samgt80
08-01-2007, 18:10
Hi guys
After playing quite a lot of TDU over the last month and completing all single player challenges, I thought I'd give some constructive feedback. I'm a game dev myself so know that game devs DO tend to browse forums after the release of a game to see what the punters think of it. :)
I must say that overall I enjoyed it a LOT. The recreation of Hawaii is superb, and the selection of cars and their handling is pretty good too. Additionally the GPS map is great. If there is to be a sequel, I'd definitely buy it. Now onto the constructive feedback...
- Traffic. My single biggest annoyance with the game was their being traffic in races. On any race which had traffic, luck played a big role in the outcome of a race. Sometimes I’d get a relatively clear run, other times some traffic would pull off ridiculous moves or be driving slowly (or even be stationary!) in very awkward positions and mess up my entire race. In such instances I ended up blaming the game, rather than myself, which is a cardinal sin in games. Ok, traffic is fine for cruising around in free-ride and the job missions (like hitchhiker), but imo there simply shouldn't have been any traffic at all in the proper races and checkpoint races. I often replay races without any traffic for sheer enjoyment, but never have replayed any races with traffic (Tantalus, I’m looking at you.) A case in point is the Island Tour and Millionaire’s Challenge races; even though Millionaire’s Challenge gives much more money as a reward I’ll ALWAYS choose to replay Island Tour simply because it has no traffic to get in the way.
- Speedtest races. This type of race I found throwaway and never replay any of them once I’d got the gold cup. There’s enough content already without padding like this.
- Police. They are really poor at giving chase yet if by some miracle they did catch me (such as a head-on collision reducing my speed to zero instantly) I'd get clobbered with a fine of $100k+. I think the biggest fine was around $600k - that’s around the same price as an Enzo! Whenever that happened I simply reset my console. I’m no petrolhead but still would have preferred it if TDU didn’t even bother trying to add elements from NFS: Most Wanted or GTA, but just stuck to the core driving stuff.
- Clothes. I only ever bought clothes from simply for the achievements. Since most job missions give clothes vouchers as bonuses, for those of us who had no interest in dressing our character there was therefore no bonus whatsoever for completing those job missions. Why not simply award money, and those who like dressing their character can CHOOSE to spend it on clothes? As it stands, I’ve got hundreds of pointless clothes vouchers.
- Radio stations. The songs on them are generally terrible. If Atari aren’t going to pay big bucks to license some decent tunes, just spend the money on improving other aspects of the game.
- Finding cars you own. The further you go in the game, the more that the method for finding specific cars just takes far too long. There really should have been a quick select method as part of the GPS rather than have to visit a dozen+ properties to find the car I need, then wait for the garage to load, then come back out of the garage and wait for the game to load again.
- Job missions. When doing races you can select which car you’d like to use just before the race starts, however the job missions don’t have this interface at all. If a job mission has to be done with a certain car, it’s a real pain to spend 5 minutes traipsing around all my properties just to find the car I require.
- Duplicate car showrooms. Why? Some car manufacturers have multiple showrooms with different cars at each, and each time I mistakenly go to a certain showroom only to find the car I want isn’t there requires yet more loading and returning to the GPS.
- Arrow directions. This didn’t happen often, but sometimes during races the arrow directions simply appeared too late. I’d be barrelling along a road at 200mph+ then virtually when I’m already at a junction an arrow appears indicating a 90 degree turn. Cue a powerslide 100 yards down the road and 10 seconds lost. A bit earlier acknowledgement of upcoming turns would have been nice.
- GPS route colour. I may well get a reply to the above “arrow directions” point saying “well, buddy, look at your GPS, the route is marked”. To which I’d answer: the route’s colour was far too similar to the colour of roads I’ve travelled along a lot. :)
Overall then, I sincerely hope Eden get to do a sequel and will focus more on the core driving elements rather than all the NFS: MW bling or The Sims lifestyle additions.
