I set myself a challenge today, achieve gold on ‘The Highway to Success’ speed challenge in Test Drive Unlimited. Up till now I’ve only managed silver.
This is only for G class cars, which means classic cars. All of the cars in Test Drive Unlimited look great, the classic cars add an edge to that. The only one I own though is a Jaguar E-type.
For those who haven’t played the game, speed challenges involve a set course and a series of speed cameras, a measurement it taken at each and an average is worked out. The TDU developers were cheeky though, on the harder challenges the cameras are placed right after a turn or other obstacle which would normally have forced you to slow down. The times in brackets are the measurements for my fastest run. As this is my first time playing this challenge in quite a while, my first run will be just to get reaquainted with the layout.
Things don’t go very well, I’ve just passed the first camera and already I’m almost 30mph behind. The next reading is a lot slower than the others, so I should expect some kind of sharp turn.
Which there is. (The next three pictures are taken from later runs to better illustrate the course.) First the road climbs up and bends to the right.
This is quickly followed by a sharp turn to the left. I get a speed of 70, not bad but needs improvement if I’m going to beat my time.
The third camera comes right after an uphill climb. Travelling just a fraction to fast means you fly up in the air, then when you hit the road you lose speed defeating the object. It will take some precise timing to get this right.
The last camera is much easier, hence it is the one with the highest speed, this is where you really have to gun the engine.
First run over, I haven’t done too badly but it will require much tighter speeds to get even silver.
On my second run I take the turn near the second camera badly and spin-out, crashing into the wall. Although you aren’t racing against the clock, there is a time limit. If you can recover quickly a single crash isn’t too bad, although it ruins your times.
There was a bonus though, I had improved on the first speed by 1mph. Not much but if I can manage that for all four I’ll be one step closer to winning.
On the next run I had a hairy incident with a maintenance van. I also crashed at the second camera again and didn’t even mange to complete the whole race.
Run, after run, after run goes by, and I barely manage to complete the race at times. I’ve grown more accustomed to the course but that doesn’t stop my poor driving skills from getting in the way. One good thing I have worked out though is that by changing down a gear after the third camera, I get better acceleration which allows me to build up more speed before the final camera. When I used to play Need For Speed (2SE and 3) I always chose manual gear change, maybe it’s because they were more arcadey than TDU or maybe I am just getting lazy in my old age but I stick to automatic almost all of the time now. Generally this is fine and cuts down on the mistakes I can make, but sometimes it doesn’t change at quite the right time, especially when the speed changes rapidly.
In an attempt to break up the race (doing the same thing over and over tends to cause more mistakes) I decided to switch camera to the interior. Judging gaps and turns is very different, although I am not sure which is better, a helps focus my mind a little better. Unfortunately before I even reach the first camera, a car decides to cut across me (to be fair I was travelling at over 90mph) and I end up crashing into the end of the barrier.
It didn’t end up helping directly, but once I changed back to the standard exterior view things went more smoothly. I came close to three of the top scores and beat the third one.
What originally started as a nice sunny day, has now turned quite cloudy. The lighting changes making the world darker than it was. TDU still looks good after three years and only a couple of areas let it down in comparison to modern games. Just thinking about what a mdoern day version could look like in something like the CryEngine gives me the quivers.
Yet more runs later and I am still only beating the speeds occasionally, and never at the same time. So far I’ve have only really touched upon the difficulty of the course, what really makes things difficult though is the traffic. Some races get rid of all the traffic whilst others leave it running, taking a turn is much more difficult if you cannot guarantee a clear path. Had there been no traffic I could almost certainly have topped my time by now, but then they’d have upped the goal as well wouldn’t they.
Finally I decide that there is little chance of me getting the high score, at least in my Jaguar E-type. I have no idea how difficult it actually is to beat the speed in this car, maybe it isn’t possible even for the best drivers, or more likely it is possible and I’m the one who isn’t up to the challenge. So I decide it’s time to buy myself a new car. The first one I come to is this, the Lamborghini Miura. I’ve only ever taken it out for a test drive before but according to the specs it is faster than the Jaguar.
I decide to take it for a spin. I find it really difficult to handle, swerving from one side of the road to the other, and corners are practically out of the question. I think I’ll have a look at some of the others on offer.
Being G class cars some of them are lacking in punch, such as the Maserati 3500GT. Others are ridiculously priced.
The next I decide to take for a test drive (that is the name of the game of course) is the AC289. It has a lower speed rating, but a much higher acceleration, my thinking being that rather than top speed my problem is making it up between cameras. However this car seems to handle even worse than the Miura, the lady from the showroom was not impressed.
I find things are the same at the US Muscle car showroom, lots of acceleration, lower top speed. There is another car that would win hands down (Shelby Cobra) but apart from the $1,000,000 asking price it is out of stock. I take the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 69 for a run and find it just isn’t as fast as the Jaguar making it a pointless choice (unless I were building up a collection).
Finally, I see another Miura this time in a much more appetising red\orange. With the newer cars you can pick the colour and sometimes even wheels and interior too, but as these are no longer in production you have to go with what is there. In the end the Miura is the only choice, the others were underpowered and handled badly, who knows maybe I just need to settle in.
On my first run I mess it up and don’t complete all the cameras. The second goes much better.
First time isn’t brilliant, 7mph behind could set me back too far.
Then I hit the second camera and wow. Not only a good time but a new record.
It doesn’t stop there, the third camera is also way ahead.
As is the fourth, by 11mph I’ve done it! Okay, so it took a new car, but still a win is a win. Challenge complete I can finally relax, apart from a few frustrations I’ve enjoyed this mini-challenge.
Looking on to the horizon, I didn’t notice how pretty it looks in all the races I’ve done. This screenshot doesn’t do it justice
