Test Drive Unlimited

Test Drive Unlimited introduced the racing game genre to an open world on the island of O'ahu, which players could freely drive around between races, car and motorcycle dealerships, and online encounters with other players directly out on the road, not just in closed lobbies. Studio Eden Games was ahead of its time with this approach and inspired a number of later open-world racing titles, which only years later tried to combine free driving with a social element just as naturally. Alongside classic races, the game also offered delivery and taxi missions that made use of the island's size for a looser style of play outside fixed tracks.

The PC version launched the same year as the original on Xbox 360 and offered essentially the same content - the whole island, the same range of cars and motorcycles, and the same online mode, where you could meet other players right on the road and challenge them to a duel. The difference was mainly that the game could be played with a wheel and pedals connected to the PC, which gave the driving a precision that a gamepad on console didn't offer, and players could fine-tune the graphics settings according to their machine's performance, including draw distance and vegetation density along the route. What it lacked, on the other hand, was a certain menu-control convenience that console players with a gamepad in hand were used to, especially when quickly switching between the map, garage, and shop menu while driving.

The online community on PC was smaller in the first years than on Xbox 360, where the game benefited from the unified Xbox Live platform and easy matchmaking, but thanks to easier access to mods and custom tweaks, the PC version still found its own loyal audience. Content-wise, though, there was no extra new content - anyone who played the game on one platform found nothing fundamentally different on the other, aside from the difference in controls and graphics settings, since both versions shared the same island, the same missions, and the same fleet of vehicles from start to finish.

Why play it: For players who appreciate easier access to mods and custom tweaks - the online community was initially smaller than on Xbox 360, but content-wise both versions shared the same island, missions, and fleet of vehicles from start to finish.