Test Drive Unlimited arrived in 2006 as a racing game that wanted to be more than a racing game. Eden Games built it for Xbox 360 and Windows, with Atari Melbourne House handling the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable versions. Atari published it. The eighteenth entry in the Test Drive series, it threw out the continuity of everything before it and started over.
Trailer, via Michael Denk.
1,000 Miles of Oʻahu
The map is the pitch. The terrain is modeled after the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu, and the roads are modeled after satellite images of it — more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of highways, rain forests, mountains, sandy beaches and the city of Honolulu. Over 125 licensed sports cars and motorcycles fill the dealers. Players buy vehicles, collect and trade rare performance parts, and customize each one.
Real-Time Racing, No Lobby
Test Drive Unlimited does not separate driving from other people. Players roam on-road and off-road in free-roam mode and challenge each other in real time anywhere on the drivable map. Small islands outside the main island are drivable too. The Xbox 360 version supported steering wheel controllers from launch, and after the third free update it supported force feedback wheels such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel. Credits from races, challenges, missions and tournaments buy cars, bikes, parts, clothes and homes.
The Wheel and the Road
The handling model and the wheel support are what hold this together. Free-roam racing lives or dies on whether the car feels like it is under you, and the force feedback update is the difference between a novelty and a driving game. The on-foot layer — clothes, apparel, garages — is thinner. It gives the credits somewhere to go, but it is not why anyone stays.
A Reboot That Earned Its Sequel
Test Drive Unlimited is the rare reboot that improves by subtraction. Dropping the old continuity and betting everything on one island and one persistent online space gave the series a shape it had never had. It was followed by Test Drive Unlimited 2 in 2011, and a third game and soft reboot, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, arrived in 2024. The sequels exist because this one proved the idea worked.
Test Drive Unlimited challenges players online to experience the most exotic and fastest vehicles on more than 1000 miles of diverse Hawaiian roads.
The house verdict: the roads and the real-time multiplayer are the whole argument, and they still hold up. The customization and lifestyle systems are noise by comparison. Test Drive Unlimited earns its place as the series’ reset point.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
