 game Immersion Racing. I loved it, but is waa actually pretty bad. I gues it is the same here.
4/10
I might have loved it when I was 9 years old, not knowing how good games could be. I remember being you and playing a PS2 game Immersion Racing. I loved it, but is waa actually pretty bad. I gues it is the same here.
4/10
- 25
- Canada
- raf_leggy2fast
Tried the game again for the 2nd time (first time was after launch, on the PC).
I'm still amazed that they consider this game as officially released. This is not a finished product.
I can't get even into commenting about physics or driving because everything else before and after the race feel like a mid-dev demo from a ps3 game - except it runs miserably bad, they managed to make a city like Hong Kong feel empty, and the cutscenes are cringe cliché juice from the 2000s (and I'm the kind of person who plays Sonic and likes Shadow).
I remember when Cyberpunk 2077 ran so badly in the PS4 that they delisted and refunded the game, and I'm surprised that they're not doing the same to Solar Crown.
Just uninstalled the game - again.
I'm still amazed that they consider this game as officially released. This is not a finished product.
I can't get even into commenting about physics or driving because everything else before and after the race feel like a mid-dev demo from a ps3 game - except it runs miserably bad, they managed to make a city like Hong Kong feel empty, and the cutscenes are cringe cliché juice from the 2000s (and I'm the kind of person who plays Sonic and likes Shadow).
I remember when Cyberpunk 2077 ran so badly in the PS4 that they delisted and refunded the game, and I'm surprised that they're not doing the same to Solar Crown.
Just uninstalled the game - again.
- 328
- Burgundy
- xxflorent21xx
- graoul57
I do agree, the game is not finished, lack content, and most of all it doesn't have TDU DNA
No mention to the always online non sense, solar pass is garbage
I could be great, but there is so much wrong decisions at core that it seems complicated to repair
I don't get the point of releasing a demo of the game at this state, or maybe this is the final try to save the game...
No mention to the always online non sense, solar pass is garbage
I could be great, but there is so much wrong decisions at core that it seems complicated to repair
I don't get the point of releasing a demo of the game at this state, or maybe this is the final try to save the game...
- 3
- United Kingdom
Just got around to it. Couldn't get past the character creation screen because the servers went down. Again. And there is still no offline mode.
- 11
- United States
Never got into the game after downloading it. It required me to sign up for a special account. Ain't nobody got time for that. The last thing I want to do is type in my email address, create a password, check my email, and then sign in...all while using a controller. No thanks.
Uninstalled before I even got to try it out
Uninstalled before I even got to try it out
- 87,230
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Another issue we brought up in our review.
I remember the blasting we got for our comparatively low review score at the time, with all the "GT shill" accusations flying about. Funny how it ended up being the closest to the player Metascore (once the zeroes and tens are removed) and all the things we mentioned are all things players have subsequently complained about. Haven't seen our detractors walk it back yet...
And I actually like the game, in general terms, too.
- 3,090
- Sweden
A free weekend and I’m still not tempted to try it out knowing that I’ll most likely be stuck in a que and experience disconnects or other problems due to the poor servers, not to mention the various (possibly distracting) performance issues with the game itself that still have not been fixed.
Seems more of a headache. No thanks, Nacon.
Seems more of a headache. No thanks, Nacon.
- 1,071
- United Kingdom
I only just discovered this news...and looks like I had a lucky escape!
- 87,230
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
I think you still have eight hours to go...
- 627
- United Kingdom
Why are both this and The Crew Motorfest so empty feeling? No pedestrians, no animals, nothing ‘alive’. This one especially. So, so boring. I think I’m quite bored of open world driving games now. Appreciate them making it free to help make clear the decision not to buy it though.
- 328
- Burgundy
- xxflorent21xx
- graoul57
Handling is ok as long as you don't upgrade your car (or lightly) otherwise it's a mess
I take more pleasure in cruising with this gameplay, racing I dunno, something is wrong (braking and cornering feels weird)
I agree they have to fix it for saison 3, this is their last opportunity to save the game
- 3,193
- Hong Kong
- Hybrid_Tifoso
After a brief period playing the free trial (base PS5), I suppose I’m in the minority for thinking that I may buy the game, but only at a massively reduced price (talking about $15-20 here).
I had a bit of fun driving the Mustang around the island. At first I was like “wtf why can’t I make the rear step out”, but after turning off the traction control it became more engaging to drive while not losing most of its docility. On the other hand, from what I can recall the Alpine A110 was worse to drive though, almost impossible to correct the spontaneous oversteer during my test drive. Haven’t tried much of other cars, but I suppose the car handling physics was a bit weird and needs improvement to finesse some of the cars.
The graphics are “meh” too. Yes, sometimes the display when you are travelling through the streets’ neon lights or driving under sunset looks good, but nothing mesmerizing. But the weird “aura of light” that was present when Famine reviewed the game was gone, and visually I could find nothing shockingly bad while in-game. One thing that stood out to me was how little it slows you down when crashing into a tree and how much it does when driving through dividing medians. Oh, and the way there was too much reverberation even when the environment you’re driving in was only closed-top for like ten metres at best. It’s almost like they spent most of the dev time developing the avatar personalization. 😅
One thing that was a super huge turn-off, though, is how much the framerate drops when there is at least one player-controlled car in your vicinity during a race, or as you play for extended periods. Like, the highest number of player-controlled cars I could get in a race at the same time was 2, and that includes my own, and it’s already bad enough that I couldn’t see where the car was going for an instantaneous moment, so I cannot even imagine how bad it’s gonna be when (or even if, considering how unpopular the game is right now
) there are more players around you. The FPS drop is really that noticeable. 
No server access difficulties on my end, though.
The most compelling factors in driving me to make a purchasing decision, to me, are that it’s my home city modelled, that the vehicles on offer cover what’s missing in GT7, and to a much lesser extent, the fact you can choose the interior trim, for which options actually resemble reality. I mean, it’s a pretty captivating game, when you have literally no expectations of it performing or even running. What can I say, the last open-world online driving game I’ve played in-depth is already NFS World. I would’ve wished that I had the time to try out the free trial on a wheel though, can anybody tell me how well-optimized it is for a Thrustmaster T300 RS? 
I had a bit of fun driving the Mustang around the island. At first I was like “wtf why can’t I make the rear step out”, but after turning off the traction control it became more engaging to drive while not losing most of its docility. On the other hand, from what I can recall the Alpine A110 was worse to drive though, almost impossible to correct the spontaneous oversteer during my test drive. Haven’t tried much of other cars, but I suppose the car handling physics was a bit weird and needs improvement to finesse some of the cars.
The graphics are “meh” too. Yes, sometimes the display when you are travelling through the streets’ neon lights or driving under sunset looks good, but nothing mesmerizing. But the weird “aura of light” that was present when Famine reviewed the game was gone, and visually I could find nothing shockingly bad while in-game. One thing that stood out to me was how little it slows you down when crashing into a tree and how much it does when driving through dividing medians. Oh, and the way there was too much reverberation even when the environment you’re driving in was only closed-top for like ten metres at best. It’s almost like they spent most of the dev time developing the avatar personalization. 😅
One thing that was a super huge turn-off, though, is how much the framerate drops when there is at least one player-controlled car in your vicinity during a race, or as you play for extended periods. Like, the highest number of player-controlled cars I could get in a race at the same time was 2, and that includes my own, and it’s already bad enough that I couldn’t see where the car was going for an instantaneous moment, so I cannot even imagine how bad it’s gonna be when (or even if, considering how unpopular the game is right now
) there are more players around you. The FPS drop is really that noticeable. No server access difficulties on my end, though.The most compelling factors in driving me to make a purchasing decision, to me, are that it’s my home city modelled, that the vehicles on offer cover what’s missing in GT7, and to a much lesser extent, the fact you can choose the interior trim, for which options actually resemble reality. I mean, it’s a pretty captivating game, when you have literally no expectations of it performing or even running.
What can I say, the last open-world online driving game I’ve played in-depth is already NFS World. I would’ve wished that I had the time to try out the free trial on a wheel though, can anybody tell me how well-optimized it is for a Thrustmaster T300 RS? That’s strange. I feel that there’re already sufficient CPU cars travelling on the free roam map, and any more would’ve made it unmanoeuvrable without crashing with the speeds you can do on the highways. It doesn’t really feel that empty, does it?
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- 87,230
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Not... entirely but it is much less prevalent and much less obvious when it happens certainly. I still get it occasionally on one of the early races where the car will glow up under a long straight under another road section above (can't recall the event) and the Z seems worse for it than the Mustang.
I've not seen much of the half-and-half shadow either, and there's less "what the hell are you reflecting?" going on, so there have been some improvements on that front.
I forgot to test one other thing before I switched consoles, which was a reflection through solid objects I saw in the review period. If anyone wants to check on that, it was at the 300SL wreck location next to the Streets HQ - inside a bunch of containers, but reflecting the Streets HQ neon signs
- 627
- United Kingdom
Erm, loads. The Crew 2. GTA 5. Every Forza Horizon. I don’t think it’s a weird complaint at all. Making an open world feel live and organic is important, even if it’s just a few pedestrians or a bit of wildlife. I particularly felt this emptiness with The Crew Motorfest coming from TC2.
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- 1,399
- Poland
- J_Chmielinski
Neither The Crew 2 nor Forza Horizon have pedestrians. GTA 5 is not a racing game. It just has a racing mode among many others. Basically no racing games have them because it forces the age ratings to be higher, even if it's not possible to run them over. Motorfest feels just as lifeless as The Crew 2 and it's largely because of their incredibly generic presentation styles.
- 627
- United Kingdom
I'm pretty sure The Crew 2 does. What it definitely has is animals, moving trains (complete with working level crossings etc), just a few touches to make the world feel more organic and alive - ditto Forza Horizon which makes an effort to include elements of environment interaction even if only through the showcase events (Flying Scotsman, volcano etc)
To be honest, I'm not that bothered about pedestrians specifically, it's not a deal breaker and not something that's keeping me awake at night. It's about doing something to make the world feel alive and neither of the recent games do that. They just feel empty and dead.
To be honest, I'm not that bothered about pedestrians specifically, it's not a deal breaker and not something that's keeping me awake at night. It's about doing something to make the world feel alive and neither of the recent games do that. They just feel empty and dead.
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