Welcome to the world of hedonistic partying.  No, not the world of games journalism but the world that Eden has created for its next outing of the Test Drive franchise.

In true Ibiza fashion your first look into the game is a party.  Scantily clad women writhing around to the sound of some pumping techno on the patio of some hecienda with beautiful beach views completes your first look.  Everyone is having fun, you look around to see a woman approach.  She asks you to come with her and takes you to a garage next door.  You thought she would be showing you something a little sexy – right?  Well, she is.  A beautiful red Ferrari for you to enjoy!

Taking it for your first test drive is beautiful and you instantly get a feel of how the car handling has improved massively over its predecessor.  The car grips to the road a lot better and you actually have a feel of how the car is responding to the road now rather than the skittish feel that was in the original.  As you reach a certain point on the road, you come back to reality.  The truth is, you are a valet that has crashed out in the Ferrari of its owner (the skimpy bird who you thought was going to provide you sexual favours in the garage next door).  Rather than the seductive look she had moments ago she now dons a very moody look and is looking to get you sacked.  Cue, the crazy taxi style pick up and drop off mission time trial that you will remember from Test Drive Unlimited to get you to your first car and off you go into a diverse, appealing beautiful looking island that will not disappoint.

For those of you that have played the first title, you will instantly become familiar with Test Drive Unlimited 2′s challenge system and the ability to free roam wherever you like in terms of finding new garages, clothing stores and other shops  for the ultimate customisation.  What differs in Test Drive Unlimited 2 is the way that challenges and levelling up are completed.  In order to move on to different challenges you will need to gain licences for vehicles via training schools.  Each licence unlocked will allow you to open up more cars in the game.  This with a levelling up ethic via “social”, “Competition”, “Discovery” and “Collection” skills will keep you busy for many an hour, day, month year.

Winning tournaments and competitions for cash is only one way of buying your dream cars.  The other is a risk/reward feature in TDU2 where you will earn money for your driving skills.  Near misses, drifting, overtaking etc will accumulate money for you and the idea is for you to bank that money at the right time.   Take you streak too far and hit something and you will lose all the money you have gained from that chain, but if you bank it when you feel that you have pushed yourself to the max and that will be added to your overall haul.  It’s a clever little system that brings out the greed in you to try and earn money to purchase items quicker.  It can, however, leave you frustrated and angry with yourself when you inevitable tap something and lose it all.

Off road racing also plays a bigger part in TDU2 this time around and the difference in feel between tarmac and dirt becomes very apparent which adds to the depth of gameplay.  Off road, in its basic form in the original TDU was woolly to say the least.  Now, you will feel every rut in the ground as you are thrown around off road courses and dirt tracks and roads.  There is also a driving school for this too which again gives you another branch to go off and play.

As ever, the community has a lot to say on the way that TDU2 is formed and how the online element plays out.  Clubs can be created again which will allow you to start your own with a maximum of 8 members.  Players can then pool their finances together to expand these clubs up to 32 players, each clubbing together to buy items for the clubhouse, club cars etc.  There seems to be more of a community spirit here as challenges, competitions against other clubs and the combined purchases of items play a big part.

Online play is something that we were able to touch on whilst we were whizzing around the streets and country roads.  Being able to create your own challenges and races is a big part of the multiplayer mode along with pre designed challenges and races that players can participate in.  A couple do leave you feeling flat and are more designed towards your club and is something that I cannot really comment on until the review code drops through the letterbox.

Community is also slated to play a sizable part in future DLC development. Producer Vince Farquharson says that Eden Games/Atari are currently finalising what they’re doing with DLC for the first two quarters but beyond that, they’ve “got space to ask the community what it wants, and develop upon that.”  This is something that I hold in high regard as I feel that a lot of games suffer from the lack of community input.  It is nice to see that Eden are looking to make TDU gamers happy and are willing to listen to their experiences.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 is due for release in the new year and I know there is a large community still at large.  This community will definitely not be disappointed based on what I have seen and played as Test Drive Unlimited 2 feels, tighter, more responsive, stunning to look at answers all the right questions when it comes to a driving MMO that will definitely be value for money based on the mount of time you will want to invest in the game.  Roll on 2011 and I will definitely see you on the roads of Ibiza.