Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown review

The modern racing game is a Faustian deal. Sure, today’s efforts habitually flaunt meticulous car modeling and sophisticated physics systems that reproduce the thrills of careening around corners in exotic sportscars. But steadily, contemporary racers require a constant internet connection, inadvertently putting the brakes on enjoyment.

This design decision means you might face server issues now and the inevitably of not being able to access your game later. Just as troubling, licensing deals mean car manufacturers don’t allow games to display physical damage. Then, there’s the trend to shoehorn in storytelling. This routinely results in cheesy dialog that undermines any attempt at realism.

An Impressive Racing Venue

Undoubtedly, the recent release of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown has some potencies. Set on a 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong island, the game’s setting is idyllic for open-world racing. Here, you can rocket through the neon filled streets of central district, hug the beach- adjacent curves in the south, and wind through the mountainous grades around Victoria Peak.

It’s not a perfect recreation, lacking convincing pedestrian counts, a view of Kowloon Bay’s skyscraper-filled skyline, or the presence of any Cantopop melodies on the soundtrack.  But the setting does deliver a wealth of environmental variety across its dense map. A lot of racing sandboxes can feel empty, but that criticism can’t be leveled at Solar Crown.

Driving Force

Undoubtedly, car handling is another strength. In execution, Solar Crown straddles the space between being an accessible, arcade-style racer and behaving like one of those fiddly automotive simulations. Yes, there’s an idealistic amount of grip so you won’t have to worry about sliding out as you approach every curve. And that’s important, as the traditional color-coded racing line overlaid on the road doesn’t always provide faultless feedback. But know that rapid acceleration around a turn with a rear-wheeled roadster can produce a loss of traction, so you won’t be hurtling down Conduit Road without care.

While I’m still not completely sold on DualSense controller’s extra abilities, Solar Crown makes a solid case for advanced haptic feedback. Yes, you can feel when your tires are about to slip, giving you a split second to react and avoid skimming into the game’s destructible scenery. Solar Crown’s approach to its cars is also commendable. Not only does each one drive distinctively, but the developers don’t throw the game’s inventory at you. You’ll work to earn credit to buy your next car.

As your parents might have told you, a hard-earned purchase will make you appreciate a new set of wheels. Later, you can customize it with basic performance and cosmetic upgrades. Occasionally, Test Drive Unlimited feels like it gets lost in the minutiae, requiring you to turn your car on after inactivity or giving you control over the windows. This attention to detail isn’t uniform. So, while there’s car damage modeling, it’s maddeningly basic.

Single-player, Offline Mode is Needed

As good as the location and cars are, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown commits far too many unforgivable violations. Following trend, the game is always-online (requiring players to sign up for a MyNacon account) and expectedly, experienced one of those predictable botched early launches where an eager fanbase couldn’t reliably get online.

While the core connection issues appear to be behind them, I didn’t see many human rivals to challenge. That won’t be a deal-killer for soloists, thanks to Solar Crown filling up racers with AI drivers. But the point of an obligatory internet connection is having roads filled with prospective competitors. There’s no replacement for flashing your car’s headlights to provoke a fellow human. Across eight different sessions, I only saw a few fellow humans. This doesn’t bode well for the game’s clan-based rivalry, where the ostentatious Streets and pitted against the sophisticated Sharps. Yes, I’m not a fan of the faction names, either.

Performance That’s Less than Regal

And given the requirement for a constant internet connection, it’s difficult to determine if everyone will experience the same performance issues. But I certainly observed them. When opting for Solar Crown’s Performance Mode, the framerate would habitually falter when more than three cars were onscreen. Opting for the game’s in-cabin camera seemed to make things worse; presumably real-time rendering on your rear-view mirrors is too much for the engine.

Solar Crown offers many of the customary racing modes. Circuits task eight participants with a multi-lap match, while Sprints do the same, albeit with checkpoints to prevent corner-cutting. Domination provides players with points based on their racing position after crossing checkpoints. While building your character’s reputation offers basic motivation, your AI challengers become more aggressive after each win. As such, you’ll probably reach a point where the margin for error becomes unbearably small. Worse, there’s no way to tweak the level of challenge.

Ultimately, Unessential 

Developer KT Racing also veers off-road in an attempt to bring personality to the racing. Mirroring the same uninspired set-up as many of its contemporary peers, Solar Crown imagines your character plucked from their everyday life and cast into a world of professional racing. The clichéd context might be tolerable if the dialog wasn’t so cringy, and the character models weren’t so ugly. But there’s little effort to differentiate Solar Crown from entries in the Forza Horizon and Need for Speed series.

That semblance signifies Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’s biggest drawback. Save for the setting, almost every element has been accomplished in other racing games. From the storytelling and half-hearted attempt at injecting personality into the game to speeding across asphalt and other terrains, there’s little that feels fresh or novel. When almost everything here has been accomplished in older, offline games, Solar Crown feels superfluous.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown was played on PlayStation 5 with review code provided by the publisher.