A Short Retrospective on Test Drive Unlimited 1+2 | Why TDU Was So Ahead of Its Time (And Still Is) 

Buying anything felt like a big thing back then.. You didn’t have 500 cars in your garage like Horizon series.. Every car felt different, every car felt significant and you experienced a real feeling of progression whenever you drove that car for the first time

If I could have Horizon physics, tuning and vehicle selection with TDU2 lifestyle stuff on top of the Crew style US map and full mod support I would never need another open world racing game ever again.

Born in 96, as a kid when need for speed game didn't even have interiors during the 2000 era, TDU made you able to roll down windows in the interior view.. mind blowing detail

It felt like an endless vacation in an endless tropical paradise, where you could buy dream homes and drive dream concept cars. It had that vision. It had appeal, ambience and desire to give players the escapism of their dreams, like most older games did. The PS2 version of TDU1 especially had a soundtrack that just melted you into another world. It was pure driving and living paradise. And no amount of realistic graphics or 'details' can compensate for a lack of true character/identity.

One of my fondest memories of TDU2 was listening to a friend groaning over Xbox Live party chat as he kept endlessly spinning the casino slot machines, desperately trying to hit the jackpot to win the Audi R8 Spyder. As a joke, he made a prayer to Allah (neither of us are Muslim), and promised to convert if he hit the jackpot in his next attempt. Lo and behold, he hit the jackpot then and there and I haven't laughed as hard as that day ever since. Hope you enjoyed that R8, Joe.

TDU 1 and 2 were the peak of open-world driving games! I'm currently playing both heavily modded.

The immensity of this map was truly ridiculous, I grew up on the PS2 version of TDU and was always impressed with not only the size of the world but the density, detail, atmosphere, beauty, and how alive it felt. And that's just one of the mind-blowingly brilliant aspects of this game. The progression and structure were second to none, not too grindey and not too easy, an absolutely perfect balance. The car list was SO good it had everything you could ever want and included many concept cars which still haven't appeared in any other games, as a kid my knowledge of cars deepened a lot just from this game.

I just really miss pre-gacha progression in these games. Like, buying a koenigsegg doesn't feel like anything in FH5 when you get a new $2.5m hypercar every time you log in.

I want a game where I drive by the local superstore, and there's a black Mk3 Supra on Super Advans parked outside, and that tells me that Hoki is picking out a new ottoman set for his 4th floor bedroom.

I absolutely love the unique custom gauges of each car in the HUD. Every racing game today uses the same stock speed & acceleration gauge.

While I've never been to Oahu myself, when I've watched a travel video about it I could identify a lot of the places from my TDU experience. Also, a fact most people miss about Oahu in TDU2 is that they didn't just port it over with some overhauls and additional dirt patches, they've added a lot of brand new mountain passes to the previously empty mountain range in the middle of the island, ones that don't exist in real life- at least not on Oahu. I suspect that they've got inspired by some of the best driving mountain passes worldwide when doing these. Even with 2's jank physics they were a joy to drive. Also, the way they did classic dealerships in 1, I feel, is not talked about enough. It's the perfect blend of convenience and realism- you can't spec yourself a brand new Lambo Miura, and a lot of the time you can't even get one because it's not available, but you don't get the tedium and frustration of real classic car market either, you just go see one in the dealership, decide you want one of these eventually, place a notification, and when one becomes available you just drive there to pick it up. The anticipation is very worth it. Yes, it's purple. If you wanted a yellow one, you shoulda bought one in the 70s.

I did not know that secret island in TDU 1, I really thought I had seen it all in that game.

Shows exactly why solar crown is a mere shadow

The Test Drive Series has always been ahead of its time and it's one of the reasons I love that franchise and will continue to stick by it. For instance, Test Drive LeMans was one of the 1st racing games to have full day/night cycle in real time during a race on home consoles. I believe that rain/weather could happen in real time but I could be wrong on that. Even the lesser PS1 version had these features. Fun fact, if a car in TDU 2 had a visible infotainment system in 1st person view (maybe TDU1 as well but don't remmeber), you could see the Map/GPS on it instead of having to use the HUD. This added even more to the immersion for me since I could just disable the HUD and drive around in 1st person without having a gaint map and gauge floating on the sides of the screen.

The secret island, jumping the fence to get into the airport, modding textures on the PC version, seeing developers driving around in the red and orange "default" car, which looked like a weird mix of Golf 32 and Audi A4, endlessly flinging my cars up every mountain I could find, including the highest one in the game...I've got a lot of good memories of TDU. It really paved the way for games like The Crew and Forza Horizon, and in some ways remains unsurpassed by them.

Bravo!!! You summed up the TDU experience perfectly. I too visited Oahu not long before TDU released and spent hours reliving my vacation with my wife. Certain areas around Honolulu were incredibly accurate. They even included the hotel buidling I stayed at. There sadly has not been any other games like it. Oddly, GTA Online may be the closest game to TDU that has released since. One thing is TDU 2 had one of the roughest releases I have ever experienced. Gamers struggled to enter servers for multiple days after release. I literally shelved the game for the first month out of frustration.

Basically TDU put us on a map and tried to convince us that this was a real place that could exist. Each place to visit, discover, access, buy had a specific area on the map. Nowadays games just want to convince you that they are video games to complete weekly challenges

Great video Hoki! I remember playing the Millionaire's Challenge on TDU1 feeling like it was the most amazing game ever! The thing I miss the most on Forza Horizon now is this progression feeling we used to have on games like this, because having to save money to buy the cars and get licenses for more advanced races was really fun IMHO. Even though I love FH, being awarded a million dollar McLaren for doing something stupid cuts the vibe a lot for me. Even NFS Unbound gave me some top tier cars for some reason when I played it. (I just wanted to add that there's no link to the mod pages on the description 😅)

I remember being lucky enough to have an Xbox 360 when the original TDU came out in 2006 at the age of 11. The scale and the online aspect blew my mind at the time. The sad thing is, is when I was playing this as a kid I could only dream of what we could have almost 20 years later, maybe a 1:1 scale open world of an entire massive country with 1000 cars and lifelike graphics. Obviously that was naive childish thinking, but still, I feel like we’ve really not progressed much in all those years. In some ways we’ve gone backwards.

Still one of the only games I couldn't wait for coming home after school. Amazing game it was

I've played TDU 2 for years and never knew (until now) that you could hang up your photos on the walls. Thanks, man.

The big big stand out for me with TDU2 that i didn't hear much mention in was the rather eclectic soundtrack. Sure it fit with the racing theme we all know, but they found genuinely good and genuinely under appreciated music

I spent a crazy amount of time playing TDU1. It was the best game for cruising around the map with friends. The sound ambiance and the vibrant vegetation with deep blue skies, made it feel like a tropical paradise. You could add your own music playlist. You could wind down the windows and hear the wind gush through. The coastal route around the map never got boring. It was normal to find yourself cruising with 7 players for hours at a time.

I think the Car Wash was the best thing in the games, can't believe such a revolutionary feature has been left behind. The houses and garages though are a close second, just having a social hub with all your cars on display was a phenomenal feature for the community. I can't believe Forza Horizon has had 2 games with houses as a feature and they still do absolutely nothing except change your garage background and give you a small bonus. Even their feature of changing the background scenery is often worse than the default Festival Garage because apparently nobody in the UK or Mexico has figured out how to place lights anywhere, whenever it's night in FH5 I can barely see anything on my cars in 90% of the houses. I imagine Forza wouldn't be able to do the Dealership system simply due to the amount of cars in the game but back in FH3 if you went into ForzaVista then the mechanic character would give you a brief history of the car you're looking at. It was such a small feature that was probably overlooked by 90% of players but it was cut in FH4 which I feel was a step back just in terms of the Cars being an integral part of the game itself. Also shoutout to Shirtless Lancia Dude, honestly one of the most underrated icons of gaming.

18 years later and I still love TDU. I was playing it last year. Damn, why can't Playground games learn a little from this? They have lots of clothing, so make clothes stores on the map! Weekly forzathon shop should be a physical store with cars and clothed manequins. You should be able to pick your top 10 cars and have a garage you can walk through. TDU and Project Gotham 4 did the small things so well. I can never forget them.

