Affectionate Diary

As Suki has been in Tokyo, I’ve been actually playing games.

HERE’S THE ROUND-UP:

Samurai Warriors 2 (360)
Brilliant.

Test Drive Unlimited (360)
Fucking Brilliant

DEFCON (PC)
Might be brilliant. I’m not sure, as my PC died yesterday.

THE BEST of the lot is definitely Test Drive. Even with all its petty rubbishness, spazzed features and idiotic car selection rigmaroles, Test Drive Unlimited is one of the best car games ever released. Maybe even the very best, provided you’re not an incredibly anal racing fanatic. TDU’s exemplary brilliance is mostly due to four things:

1) Wicked cars
2) Brilliant engine noises
3) Fucking shitloads of roads
4) Easily exploited events that can be rinsed to generate large volumes of cash

You know what? Test Drive Unlimited 2 is going to blow everything else out of the water. The GT, PGR and Forza people will look like FUCKING IDIOTS.

TDU is going to be the king until someone else can come up with a driving game where you can freely cruise with mates for hours at a time, but in some combination pretend-land where there’s windy mountains, vast deserts and proper big cities, like Paris. So we can ALL do our own re-creations of that Rendevous film, but all at the same time in a crazy race. There needs to be a stunt course and some kind of stunt rating system for jumps and shit.

I also want stats on EVERYTHING, including crashes and accidents. I want estimated repair costs and injury projections, along with times for recovery.

However, TDU has the following shits in the punchbowl:

1) Cunt police
2) Idiot AI traffic
3) Not enough races
4) No Lamborghini Countach (yet)
5) It might get a RUF Porsche soon.
6) Rubbish clothes
7) Rubbish avatar customisation
8) Token photo mode
9) No replays if there’s AI traffic
10) No 4am-in-the-morning mode

Ugh. Still, none of the above make the game anything less than fucking ace. Hey, just think of the missing things as features for the sequel / update and everything becomes even more brilliant.

Best cars? Tune all of these and they rock:

Lamborghini Miura (ludicrously fast for its group)
Nissan Skyline
Jaguar XJ220 (I am not fucking with you)
Pagani Zonda
Saleen S7 (This is a fucking beast)

AVOID:

Ferrari Enzo (YAWN)
Maclaren F1 LM (Actually shit)
Koenigsegg (yeah it does 270 - after 30 mins of accelerating

FINUL SCOREZ:

TDU gets a solid 9.999999998 / 9.999999999999 from me.

It’s about the joy of going fast in cars and as you can do that so much more in TDU than any other game ever ever ever, it means that TDU is the best best best.