Test Drive 4

Test Drive 4 is a racing game developed by Pitbull Syndicate and published by Accolade in 1997 for mh:awesomegames:Microsoft Windows and mh:awesomegames:PlayStation.

It is the fourth main installment in the series, and the fifth installment overall after Test Drive Off-Road.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The graphics have aged extremely poorly, even for 1997 standards. This especially counts for the PlayStation version of the game as well.
 * 2) * The car models also count for both versions as well, which at times hardly look like the real vehicles.
 * 3) The menu screens use very confusing icons, which can easily get one confused when they start up the game.
 * 4) The handling of the cars isn't great. Their stats are pretty much all identical to each other, and any time you crash into other vehicles will cause you to slide all over the place and will take a while for your car to go back to normal.
 * 5) The CPUs are extremely unbalanced. They will drive faster than you (no matter what car you select) and will rarely crash, if at all, which at turn makes the game's difficulty unbalanced as well.
 * 6) * Even if you did go ahead of them, they will race faster to try and catch you up. Basically, Rubberbanding AI.
 * 7) The Police AI will also only chase the main player, they won't chase or catch up to the CPU whatsoever, which also adds to the game's poor difficulty.
 * 8) Dispite the good variety of race locales, the tracks are incredibly lacking due to the game's "Point-to-Point" system in racing.
 * 9) * Not to mention, despite the packaging saying the game has 5 tracks, the game in reality has 10, with the five extra tracks simply being mirrored.
 * 10) There are several useless camera positions, with one of them being above the roof of the car, meaning you can see absolutely nothing when you race.
 * 11) * What is even worse is that this is the default camera position on the PC version, meaning the player will have to swap to the correct one before the race starts.
 * 12) The Drag Race mode doesn't add much else to the experience, and shares similar problems with CPU rubberbanding as well.
 * 13) A lackluster "Techno" inspired soundtrack.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The PC version's graphics look slightly better than the PS1 version, but not by much.
 * 2) As mentioned above, there is a good variety of race locales: Keswick, San Francisco, Bern, Munich, Kyoto, and Washington D.C.
 * 3) The concept of pitting modern and muscle cars against each other is pretty original for a racing title.
 * 4) The car interiors look pretty good for the time.