Ive always said that this was the best games ive ever played and still holds true to this day. You did a fantastic job capturing and explaining why the TDU franchise was so great and couldnt have said it better myself. Im hopeful that solor crown will scratch that TDU itch we've been missing all these years, with a little encouragement from the community to push the devs to improving and reminding them what made TDU so great!

This will become my new go-to recommendation when someone who doesn't know the franchise asks about it :) As always, great vid - always enjoyable to watch your channel!

This is my first time finding out about the bonus island. I enjoyed TDU1 and your retrospective does it justice. Thanks for blowing my mind.

This game taught me how to play poker funny enough

My an my friend spent so many hours in TDU2. Most of the time was spent trying to join a shared freeroam lobby (some evening we would spend hours trying to join free roam together but matchmaking in that game was straight up non-functional), but occasionally we would actually get some racing in. To this day its more or less the only game I've every actually played online with friends - preior to TDU2 I didn't even really know what online play was (or just didn't bother with it), after the TDU2 started to get old I jumped over to an Xbox One for Horizon 2 while all my mates stuck with PS3s.

R.I.P. Test Drive Unlimited! I rather play TDU 2 again before playing any more second of Solar Crown... Thanks for the great Video Mate!

TDU2 is my favourite game ever, it was the first game I played on my Xbox 360 and I have played countless hours on it

Actually crazy how much devs have dropped the ball on lifestyle elements. Forza literally added houses and then did nothing with them when they were begging for car meet areas/viewing areas to look out into the world/just getting the boys round. I don't think any open world racing game has been anything close to TDU2 since it came out.

I remember the first time I ever played tdu 2, my parents let me pick a game at blockbuster and I picked this. No racing game I've played since has been able to live up to tdu 2. In my opinion the features they added to this game made this series the best racing series ever.

You made my day, I still have disks of both games and got external DVD drive to play those gems

The demo for tdu on the 360 for 1 hour was my childhood, it was so fun, and some great memories made with my sister. Tdu 2 was a gem, so so much potential for solar crown, but you know it’s going to be 2024d and be pretty flat, missing features, overdoing it on other features(every car pops and bangs/backfires) and the demo has absolutely ruined any drive I had for it.

I like to call it the original rich boy simulator. You feel like a celebrity experiencing all of this luxury life style. It wasn't just about the cars. It was a life you'd live while playing a game.

The island challenge was truly amazing, it's rare to feel such a feeling of accomplishment in a racing game for me.

Fantastic video, so much nostalgia and really reminded me just why they were such fantastic games!

None of my friends were talking about this game back in the day but I was so impressed, probably the most underrated game of all time.

This video perfectly encapsulates what I loved about these games. Also I'd never heard of that easter egg!

Those livestreams of TDU 1 and 2 you did a while back were so much fun to watch, watching Forza doesn't hit the same.

Bro I hope you read this… but playing TDU2 online was seriously a lifestyle. You could have a shitty day in the real world, then go home hop on TDU 2 and have the best rest of the day ever meeting new friends and creating new possibilities. Some of my best moments of my life came from TDU2.

TDU1 will forever be my all time favorite racing game. I spent countless hours exploring the island. Like you, even my dad got into it because he used to live on Oahu. The fact that it had a 1:1 scale of the island was insane to me and him. It’ll go down in history as one of the best racing games of all time

My mind has actually been blow with the secret island on TDU 1. When the game came out, I had 98% of all roads driven and I could never find what roads I was missing until now... I had no idea

One of my fondest racing game memories was playing TD6 as a kid on my ps1 and hearing Cars by Gary Numan on the soundtrack. So sick! Thanks for the video.

Man, I really wish I hadn’t missed this game. The more and more I hear about it the more amazing this game sounds.