Thanks for reading. :)
:atari:
After playing quite a lot of TDU over the last month and completing all single player challenges, I thought I'd give some constructive feedback. I'm a game dev myself so know that game devs DO tend to browse forums after the release of a game to see what the punters think of it. :)
I must say that overall I enjoyed it a LOT. The recreation of Hawaii is superb, and the selection of cars and their handling is pretty good too. Additionally the GPS map is great. If there is to be a sequel, I'd definitely buy it. Now onto the constructive feedback...
- Traffic. My single biggest annoyance with the game was their being traffic in races. On any race which had traffic, luck played a big role in the outcome of a race. Sometimes I’d get a relatively clear run, other times some traffic would pull off ridiculous moves or be driving slowly (or even be stationary!) in very awkward positions and mess up my entire race. In such instances I ended up blaming the game, rather than myself, which is a cardinal sin in games. Ok, traffic is fine for cruising around in free-ride and the job missions (like hitchhiker), but imo there simply shouldn't have been any traffic at all in the proper races and checkpoint races. I often replay races without any traffic for sheer enjoyment, but never have replayed any races with traffic (Tantalus, I’m looking at you.) A case in point is the Island Tour and Millionaire’s Challenge races; even though Millionaire’s Challenge gives much more money as a reward I’ll ALWAYS choose to replay Island Tour simply because it has no traffic to get in the way.
- Speedtest races. This type of race I found throwaway and never replay any of them once I’d got the gold cup. There’s enough content already without padding like this.
- Police. They are really poor at giving chase yet if by some miracle they did catch me (such as a head-on collision reducing my speed to zero instantly) I'd get clobbered with a fine of $100k+. I think the biggest fine was around $600k - that’s around the same price as an Enzo! Whenever that happened I simply reset my console. I’m no petrolhead but still would have preferred it if TDU didn’t even bother trying to add elements from NFS: Most Wanted or GTA, but just stuck to the core driving stuff.
- Clothes. I only ever bought clothes from simply for the achievements. Since most job missions give clothes vouchers as bonuses, for those of us who had no interest in dressing our character there was therefore no bonus whatsoever for completing those job missions. Why not simply award money, and those who like dressing their character can CHOOSE to spend it on clothes? As it stands, I’ve got hundreds of pointless clothes vouchers.
- Radio stations. The songs on them are generally terrible. If Atari aren’t going to pay big bucks to license some decent tunes, just spend the money on improving other aspects of the game.
- Finding cars you own. The further you go in the game, the more that the method for finding specific cars just takes far too long. There really should have been a quick select method as part of the GPS rather than have to visit a dozen+ properties to find the car I need, then wait for the garage to load, then come back out of the garage and wait for the game to load again.
- Job missions. When doing races you can select which car you’d like to use just before the race starts, however the job missions don’t have this interface at all. If a job mission has to be done with a certain car, it’s a real pain to spend 5 minutes traipsing around all my properties just to find the car I require.
- Duplicate car showrooms. Why? Some car manufacturers have multiple showrooms with different cars at each, and each time I mistakenly go to a certain showroom only to find the car I want isn’t there requires yet more loading and returning to the GPS.
- Arrow directions. This didn’t happen often, but sometimes during races the arrow directions simply appeared too late. I’d be barrelling along a road at 200mph+ then virtually when I’m already at a junction an arrow appears indicating a 90 degree turn. Cue a powerslide 100 yards down the road and 10 seconds lost. A bit earlier acknowledgement of upcoming turns would have been nice.
- GPS route colour. I may well get a reply to the above “arrow directions” point saying “well, buddy, look at your GPS, the route is marked”. To which I’d answer: the route’s colour was far too similar to the colour of roads I’ve travelled along a lot. :)
Overall then, I sincerely hope Eden get to do a sequel and will focus more on the core driving elements rather than all the NFS: MW bling or The Sims lifestyle additions.
Thanks for reading. :)
:atari: