Recent reviews by Rob Lowe

I played this game on the original xbox in 2004 and now I'm playing it on a 4070 Ti in Ultrawide. Still a great game! PS3 textures, wide screen fix. The game holds up graphically and gameplay is still fun

I am enjoying the career mode quite a bit. It's not a simulation; this isn't iRacing. It was never meant to be that, though!

That said I do like the tire model and how you can feel tire wear through a run. I race 25% 4x wear and usually have one or two pit stops in a race. It feels like a nice blend of sim and arcade.

Peripheral support has been good

I have a 1.5k iRating on iracing and the expert level is pretty hard, I can barely get a top 15 in expert mode. Difficulty can be customized extensively to make it the game you want. Want no assists but want the AI to be very slow, but also aggressive? You can do that.

Tons of customization options also in career, there is very much a ladder you climb. Starting out in ARCA and going up from there. Performance upgrades are available to purchase for your car in the race shop, the livery editor also seems pretty solid and allows for custom shapes.

You can hire staff. Last night at Rockingham my crew chief didn't give me tires when I requested a pit and I fired him over it and hired somebody new because it was a stupid call, lol.

I like that drivers also have tweets/comments about you. It was funny to see Amber Balcean mad at my driving one race and then saying "it was refreshing to see Rob Lowe driving clean today!" the next race when I race her a little cleaner. I was just bump drafting, Amber! Sorry!

My only complaint is the lack of a true rival system like the older games, 2004/05 Chase for the Cup, and I think force feedback could be a bit stronger when turning the wheel at the start of a corner. It feels really easy.

All in all I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience so far and excited to go back to it tonight and keep grinding career mode.

Multiplayer is absolute chaos for the most part. People don't brake and ram into on road course a lot of the time. That said, I went into MP expecting that.

If I want clean well mannered racing on multiplayer, that's why I have iRacing. I went into this games multiplayer expecting Wreckfest: NASCAR edition. That's what it is for the most part. But it is still incredibly fun. Especially once you get past the initial start of race chaos, because if you're fast you'll pull away from the people that overdrive the car.

Multiplayer really shines when you have a friend and get in the same lobby and do some SHAKE N BAKE!

Very fun, its early access and not a lot of content (need more tracks) but I've been doing multiplayer racing online and thats been a lot of fun. It needs some work with preventing or nerfing backwards drivers in some lobbies, but for the price it is its very top tier. I've used my racing wheel and shifter with no issues. Some crashes but thats expected for an early access game. Singleplayer racing is basically the same options as multi but bots. Its been a lot of fun playing with my racing wheel even in online races. Definitely recommend!!

This is the worst launch I've seen this year next to Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. While I'm sure this will be fun once its playable, it's literally not playable at 11 hours into launch day. I'm stuck in a queue and it errors out if I'm lucky. I have 5 hours of playtime from trying to get in the queue and already past refund time, lol.

edit: its playable now and the game is a lot of fun. its not nearly as much of a graphical improvement as it was made out to be, but the career mode is really good.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the game has HORRIBLE support for steering wheels and other racing peripherals. I have a Thrustmaster t300rs, logitech shifter w/ usb adapter, and a usb handbrake. The game does not detect my shifter. It detects my handbrake as a thumbstick, which causes constant scrolling in menus. Using AntiMicroX I was able to have my shifter emulate number presses on the keyboard, and having the handbrake emulate space key presses. Lastly, I use HID Hide to hide the usb handbrake from Windows so the game only sees the emulated space bar presses for the handbrake.

Why do I have to do any of the above in a game that released in almost 2025?

I have enjoyed this game when I've been able to play (the driving itself is fun and Hong Kong island, while not my first choice, is still a cool island and lots of roads and feelse dense enough - bu,t I have stopped playing for now due to server issues - I don't want to waste my time redoing a race because of server disconnects) but I can't recommend it to previous Test Drive Unlimited fans in it's current state. I think that they have a good road map and plans to make it better. I have enjoyed what I have played, but it still is missing some things that make Test Drive Unlimited, well, Test Drive Unlimited. If you just want a street racing game, you might enjoy it. If you want TDU, you may be disappointed like I am.

That said, I am still greatly happy that Test Drive Unlimited was revived and do think the devs at KT racing deserve some credit for the feat they did accomplish being a AA studio reviving a dead racing game series. The hopes of this game being fixed, or a sequel, are the only things that keep me from refunding it.

Lack of houses. Everyone has a room in a hotel, unlimited garage space. No Casino. No side mission races like taxiing someone somewhere in a certain amount of time, no car delivery missions. No hair or clothing stores. Dealerships are weirdly futuristic as are the NPC character's clothing. One thing that made the first two games cool was not being able to buy a car until you had more garage space. Buy another house and start filling up the garage.

The car graphics editor - there are no options to "mirror from other side" - so if you want a more intricate design that you make yourself, you literally have to make it twice. No way to group vinyls together and "copy" the group. Some of the vinyl graphics are also incredibly low texture and don't scale up when you increase the size of them and have jagged edges. All of this basically encourages players to never put graphics on their cars because why the ♥♥♥♥ would we spend double the amount of time making graphics for both left and right side of car? Give us the ability to group layers and copy them, or insert/mirror from the opposite side like LITERALLY EVERY OTHER GAME THAT HAS A CAR GRAPHICS/VINYL EDITOR.