My childhood were so tied up with TDU, First I was looking how my brother plays TDU1 and when he let me drive I tried to obey the traffic laws and failed the taxi mission, then my 6 grade, when I was looking to wake up do the homework and play TDU2 pirate copy before school. I learned how to drive because oh boy that mustang in driving school but most of the time I was just having fun like jumping on that roundabout with bulls (lol) near Ferrari dealer while test driving a ferrari. Some years pass and we finally got the steam copy with multiplayer and oh god it’s still one of the best online interactions I ever experienced. I was older and more skilled so I was able to pass schools which l love so much as a concept (aston martin a5 license💀) and win races. I found my first favourite cars like A6 Subaru Hawkeye and oh… One time I was just visiting ferrari dealer as I always did and then I noticed that you can walk upstairs with a big ladder and there she was… Ferrari 458 italia, I fell in love and did so many test drives. And I started collecting money with any way I can to get it. And that feeling when I configured my own 458 with Rosso something darker carbon Fiber interior with red alcantara… I never progressed in the game to the point where I need to use it, but I had my ferrari which not many people even knew existed! I drove so many kilometres in it just for pleasure, even in first person view, and it was so much enjoyment even on keyboard. Then hangouts with random people in my house some of who I still remember, starting a race with them, walking and sitting in others cars before the race, joining a club with access to gumpert and fxx evo 😮 making your own time trials with stakes from your own pocket! I can continue more and more but still will remember more than any god damn boring horizon on PC where you have freaking koenigsegg at the start of the game (literally first hour playing FH3), heck I still remember which car is which class and almost the whole roster. It was an experience. And it was the first time I felt a loss when servers shut down. I almost had tears while watching the video and I’m so happy that there are people who also truly love this masterpiece.

You did a fantastic video here, better than most game review sites in my opinion.

First of great Retrospective. What I loved most about TDU, and what I miss in today's open world racing games, is the connection to your vehicle. In TDU, you weren't just given new vehicles every five minutes, but had to complete a lot of tasks and challenges with one vehicle before you had saved up enough money to buy a new one. I miss that emotional connection to your car these days.

I miss TDU2 with all my heart

the best car games ever made TDU 1 platinum is legit the pinnacle, great vid

My 2 most memorable racing games experiences when I was younger was NFS underground 2 & TDU 1. I'll never forget them. And now in 2024 im still able to relive those memories on my pc.

the bots love you (and so do we)

PGR2-4 and GT1-4 have alwyas been at the top of my list. But there was definitely something special about TDU as well. I remember loving the TVR Sagaris in game

This game brings back a lot of memories to me. The game was a little demanding for my nVidia Geforce 9400gt back then but even through the stutters i managed to put in some time and often switched between TDU 1 and 2. The performance never really bothered me back then, gone were the days where the spirit of playing a game was more important than the framerates. I love this series. Great video hoki 👍🏼

I used to LOVE just finding and driving around with the AI, sitting beside or just behind them for a good chunk of time per AI, Solar Crown needs to add offline mode and implement this, i'm not fortunate with good enough internet to enjoy the constant online mode

Solar Crown has me genuinely disappointed. All the things that made these games incredible is missing. Not being able to buy a house and store my cars I've earned really sucks. I'm playing GTAO because it's the closest I can get to this old experience. 12 years later and we can't get a game as good as Unlimited 2. Happy my 360 still works because I don't see myself getting Solar Crown. Side note, Eve of Destruction was actually a really fun spinoff. I'd like to play it again now as an adult.

Man this was a great video my guy. I miss my childhood playing TDU1 and 2

Only had a PSP back then, and I loved TDU from the moment I first launched it. Drove hours on the highway in my cls55, while listening to real life radio

I used to play both games with my father, and my best memory from it was building an entire garage with only Lambos. We had like, 4 Murcis, each one being on a different color. That was really cool.

I'll never forget the race around the full island !

Yay Retrospective series is back

Has house, clothing and have to work for a car that I want... it is simply more immersive then other racing games.

I am 42 now and still love TDU. I played so many hours in it, it was so much joy just being there and driving alone or with someone I didn't know, just meet in game and drive. Buying houses to have a space for new cars, discovering every piece of road, looking at some beautiful places. It was it. The biggest issue was bumpy roads and hitting non existing obstacles, but overall 10/10. TDU2 had much worse physics, but it's masterpiece too.

Thank you for the trip down memory lane. TDU 1 & 2 were games that I spent hundreds of hours on. I’m hoping that TDU: Solar Crown, gives me many more memories.

One of the things which made TDU so great was the sensation of there being a horizon beyond the horizon - at least in the demo areas Solar Crown felt claustrophobic in comparison.

