During my time with Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, I was conflicted. In the first few hours, I would describe my experience with the massively open online racing game or MOOR as lackluster, even boring. But the more hours I sank into it, the more I unlocked and started to enjoy it thoroughly, to the point I found myself craving "one more race" or "five more minutes" every time I had to put the controller down. It's not perfect in any shape or form. In fact, performance-wise, it runs quite rough on PC. But at the end of the day, it's a good racing game that sets itself apart from Forza Horizon 5 and its clone, the excellent Crew Motorfest.
Bad First Impression
The first encounter with the game made me roll my eyes hard, and more than once. It starts with a try-hard presentation probably meant to impress 13-year-olds. You create your character and then see yourself land in a luxurious two-person VTOL.
Then, a Charlize Theron-looking lady starts talking about this or that. These moments were meant to dazzle, but that wasn't it, in my opinion. I felt like I was in a five-hour timeshare presentation. The graphics were nothing to write home about, and the character models looked like they were from the PS4 era.
After the "timeshare presentation," I ended up behind the wheel of a Lamborghini Huracan Performante, which felt nice. However, you're only supposed to use it for a few minutes during a race or two. After that, you ride in the VTOL again with not-Charlize Theron and land atop the Solar Hotel, where you enter your fancy room and walk around in first-person mode (for some reason).
Then, you visit a dealership to choose between three starting vehicles: Alpine A110 Legende, Ford Mustang GT, and Nissan Z. I enthusiastically chose the Ford Mustang GT, but oh, boy, was that a mistake. The controls felt sluggish, as if I were trying to drift a boat in a swamp. I didn't care for the driving experience, but little did I know that it was the car itself and not the game.
Photo: Autoevolution
Much later, when I bought the Audi TT RS Coupe, it was like a light bulb suddenly went on in my head, turning the entire experience a full 180. The AWD sportscar felt fast and light on its feet, completely opposite from the Mustang.
After about five hours or more, I was finally enjoying the racing title. I wasn't just playing because I had to write this review, but I did so because the dopamine centers in my brain were finally firing on all cylinders.
So, if you end up buying the game and don't like it at first, hang on for a while until you get a nifty sports car that shows you what Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown can really do. And not to mention the off-road races you unlock when you hit level 20.
How to
The game was published by Nacon and developed by the French team KT Racing, which also worked on the WRC series, V-Rally 4, and TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 1 and 2. Alain Jarniou served as Game Director on Test Drive Unlimited 2 and took over as Creative Director here.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is meant to be played solo or, preferably, with or against other players. There's even in-game PvP betting, which can make you richer or poorer, depending on how much you trust your skills. Like Forza Horizon 5 or The Crew Motorfest, the game design in Solar Crown is also centered around a unified online experience.
Photo: Autoevolution
Everything takes place on the 1:1 recreation of Hong Kong island, which measures 373 miles or 600 kilometers. The more you level up, the more the map becomes accessible, unlocking new types of events or races and dealerships with new and more powerful cars.
I'm delighted to say that (at least to me) every car felt quite different from each other. Some, like the Stang, were heavy and stiff, while others felt snappy and responsive.
One interesting gimmick the game has is the cabin controls. You can fiddle with features like turn signals, windows, windshield wipers, headlights, hazard lights, and even the roof or spoiler when appropriate. Aside from the initial curiosity, I never touched them again.
The races themselves aren't anything out of the ordinary. No matter what you do, you have to finish in the top three spots to get more cash, unlock more cars, engage in more races, and so on. The car upgrade gameplay mechanic is, again, nothing special. You buy better parts to up those rookie performance figures, and that's it.
Photo: Autoevolution
Oh, and at some point, you have to choose between a raggedy, poor, hipster faction or an evil rich kids faction. The first 20 levels of progression felt right, but afterward, the experience started feeling very grindy.
For example, if a race only rewards a maximum of 18,500 Credits and a Lambo costs 1,5 million, you have your work cut out for you. Of course, there's always the betting I mentioned earlier, but you could also lose even more money that way. I played a pre-release version of the game that even got wiped at some point, so there's room for improvement.
Overall, it's a simple yet enjoyable racing game, like many others you've seen before. It has a bit of that urban Need for Speed Underground feel, so maybe NFS veterans will find a bit of solace in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown.
Rough Performance
I played Solar Crown on a PC with 32 GB RAM, an Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU, and an Intel i9-13900k CPU. Thankfully, my processor was fine, and I didn't experience any crashes, freezes, or anything of the sort. In fact, I hardly remember any bugs at all. I'm not saying there aren't any, but I didn't find the game technically broken. It was quite the opposite. I also have a 4K monitor for the best gaming experience.
Photo: Autoevolution
On such a beefy PC, 60 frames per second with everything on Ultra should have been a lock. Sadly, the case was far from it. At 4K, with everything turned up to 11 and no DLSS, I was barely hitting 40-45 fps. With DLSS on Quality, it still barely reached the 50fps threshold.
I had Nvidia's upscaler set to Balanced with Frame Generation turned on to get a steady 60-70 fps. I don't recommend Frame Gen unless you really have to, because the HUD, like the speedometer, has some display errors or artifacts. Nothing too bad, but it's noticeable.
The game has good graphics, but it's still no Driveclub, and it's lacking in the car reflection department. Visually, I found Motorfest and even the 3-year-old Forza Horizon 5 better looking.
I started fiddling with the settings and found that everything on Medium with DLSS on Quality is enough to keep it over 60. Otherwise, set it on High with DLSS on Balanced for roughly the same experience. The visuals won't change much, though. Developer KT Racing still has a long road ahead before optimizing this game on PC.
Conclusion
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a perfectly good racing game that grew on me the more I played it. Unlocking more parts of the map, buying more vehicles, and participating in various races made me want to engage with the Solar Crown world more and more.
In other words, the game has its formula right, and with a few tweaks here and there, in time, I'm sure it will be a great game that will keep its fan base happy and fed for years to come.
Codrin just loves American classics, from the 1940s and ‘50s, all the way to the muscle cars of the '60s and '70s. In his perfect world, we'll still see Hudsons and Road Runners roaming the streets for years to come (even in EV form, if that's what it takes to keep the aesthetic alive). Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News