It's also incredibly stupid to not be able to sell cars that we buy also. I got pissed off the last time I played because I didn't realize I unlocked the Land Rover, and went and bought the Porsche SUV so I could have an offroad class car. Well, I had the Land Rover unlocked in my garage. I wasted like 280k on the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Porsche, and can't sell it.

It's like they tried to make this game cater to as many people as possible while also removing features that made TDU what it was, which means you just alienated your core fan base. It's also like they half baked things. Things not finished. The car graphic editor is the most disappointing graphic editor I have ever seen.

"We don't like how private houses are" - well you're not the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ players, you're the developers. You want your game to succeed? Maybe listen to the players and what they liked about previous games.

The game also does not run well on my PC (and there are quite a lot of server issues also), so much so that I stopped playing it after the weekend of Gold edition releasing. For people that bought the gold edition, we are actually getting compensated for how much we haven't been able to play due to server issues.

I have a pretty high powered PC, i7-9700k and 4070ti. It runs Forza Horizon and other large graphically intensive games, fine. I struggle to get more than 40-50fps in this.

I'm more likely to replay TDU1 and 2 than I am to continue playing this game, at least for now. I'm not refunding, but I'm also not entirely happy with my purchase.

That said, I am super happy to see that Test Drive Unlimited was revived. The only thing that keeps me from refunding the game is the roadmap they have for season 2 and onward, and hopes that they might add new side missions or something that are not racing.

I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about clan battles. I just want a lifestyle racing game on a big ass island. This is just a street racing game. Its closer to Forza Horizon than it is TDU1 or 2.

I'm reinstalling TDU2 tonight because ♥♥♥♥ this game in its current state.

This is a pretty fun game that has a lot of depth and detail. I have been enjoying it a lot as someone that has played civ, AOE, cities skylines, etc. It has some minor bugs but nothing game breaking so far, its still not a 1.0 version and it just launched early access so I'm not disappointed at all. I think the tutorial needs to be a bit more straight forward on prioritizing getting two types of food and a manor. I see a lot of potential when this is finished and its a lot of fun in its current state now, I paused the game to write this and going back in!

Really enjoying the throwback forge maps from the older Halo games in the squad battle and Halo 3 refueled playlists. Multiplayer is classic Halo. Feels kind of like reach but with new weapons. Its been a lot of fun!

Edit 9/21/22:
I pre-ordered, then refunded post launch, then re-purchased 9/21/22 on sale 55% off in advance for Season 3 returning class systems in November. I changed my review from Not Recommended to Recommended due to this news. This is huge and is the only reason I am coming back...in November. I am glad I bought it on sale also because its still not worth $60 to me, this was more disappointing than Battlefield Hardline and it even wasn't that bad.

I read an article today seeing that when Season 3 comes out they are adding classes back, limiting gadgets to classes. Wow, I check Steam, and it's on sale for $26.99. I refunded it a month or two after launch and said in my original review that I would buy it again for $30 or $40 when they add classes back.

Well, I bought it on sale. But, I'm waiting until November/Season 3 to play because this is how the game should have been on launch. I am assuming my other main complaint about the lack of specialists is still valid, but ok with it for $26.99 I guess. It's still immersion breaking to see 3 grandma's running around on your team and then get killed by the same grandma on the other team. At least in Season 3 grandma will be a reliable medic and we'll be back to how Battlefield class systems have worked for 20 years.

Original Not Recommended Review:

I've played Battlefield since 2006 when 2 came out, its what got me into PC gaming, and I've played every game except for Heroes, even the console ones (Modern Combat, Bad Company 1,2, 1943, and yes, even Hardline and I loved the VIP mods and other gamemodes).

The game in its state as far as bugs/glitches isn't any worse than I remember any other recent title dating back to BF3. But, I am not a fan of the direction they headed with the specialists. The Hazard Zone mode is alright, but my main focus in any BF has always been Conquest, and now they nerfed the XP on the Portal mode too, which was my favorite part of the game.

As of yesterday I refunded the game, I haven't played it since Nov 20th and I only had 3 hours and state the same things I said here in my request. Its cool they stated today they're not using the Santa Claus skins "for now" but come on, I know these games have never been a milsim or super serious but they were at least somewhat of a softcore military game that encouraged teamwork with the different classes, and these Specialist roles screw up the ability to form a squad because a lot of the guns and tools aren't locked to a specific class.

Look at BF4, and look at 2142. Some sort of combination of those two games should have been what this was, and if you have to have Specialists then make it so there's not tons of duplicates in a gamemode that has 128 people........ Speaking of Titan mode would have been LEGENDARY to bring back, it was an amazing gamemode in 2142 and would have probably done really well as a fresh new game style for the modern Battlefield games.

I can take monetizing the game with appropriate, period/atmosphere specific skins and these Specialists, but just give us the true classes back and I might consider buying the game again when it hits $30 or $40 dollars.

This game is the balls of video games.

Edit: It's still the balls. Very creative and open ended game. Love the rp experience as much as some people might trash on it. Wish there were more rp maps.