Bike riding in TDU2 was so sick. You could also pop the clutch to wheelie

I really wish they would remaster and re-release TDU and TDU2, take my money!

TDU1 was the last game I felt super immersed in. My father and I spent a ridiculous amount of hours playing it and the challenge was to see who could drive on every road on the island first! I remember completing the game and still not feeling bored with it. Highlights were racing down the long straight in the city that everyone use to use as a dragstrip, pulling up one day in a Ferrari 308 looking like Tom Sellick! The hilarious voice chats on the Xbox and the sound of the Lamborghini's. TDU2 didn't feel the same, sure it had more features but the handling of the car's were horrible compared to TDU1. Great memories, great game.

I Think TDU1 was certainly very much avant-garde. Groundbreaking in it's scale and with a simple design but a certain attention to aspects of larping. One part that only The Crew has replicated since is the somewhat authentic design of the map and a major part of it's appeal. My issue with Horizon for instance is that these maps while the prettiest and pleasant to drive do not convey any sense of travel. You are on a racetrack disguised as a road, you can only drive hard. TDU and The Crew were more designed to look real. TDU was almost true to scale and didn't try so hard to make tracks out of road although it was significantly widened. The Crew wasn't true to scale but tried to be true with it's general layout, it suffered greatly though from overly wide roads as well but also a much more noticeable use of duplicate and disjointed assets. You can see it on a map, it's all straight lines and sharp bends. What both TDU and The Crew achieve nonetheless is this sense of actually traveling, you are going somewhere at any time you are not in the Horizon hamster wheel anymore. You can drive like a normal person.

Good retrospective, so many good memories playing the first game.

I still play TDU2, its a great game and will be the best.

I remember waking up on weekends, and driving across Hawaii just for fun. Great times.

I remember spending countless hours discovering every road in the game, pointless but i did it anyway. The best elements of the game for me was the attachment to the cars, arranging your collection in various properties, and having to sell some to eventually fund the hypercars. TDU1 my favourite car was a black Murcielago which i put thousands of miles on just cruising around, TDU2 i loved driving the Viper. The only thing that bugged me with TDU2 was some of the prize cars having horrible paint jobs which you couldn't edit, especially that pink mustang!

I played the first tdu years ago online with some friends from all over the world. We had a blast cruising around on hardcore mode drifting you name it

It’s sad bc the new one just doesn’t have that feeling the old ones had. It’s not nostalgia. They were just better games.

Such a fantastic video about such a fantastic game! Thanks so much man!

this game was my entire childhood. I got tdu1 on ps2 when it first came out, and I remember wanting the Xbox 360 version for the better graphics alone. I 100% the ps2 version, got a 360 and 100% it when the servers were still up and now I’m grinding through the psp version. I loved tdu2 even if it never felt as polished but there’s something about these games that new racers don’t have today. They really don’t make games like they used to. As always great video Hoki, I always look forward to your content and it’s good to see someone express how we all feel

I grew up on TDU 1 on the PSP when I was a literal toddler. Today I attribute that (and as well as the other games I played then, including GT PSP and Sega Rally) to my car obsession. Nothing can replace the TDU franchise in my heart, the vibes are simply unmatched.

When I got in TDU SC the thing I was very dissapointed at is the fact that you start in a multi million dollar hotel thing in a very expensive apartment... looks a bit Starfield like. No customization, no own photos on your wall.. bad first experience. The game overall is fine, I enjoy it but yet i reaaaally miss that TDU2 sense of endlessly wanting to play it and drive around. Also, graphically on console it looks like TDU2. Graphics ain't all there is to enjoy a game but it's 2024. The characters clothing and stuff like that just look like a nintendo game, genuinely hilarious.

ahhh. TDU memories we once played this with core 2 duo e4400 and ati hd 2600 pro. TDU was my childhood racing game. Bikes were amazing. and the area is soooo large that i couldn't finish the roads to complete. Millionaire's Challenge was my go through for money. Still i cant wait to get back on this game. before playing TDUSC. Devs are trying to relive the memories for those both games.

This was (and still is) the best open world gear head simulator of all time 😂. I still remember how excited i got on my way home from school, just waiting to drive with all my friends… good times

Great view to the past - thx a lot for your work. I hope the new part will go in the direction of TDU2 but without the bugs and server problems at the release.

