- The Ultimate Thrill Ride.
- Over 40 unique real licensed vehicles - race both Supercars and classic Muscle cars. Now features cars from: Dodge, Ford, Jaguar, Toyota, Audi and many more!.
- - High-impact collisions, huge jumps, and unpredictable cross-traffic.
- - New economic racing system: purchase, upgrade and collect unique cars in your custom garage.
- - New upgrade and auto paint systems allows for 1000s of unique car combinations.
Product description
-------------------
The Ultimate Thrill Ride
Over 40 unique real licensed vehicles - race both Supercars and
classic Muscle cars. Now features cars from: Dodge, Ford, Jaguar,
Toyota, Audi and many more!
- High-impact collisions, huge jumps, and unpredictable
cross-traffic
- New economic racing system: purchase, upgrade and collect
unique cars in your custom garage
- New upgrade and auto paint systems allows for 1000s of unique
car combinations
- New interactive environments featuring: environmental audio,
breakable objects and collidable obstacles
- New "All-Units" AI has working together to take you down
- Split-screen head-to-head racing
.com
----
By marrying arcade controls with real cars, upgradeable
car systems, and multiple play modes, Test Drive 6 attempts to be
the driving game for everyone. The result is a fragmented,
ordinary game lacking the focus to be suited for a particular
type of gaming audience.
The game purports to offer the thrill of driving a selection of
testosterone-charged real cars in some of the world's most scenic
locations. But instead of hitting top speed on the open road or
doing doughnuts on the Vatican's lawn, you must race a bunch of
veteran professional drivers around a number of preset tracks
with hairpin turns. Even that could be fun, but here the tracks
are missing the shortcuts and power-ups of an arcade racing game,
and the cars are missing the accurate physics and customization
of a simulation racing game. This "neither here nor there"
approach applies to all of Test Drive 6, a game that on the
surface is packed with features, most of which, on digging
deeper, add nothing to gameplay.
Play modes include single and groups of races where you wager
money or your pink slip; cop chases where you try to pull over
speeding cars; and two-player mode. The economic system by which
players purchase and upgrade cars seems out of place, and the
game's graphics are merely passable. --Jeff Young
Pros:
* Great soundtrack, including the entire video for Fear Factory's
remake of Gary Numan's "Cars"
* Nice collection of new and classic hot rods
Cons:* Too shallow for a racing simulation, too difficult to be
an arcade game
* Poor handling cars and poorly designed tracks
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Review
------
The Dreamcast's incarnation of Test Drive 6 is
essentially a direct port of the PlayStation version.
Consequently, all the woes associated with the PlayStation's
version are reborn in the DC's, and given the platform's
potential, they are excruciatingly more glaring. In effect what
Pitbull Syndicate has tried to accomplish with TD6 is an
amalgamation of the no-frills arcade-style racer and a detailed
racing sim. Neither of which is fully realized, sadly, as both
aspects continually undermine each other. The experience offered
by TD6 is reminiscent of early jump-in-and-play racers; the
vehicles handle like cake, and most in-track obstacles are simply
meant to be plowed through. The game encourages a speed-through
approach to racing; the only brake you'll use is the hand brake,
which by default executes vicious powerslides. The tracks' roads
are merely suggestions; the cars lose very little speed when
offtrack, allowing for some truly wacky race narratives. TD6's
play modes, while seemingly plentiful, totally hint at a
nonrealized level of depth. Along with the requisite two-player
mode, the title offers single-race, tournament, challenge, and
cop-chase modes. Success in the various modes offers a concrete
bonus of cash, which is used to soup up your vehicles. This is,
perhaps, the title's most discrepant aspect; while the upgrades
do often have a tangible effect on the vehicles' performance, the
game's inherent pace causes its simulation aspect to appear
sorely out of place. Arcade-style racers, by default, place more
emphasis on the actual skill of the racer, rather than any
improvements made to his vehicle. Races are won in TD6 by
regulating speed - maintaining a workable accelerate/decelerate
ratio - and by gracious use of the hand brake. You will most
probably find TD6 a bit too shallow to actually invest enough
time to use its simulation aspects. More on the play modes:
Single race, as the name implies, sets up a one competition
for you and five other racers in your class, the bounty being a
bet you put up that the other racers match. Same deal with
tournament races, only you're entered into a series of connected
events. Challenges have you driving solo on a course, the goal
being to complete it under a certain time. Cop chase is pretty
conventional; you're the cop, and your job is to pound racers off
of the road to score ticket money, which you can use to upgrade
your car. In the end the play modes are rather straightforward,
offering the genre no real innovation. If taken as a light arcade
racer, this sort of thing would go over OK. Under the pretense of
simulation, though, this package totally falls short. The
graphics in TD6 are basically the same as the PlayStation
version's, with the resolutions upped and some textures cleaned
up. They are ultimately a letdown, considering what could have
conceivably been done. It seems Pitbull didn't dedicate enough
energy to the port; they seem satisfied with releasing a carbon
copy. It totally shows, as the game feels graphically more like a
current-generation PlayStation title than an early Dreamcast
title. The same often-hip soundtrack remains, containing cuts
from such acts as Eve 6, Fear Factory, and Cirrus. As before the
tracks are looped during each race, and they get redundant pretty
quickly. The mute button will be used, especially during
particularly lengthy races. In the end it's difficult to call
Test Drive 6 a disappointment; having played the game's earlier
incarnations has left me with an idea of what to expect. If the
arcade-style aspects of the game had worked out more, then
perhaps this title would have had an edge in the already-huge
market of racers. As is, though, TD6 tries to go in too many
directions, which, unfortunately, end up undermining each other.
It was sort of weak on the PlayStation. On the Dreamcast it's a
primped-up clone of a sort-of-weak game. There are a handful of
great racers available for the Dreamcast. It's inconceivable for
one to choose TD6 in lieu of a game like Speed Devils or Sega
Rally 2.--Miguel Lopez--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights
reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium
without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. --
GameSpot Review
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