Test Drive 4

I have had great experiences with games made by Accolade in the past. Test Drive 4 is no exception! From the minute I popped this game into the PS I was hooked.

Test Drive 4 is kinda like the games in the "Need for Speed" series. Rather then race on tracks, you race down country roads, and city streets to reach the finish.  No oval tracks here, just long winding roads. Another comparison that can be made with the "Need for Speed" series is the use of actual licensed cars. No fake cars here, all are replicas of actual muscle cars of today, as well as of  yesterday.

The courses are varied, and quite long. Your not gonna memorize these tracks anytime soon. The locations are: San Francisco, USA- Washington D.C., USA- Keswick, England- Bern, Switzerland- and Kyoto, Japan. All were modeled after the actual cities. Additionally, all locations have an extra track that is accessible if you place first place in the Single Race mode for that location. I feel a need to say that I like this type of racing. To me it's much better then racing an oval track again and again. You never quite memorize the track layout completely, so it's like a new experience each time you pop the CD in the tray.

One thing that sets it apart from "Need for Speed", is the use of the old muscle cars. Included in this game are the following cars: 1966 Shelby Cobra, 1970 Chevy Chevelle SS454, 1971 Plymoth "Hemi" Cuda, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1, and 1969 Chevy Vette ZL-1. All exact replicas, that even use the same control model of the actual cars. Along with the old cars, this game has the newer cars as well (as seen in NFS). The cars are: 1998 Dodge Viper, 1998 Chevy Corvette, 1998 Jaguar XJ220 (pick this if your playing!!), 1998 TVR Cerbera, and 1995 Nissan 300 ZX.

It was definately fun to play using the old cars in contrast to the new. The old ones were all quite powerful, but sorely lacked in the control department. This is not a game deficiency, rather, it was the designers replicating the control of the older cars. All the newer cars have a real tight chassis. Control is very percise, and makes these cars just fly around the track. I'm very glad the designers decided to give us both. It lends much to the replay value of this game.

This game includes everything needed to make it a hit. The graphics are great, there are police chases, weather changes, and many different options for gameplay. This game gets fast too!! This isn't one of those games that you can keep gassed to the floor all the time. You'll be turning flips before you know it if you try to play like this. It takes skill, and percise timing to keep moving in a forward direction. This is a quality I perfer over the no-skill racing games that I see so much of today.

I do have a few minor complaints though.

First, I didn't like the time it takes to recover from an accident. Have one spinout, and a first place finish is pretty much out of the question. It just takes too long to recover. Usually, I got passed by all the other racers (5 total) before I was back in the race.

Second, I didn't like all the traffic. It was almost impossible to avoid collisions. On the plus side, there is an option to turn this off. So, I guess I can't complain too much.

I would've also like to have seen cars take actual damage, but this is a minor point.

All in all, this is a very solid racing title. I recommend it to anyone. Actually, I recommend Accolade games in general to most anyone. I feel they are a very underated company. They just don't seem to have the exposure as some of the larger companies.  Their products are generally great. Give them a try if you haven't!!

(PS- Test Drive 5 is about to be released. This is a must-buy title, as it includes all the goodies of part 4, as well as a multitude of new tracks and cars.  Buy both titles! I bet you won't be dissapointed!!)
 

RATINGS
GRAPHICS 85%
SOUND 88%
GAMEPLAY 87%
ORIGINALITY 93%
REPLAY VALUE 90%
OVERALL 89%