I always thought about why we never got a game with the so many features and details of tdu. And my biggest theory is because of Plagiarism laws. I mean, nobody own the idea of a racing game on a giant map, that's why games like FH and The Crew exist but now a Online, Open world racing game, with deep customization, housing, furniture customization etc... I think that could be breaking a Plagiarism Laws or something. So the only franchise that can match the level of detail of TDU is... TDU. And tbh looking at TDUSC and the actual state of Atari, I doubt that we're ever gonna get a game with the level of detail and passion of TDU1 And 2...

TDU was the reason me and my wife finally got Broadband in 2006. I spent month's playing it on my 360. I finished the last race but despite lots of tries I never got the achievement for do8ng it under an hour 😢. A remaster of it would be phenomenal

I was so incredibly shocked when the game announced the airport and Oahu while playing TDU2 because I was not left wanting more as Ibiza was already a great map, though I did feel the lack of repeatable events. If I want to grind, let me grind

I don't even know how much time I spent in the TDU2 casino. It was so great.

I have lots of fond memories of this game. The map size is still unbeaten, the cars were unique and you could drive and drive in this game without getting bored, even though the activities were very sparse. The only negative that I found with this game was the gravity, which was directly borrowed from a Black Hole.

TDU1 will always bne my favourite open world racing game. It perfectly combines nostalgia, exploration, tons of content (especially with mods), still-decent graphics and multiple ways of playing the game into an easy-to-pick-and-play package. I still love it so so much and while I really didn't like TDU2 (goddamn driving school...), I'm carefully optimistic about TDU:SC

Had TDU 1 and 2 on xbox 360 but never had a wifi adapter so played offline. Had countless hours in both games and enjoyed the hell out of it still. Love for cars and imagination go a long way.

Driving the Gumpert Apollo if your are a higher club member or something was insane and everyone was jealous XD

I still remember those Car-Meets by the lighthouse in TDU... it was wonderful...

I love Test Drive Unlimited. I remember the first time I played it was actually the million dollar race when my brother asked me to play it for him. After that I was hooked. This game and Gears were the reason I wanted a 360. I traded in my Wii since it was still hard to get and I was able to buy the Xbox Console Elite console at EB games. I bought Gears and Test Drive and got busy. I remember being blown away by the detail of the map and I remember I just wanted one car, and I didn't care how long it took. I needed the Shelby Cobra GR-1. I didn't stop until I got it. I could not get into Test Drive Unlimited 2 especially since by then I was more into Forza Motorsport 3, 4. And a year later Forza Horizon dropped. I was more connected to that game and eventually that series with Horizon 2-5. I even liked that small Fast n Furious version and I hate that movie franchise. But after that I almost stopped playing every racer not made by Turn 10 or Playground games (except Mario Kart of course) but there is just something about the first Unlimited. I still go back to it from time to time and it's still awesome even after almost 20 years. I will play Solar Crown when it drops but I have kept my expectations in check. Great video and thanks again for bringing back some cool memories.

4:40 that seems like such a cool memory

My favourite thing was the car styling in these games, that they included all the different interior options and all the manufacturer rim options, and the Nismo kits on the Nissans... but the best thing that was so minor (and frustrates me because it's not in Forza) was the fact that they actually gave the official paint colour names for every car manufacturer. No other game has done that that I can think of. One of my all time favourite games! Hopefully the finished Solar Crown is better than the demo... not rushing to pre order at the moment based on the experience so far.

TDU2 will never be topped

3:30 I remember this race winning it and buying a Ferrari Enzo with the money I won do this day, such a massive accomplishment for 16 year old me.

Bro, me as a kid in TDU1. I had 458 Italia with 150,000 km on it. I was griding the KM's my dream was to have a car and drive around. That big ass open map was the best place for me to visit after coming back from school. Imagine how many times I drove that Island around with the 458. I was just turning my brain off and sending it. Best game ever. Been so hardly upset to know how much smaller the TDU SC will be in compare with 1 / 2. See you in Hong Kong boys!!!

I definitely had this game for PSP as a kid. I played this game for hours!!