Test Drive 6

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Name: Test Drive 6 Year: 1999 Publisher: Infogrames Developer: Pitbull Syndicate Platform: PC Genre: Racing Total rating: 69.5% - rated 103 times rate now: please log in to rate Submitter: Res Added: Aug 25 2005 Warez status: Abandonware

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Author: Dickwad Date: Sep 16 2005 - 11:54 Score: 60 points

Expecting to find yet another well thought out, yet poorly executed Test Drive version, I unexcitedly loaded up the game. What I found was a carefully designed thing of beauty. I thought to myself, "This can't be a Test Drive game, can it?". But after some rigorous testing, I found that the old saying still holds true: Nothing is perfect.

Gameplay:
This game has the same basic principle as the rest of the series: Get a car, practice until you know every straightaway and hairpin curve on your chosen track, then battle it out with the computer to get first place and unlock new tracks and cars. What changes with Test Drive 6 is the introduction of "credits", which is essentially virtual cash that allows you to buy and upgrade cars. These "credits" are won at the end of races if you place first. You start out with 40,000 of them. In some ways they wreck the "fast action" appeal the games in this series contain; it becomes more of a management game than it ever should be.

Artificial Intelligence:
Finally, the police cars actually try to chase you instead of ploughing head-on into innocent vehicles and driving erratically all over the road.

Graphics:
The visual appeal of the cars is much improved. I feel they could compete with many of the vehicle models in today's games; they no longer look as though they were last-minute improvisations taken from the computer of an elementary school student. The game's scenery is also much improved; the buildings and trees no longer look like paper cutouts, but actual models. The destructible objects are also a nice touch; hitting one of your opponents with a garbage dumpster is quite fun!

Sound:
The vehicles actually have different engine sounds, instead of just one standard sound for all of them. Overall, the sound environment is much more realistic; when a car is coming up from behind, its engine noise grows louder and then gradually fades after it passes you instead of what seemed to be a ramping up and sudden drop in sound in previous versions.

Replayability:
Thanks to the new cross traffic, each track can have many different outcomes after you have been broadsided by another vehicle a few times. But, as with the others in the series, it doesn't take very long (5 to 6 races for me on average) to memorize each track and become so good at racing on it that it becomes boring. Also, I have a feeling that many of the tracks were taken from earlier versions and were only slightly modified and had new scenery added (in some cases the tracks are unchanged, aside from scenery being updated or modernized). Veterans of the series are likely to find it boring after a shorter time than newcomers. Of course, jumps in the tracks always remain exciting; flying 50+ feet in the air never fails to give some kind of momentary high (no pun intended).

Overall:
For veterans of the series, Test Drive 6 is a nice, modernized version with many advantages over the versions of yesteryear. For newcomers to the series: If you've got the credits and want a much graphically improved modern version of an old series, go for it! If you're not into the idea of having to "manage your career", stick with the last version, Test Drive 5; it'll give you the same amount of bang with less credit buck.

	Type / Title	Downloads / Views	Action
	Download full game	427	Download
	CD ISO	99	Download
	Cheats	2358	Read
	Cheats	1699	Read
	Ingame music - WMA (64kbps)	72	Download
	Game manual	136	Download

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By Bee_94 - Dec 23 2014 - 12:00 The game shots show the 2000 European Cryo version. One shot shows a barely visible Cryo Interactive logo.

By Bee_94 - Dec 19 2014 - 14:56 The developers left out some medium ammount of bugs. One of them is lack of collision detection in the building after the Hong Kong course. And another is the game crashes in the middle of the music video movie in the options.

By Bee_94 - Dec 01 2014 - 18:22 The European Cryo version has the BMW V12 LM. An exclusive to this version.

By Bee_94 - Oct 27 2014 - 10:54 The "awful" review is from the Dreamcast version. Incite PC Gaming said "run out right now and get Need for Speed High Stakes."

By Bee_94 - Oct 01 2014 - 12:39 I played the PSX game. What differs is: Improved HUD. Dropped out graphics to fit its capability. Dreamcast: Runs at a solid framerate. The reversed stages are now at sunset instead of night.

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