Steam Test Drive Unlimited 2 - preorder or wait for a review?

I've just noticed this on Steam.

I know nothing about this game or its predecessor.

There seem to be quite a few racing games either just out or coming out soon.

But the Gamespot previews of TDU 2 have got me very interested.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/driving/testdriveunlimited2/news.html?sid=6283553&mode=previews

Your thoughts please gentlemen.

 

http://www.testdriveunlimited2.com/

It's currently in beta and doesn't look too bad.

It features alot of online-gameplay and some kind of MMO-stuff thrown into the mix.

 

Long way to go on the modelling. There is no suspension movement in the entire clip!

 

The first one was OK, cars were ridiculously upgradeable.

I'd hold on until a few reviews are about.

 

Wait for a review.


Its not bad in beta, there are problems, but if they solve them then it should be a pretty fun game.

 

OK good advice guys.

My money is probably best saved for the Steam Christmas sale!

 

I loved the first, can't wait for this!

 

Wait for the review and get for cheaps on a disc rather than downloading it.

 

There's a preview in this month's PC Gamer (UK edition) that seems to be favourable but I'd still wait until it's closer to release to see either what comes out of the Beta or another (p)review.

 

Definitely wait.

The first one was fine for cruising around looking cool and maybe racing with other players IF you the connection actually worked BUT the physics was pretty bad and you could only ever race people (as in multiplayer) over a short distance. Literally like a sprint race. Nothing more.
The other thing that really used to p me off was how the traffic was not generated randomly - traffic from the other direction always seemed to reach you just as you were passing a car going the same direction as you - so you had to slow down and pass half on the verge or judge squeezing between them perfectly each time.
That was really arcadey - you could tell it had come from XBox originally.
Other than that - it was really nice to play but was not nearly the game that it could have been.
If 2 turns out well I will probs get it but will defo wait for a few USER reviews ;-)

 

It looks crappy to me. It's The Sims of driving games. Poor handling and driving experience, and yet they spent so much time on your crib and clothes and all that kind of crap. I don't get why they would do that... If someone wants that kind of thing, there is already a lot of Sims games to choose from, or you know, a real life doll house full of cute dollys. They should have focused on having lots of great cars that handle well and are fun to drive around on good missions and races. Definitely wait for reviews on this one.

 

Holy Thread Revival!

Had to really, seemed silly just opening another for a rant.


So 2 years on, and the DLC2 or something is out. Which seems to have broken the game for lots of people.

First off, the TDU2 launcher starts downloading 1GB of updates at around 20Kb/s, gets to about half way and says a critical error has occured. So I close the launcher, try to open it again, critical error straight away.
So, verify files on steam, says it needs to download some files, about 15MB, gets to pretty much done, and gets stuck. The update then was stuck on 'Suspended' when you resumed updating, or paused when you paused update, never to do anything again. Try and run the game through steam and just get told it's unavailable. Run it from the UpLauncher in the install folder and get critical error.

People on TDU2 and steam forums posting supposed solutions, which apparently have worked for others, didn't work for me. Even after deleting about 140MB of files from the TDU2 folder, steam said nothing needed downloading, and all the same errors still on the UpLauncher.


So....I uninstalled it, revoked the license as it asked so I don't use up an install. Install again, and it comes up with the message, now you have to link your TDU2 steam key to ataris servers.

Great, I remember this from when I first bought it and remembered it being a ball-ache. Once again, it is, enter the key, and it tells me it's already been used. Well yes it has, I've already activated, because I've already installed it once, but you ballsed up your patch so I had to reinstall. So now I've got to wait 9 hours for the game to download on steam before I can find out if I've got 15GB of unplayable game.


I'm sure most of this problem is caused by Atair/Eden using their own Launcher, which does the patch downloading, rather than steam.

 

I came out of hospital after an operation on the release day, got it on PS3 and spent a month in bed playing it! I really enjoyed it but there was so much more that they could have done and so much they should have left out!

I never want to hear whether the Wilder twins are going to argue again.

 

Ahhhh TDU, back in the days when I used to pirate stuff i very nearly got sued by atari for downloading the pre-release code of the original. Wasn't even worth it

 

You'd have thought they'd could have come up with more than 4 different things to say at the race starts, . I think I'd rather just switch that voice off,

 

Is the game as buggy as it was on release? I wanted to buy it during last year's Steam summer sale, but was scared off by the volume of complaints..

 

It was ok on PS3 but awful on PC from what I hear.

The thing that drove me nuts was the speed limiting on the Audi cars! I know they may be limited to 155mph in real life but if I took it to a performance shop and spent 100K making it faster I would expect the limiter to be removed!

 

Oh dear oh dear. I just loaded it on Steam and it's taken me to the UpLauncher, which wants to download 590MB of data. On Steam, this would take a few minutes but Atari's server is so slow and badly managed, I'm barely getting 33 kb/s. 1% of the download has taken around 5 minutes.

I know this is pointless anyway - I think last time I tried logging in, I couldn't remember my password/account name and I know it's different to the Atari forums.

Ball-ache to the n'th degree.

 

Just you wait sp4nky, there's another 500MB after that first one, then it'll get half way through, and tell you an error has occured. If your lucky, you'll be able to delete the upLauncher.localdb file, and start the download off where it stopped again, if not, like me, you'll have to download all 15GB again.


With regards to the actual game, it's not that bad. It's a bit repetitive, and doesn't seem as fun as the first one, but that might just be because I spent so much time on the first one, and the second one is basically the same game, just with slightly better graphics, sounds and a few more cars. As far as I can remember, I've not come across too many bugs, and there are certainly worse driving games out there.
Its definitely worth the steam sale price of £3.74 that I paid for it. That is if it works again,

 

It's definitely not worth the 29.99 I paid when it was launched, on the back of happy memories of TDU1.