By Jim Rossignol on October 14th, 2010 at 12:35 pm.
If you are a British motorist, like me, then you are more likely to associate sports cars with Jeremy Clarkson’s sad, frantic clowning than you are any sense of genuine style or chic, which is something of a shame. After all, objects like modern Ferraris really are engineering genius pushed to fetishistic extremes, and I think that’s what Atari and Eden Games are getting at with their rather serene Ferrari trailer for Test Drive Unlimited 2, which you can see below.
It’s looking fairly beautiful, and the promises Eden are making for the dynamic, open world are alluring. The game has been bumped into next year, too, so we will need to wait a bit longer to drive its purported 3000km of roads. (Or indeed the rest of the huge terrain, because there will be off-roading this time around.)
14/10/2010 at 12:51 Spd from Russia says:
the footage form the road doesnt look that good, or its just video quality
14/10/2010 at 13:46 Jim Rossignol says:
The cars themselves seem a bit stiff, don’t they? Is that what you meant?
14/10/2010 at 14:57 AndrewC says:
I would personally prefer cars made of jelly.
14/10/2010 at 15:50 Richard Beer says:
Yeah they definitely look stiff, like toy cars being pushed across the kitchen linoleum more than 200mph beasts racing pedal-to-the-metal against each other.
Beautiful editing though, especially at the end.
14/10/2010 at 16:17 fugo says:
agreed with the stiff comment, i always thought tdu would be better if it was a little more simmy than it was, i don’t think the handling was fun enough to keep intrest for long.. it was about collecting cars more than actually driving for me
14/10/2010 at 19:09 Merc says:
I hope the cars can get dirty and damaged.
In the past, I’ve heard that car manufacturers are reluctant to allow their vehicles to be shown in a game if they can be damaged, but I think damage (both cosmetic and damage that has an effect on the car’s performance) are essential to any good driving game, especially if you want to show off how great a car is.
Without a damage model, people will corner by grinding along a guard rail. They’ll pass by ramming cars out of their way. When your car doesn’t take damage, these are the most effective ways to get quickly from A to B.
If they want to show off how great certain cars are, they need to show how well they can corner (without touching a rail), how their brakes are so great they allow you to brake really late into a corner, and still make it around without touching a wall.
I hope cars get dirty and damaged, or we’ll just see beautiful mirror-finish Ferraris grinding around streets and buildings without taking a scratch… and that would just be terrible.
14/10/2010 at 19:09 Starky says:
Maybe car physics were not ready when they screen capped that trailer footage…
Otherwise I agree the cars look more like hovercraft than cars when cornering, floating above the road rather than driving on it, no dip, no body roll, grip or bite to them.
Again hopefully it just want ready and in the engine when they made that footage.
15/10/2010 at 05:49 BAReFOOt says:
Wanna bet this is just some 3D designers placing car models on track models, and manually moving them with keyframes, instead of an actual game engine?
Also, that trailer was extremely irrelevant. If I wanted to look at prettified cars I would have played Need For Speed – Pimp My Ride Edition. (aka „Underground“)
I’ll stay with the Burnout series for fun racers, and Richard Burns Rally for realism.
For beauty, I’ll rather look at girls. :)
15/10/2010 at 08:03 DevilSShadoW says:
i’m pretty sure it’s just the video editing. They probably didn’t even enable driving physics.
14/10/2010 at 13:16 Dhatz says:
TDU2 >> than NFS HP 2010!
15/10/2010 at 05:54 BAReFOOt says:
Why would you bitshift TDU2 that much? ^^
∀ burnoutGame ∈ BurnoutGames → (burnoutGame > Σ(NeedForSpeedGames)) ∧ (burnoutGame > Σ(TestDriveGames))
14/10/2010 at 13:18 Anarki says:
I’m in the beta for this but haven’t been able to load it yet, there’s always an update that doesnt work or the servers are down or I can’t log in…. bad times.
14/10/2010 at 13:38 Delusibeta says:
Wait, Eden Games? *insert much nostalga for V-Rally N64 here*
15/10/2010 at 11:03 DrGonzo says:
The only memory of V-Rally I have is that is was shit.
14/10/2010 at 13:58 cqdemal says:
The beta is only up at certain times. In fact, it’s up right now if I’m not mistaken. 12.00-16.00 GMT.
*jumps off to play*
15/10/2010 at 05:56 BAReFOOt says:
Nah, it’s up all the time, if you live in (“IP”-free) reality. :D
14/10/2010 at 14:24 DigitalSignalX says:
TDU ran great on my crappy pc and was easily steerable with mouse and keyboard.. curious if the sequel will too.
14/10/2010 at 15:31 The Dark One says:
When I think of ‘British’, ‘sad’ and ‘cars’, I don’t think of Top Gear.
While Patrick Stewart wasn’t responsible everything wrong in the movie, his love of driving was the reason Star Trek Nemesis included a scene where Captain Picard breaks the prime directive so that he can take his 24th-century dune buggy out on a joy ride.
14/10/2010 at 16:01 HeroJez says:
Definitely some dubious driving* from the AI (read: scripting for video) Still, the first was decent, although I can’t see this luring me from NFS HP – they’re different games, though.. so that’s a touch daft, I guess.
Pretty, though.
14/10/2010 at 16:17 drewski says:
Top Gear’s pretty good when they focus on the cars and talk about how great they are, rather than just acting like idiots. But clearly the idioting has got them the big ratings an the pounds so that’s what they’ve focused on.
The odd occasion where they pull the focus back to new, high performance cars, and really talk about what they can do and how amazing they are – still really good. Even Clarkson.
14/10/2010 at 17:07 Lukasz says:
lol
when they talk about cars without crazy stuff this is when i get bored.
then again i find cars boring. they are just tools for me to get from point a to point b preferably safely, comfortably, quickly and cheap.
Acting like idiots is the best part!
14/10/2010 at 16:40 Bassism says:
I really hope the driving in this isn’t shit. I couldn’t deal with the first one for more than about 3 minutes at a time. But if I can plug my G25 in and feel like I’m driving a car, this will be incredible.
And I have to disagree. I love Top Gear, no matter whether they’re focusing on cars or acting like idiots. But then I’m not a British motorist, so take that as you will.
14/10/2010 at 16:46 Στέλιος says:
I like Top Gear, as I am sure many petrolheads do. The acting “like idiots” part is rather fabulous actually and greatly entertaining. If I wanted staid, overtly-positive-review-containing autoshows I’d watch Motorweek (trust me, anyone aware of it will know what I mean).
14/10/2010 at 17:18 Marcin says:
Stop teasing, I’m sold already!
Oh the wait ….
14/10/2010 at 17:23 Pobblepop says:
‘Light reflects off shiny car’ shocker, says Maily Dail.
14/10/2010 at 17:45 Jake says:
I’m sorry but what is this music supposed to be? I refuse to watch a game trailer that doesn’t have some Linken Park or equivalent noise. Burnout Paradise had Avril Lavigne, this is a real step backwards.
14/10/2010 at 18:21 Shih Tzu says:
I’m confused. Why is there a katakana “su” in their logo?
15/10/2010 at 05:49 BAReFOOt says:
Because it confuses you. That’s why. :)
15/10/2010 at 11:35 cqdemal says:
Well, it’s an online game and the beta servers are only available for testing for a few hours at a time.
And the comments in that torrent you sent me show that this pirated beta (that phrase sounds desperate) is barely a game. The beta I played yesterday has a lot more than a single car and a completely empty network of roads to run around. And it’s regularly updated.