| Will Test
Drive Unlimited's gameplay be similar to any
previous Test Drive? |
|
The game play will be sort
of similar to the original Test Drive 1,
2 and 3. During the recent years, the name
Test Drive was used to brand a lot of different
racing game from Atari. We will basically
return to the roots of the brand where Test
Drive was about driving Sport and luxury
cars on open roads with the Next Gen technology.
|
| The lobby
of the game is essentially free roaming mode
online. Will there have to be multiple "lobbies"
to accommodate for all these people? |
|
The players can play on one to one straight
from the free roaming environment. To play
up to 8 players simultaneously, they either
have to go to a "Drive-in place" parking
which basically is a lobby where up to 8
players are waiting for opponents, or go
to their clubs house to gather with their
friends.
|
| How many players
are you looking at having for online races
and offline races? |
Some challenges (game modes) can be played
off-line or on-line by up to 8 players.
|
| Customizing
your driver is going as far as having licensed
clothing designers. Will people be able to
get out of their car and walk around? |
While not to the extent of GTA, there are
plenty of places where you can see your avatar
and the other player's avatars as well such
as Clubs, Drive-in's places, Living room,
etc.
|
| The thing
everybody wants to know about is the car customization!
What can you tell us about the depth of the
customization and some of the things we will
be able to do with our rides? |
|
We will reveal the customization features
of the game later on because some of it
is still pending to ongoing partnership
discussions.
|
| Cars will
feature functioning radio, electric windows,
horns, and wipers. Will the radio function
similar to Grand Theft Auto and have channels?
|
The radio will have different channels to
cover different styles of music and talk.
We are currently discussing with radio partners
and will announce the radio stations this
summer.
|
| As far as
wipers, will player need to turn them on to
get a better view during a storm? |
We may modify the real time weather changes
of the game, we'll keep you posted.
|
| Can you go
into detail about owning a house in the game? |
Your house is the player's hub. The house
is divided into 3 rooms: The living room where
you can read the news, check the rankings
or trade your vehicles; the dressing room
in which you dress-up your avatar and of course
the garage which contains all your cars. You
can trade your current house for a bigger/nicer
one at any time if you can afford to. The
main reason to move to a new house is to live
on another side of the island or to gat a
bigger garage to store more cars. You can
find new houses on sale by driving on the
free roaming roads or find the nearest estate
agent which contains the list of the available
houses.
|
| Downloads
are expected to be available monthly. How
much can we expect the downloads to cost? |
It hasn't been decided at this stage. We
are still discussing with Microsoft to make
an offer consistent with the other X360 games
offers.
|
| The island
images certainly look impressive, but how
exact of a replica of Oahu is it? |
The major road network is 95% accurate.
We mostly have deleted the local dead ends
which were adding nothing but frustrations
to the game play experience. The are over
200 landmarks which are also accurate to the
real elements like pear harbor, Honolulu airport,
the stadiums, the parks.... Houses and building
architectures as well as tree and flower species
are also true to the Hawaiian environments.
|
| Can we expect
dynamic weather and changing time (day into
night) effects? |
This will effect the time of day rather
than radical weather changes.
|
| Will there only be exotic
cars (in addition to the bikes)? |
The entire line up is composed of super
cars, roadsters, luxury and exotic cars. The
"smallest" car in the game is the new Mazda
Miata (MX-5). The car brands and models will
be announced progressively until the release
of the game.
|
| Will there be car damage? |
Damages will only appear on the non-licensed
vehicles such as traffic cars.
|
| What modes are planned? |
Unlike most of racing games, Test Drive
is not featuring a limited number of game
modes. Instead, we are offering themes which
are speed, time, race, coop and more which
are all associated with an impressive list
of parameters or sets of rules. This way,
new game modes will emerge from our level
design team, but also from the players because
the "level" or challenge editor is built in
the game.
|
| How accurate of the final
build is the footage/screens that have been
released thus far? |
Expect the final build to look better than
anything you have seen from Test Drive so
far, apart from the pre-rendered teaser featuring
Blur "song 2". The previously seen footage
was running on a machine that has less than
50% of the X360 final hardware graphic GPU.
|
| Are there plans to release
Unlimited on PS3 in the future or on PC? |
At this stage Test Drive Unlimited is a
true Xbox 360 game, we want to take full advantage
of the hardware and the Live online components
and not do any compromise to other platforms
|
| And what is it that makes
Test Drive Unlimited unique? |
Test Drive is a different experience to
other racing games, it is more a driving game
if you will. It is the blend of its innovative
features, its huge free roaming environment
and the very realistic driving experience
that make it different. In addition, I don't
think any racing or driving game is offering
the online persistency of the Test Drive world
and the MMO like immersion.
|
