Test Drive 5

The Good
It helped me kill 17 minutes of useless time, loading screens are pretty cool. Two days after I purchased it, I sold it for 75 cents (no lie) to a friend, and purchased some candy, I kind of feel bad about ripping my friend off.

The Bad
This is a joke, this game is so terrible. The soundtrack music is lame and does not sound good, and it sounds like they hired so fat guy off the street to make there sound effects for this game. The car graphics are so bad, does anyone even now if they are cars?, thats how bad it is.The handling of the cars on this game are so bad, its like the makers want you to get mad at playing this, because the opponents beat you so badly.

The Bottom Line
I would stay clear of it, its a boring time Killer. The only Test Drive game worth getting is Test Drive: Off-Road: Wide Open. If you want a good sports car racer get a Need for speed title, or just about anything except Test Drive 5 unless your rich and need to buy something.

The Good
The graphics are quite fast, and rendered well. The environment mapping on the cars is a nice touch, and it switches from location to location (see screenshots for a shot under a bridge).

The soundtrack is good, with real music from real artists.

The Bad
Oh lord, where do I begin?

• Bugs, bugs, bugs. When you hit another car hard enough, you abruptly start rotating in mid-air around the same two axises for about 3 revolutions, then suddenly you're back on the road again. There's environment mapping on the inside of cars (like the Aston Martin). The game will not quit--you have to kill the game by alt-tabbing out of it. Selecting "Music Test" locks the game. And so on...
• There is no convincing sense of speed.
• The automatic shifting shifts way too fast, so you are automatically left in the dust from the get go.
• The handling of any car is terrible--it feels like a boat. The keyboard and gamepads give you better control than that of analog joysticks and driving wheels, which says it all, I think.
• The user interface requires you to double-click on single-click buttons.

This has to be the most annoying thing I've ever worked with.

The Bottom Line
Avoid it. It wasn't worth even the paltry 14 US dollars I paid for it.

The Good
The graphics are good, and the controls are easy. I ran the game at 1024x768 and the graphics were very fluid. LARGE selection of cars, though you have to unlock the best ones.

The Bad
The computer cars always seem to get the advantage, for example if you're drag racing in a '67 corvette (the fastest originally available car), and the computer is racing a Nissan Skyline (one of the slowest), the computer's car will shoot ahead and finish before you've gone 50 feet.

The Bottom Line
A fun game where you pick a car and a color, and race!