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The Commodore 64 version has a better frame rate when played on a Commodore 128, because it switches the processor to 2 MHz mode while the TV's or monitor's electron beam is off-screen. (The VIC chip can't handle a 2 MHz clock frequency, so it would show garbage on the screen.)

Accolade/DSi used the same game engine for the two Test Drive games, Grand Prix Circuit and The Cycles.

Test Drive was one of the first games to offer players the chance to drive cars they'd never be able to afford on public roads at speeds they'd never be able to get away with in real life. As ideas go, it hardly seems like rocket science (especially now, with the Need for Speed series in its ninth incarnation) but Test Drive was arguably the game that started it all. Significantly, it moved the cross-country racing genre away from Outrun's arcadey stylings, offering a superficially more realistic experience by switching the view to in-car, making the player drive on the right side of the road while avoiding pesky slow-moving traffic and the attentions of the police along the way. With a few nice-looking stills of the car thrown in for good measure (as well as some complicated-looking performance stats), Test Drive wanted people to think it was a proper simulation.

And it more or less worked, providing the blueprint for a whole host of similar games, which, inevitably, included its own sequels. Of the whole host of games that have carried the name over the years, TD2 is arguably the most fondly remembered: original developers Distinctive later fell out with Accolade and had nothing to do with the frankly-terrible Test Drive 3: The Passion, although some members of the team had a hand in the first Need for Speed game. Following the success of NFS, the Test Drive name was resurrected and slapped on a succession of underwhelming games in an attempt to cash in, but none have really remained true to the series (although TD: Unlimited looks quite promising).

Test Drive 2 is subtitled The Duel, which refers to the not-insignificant draw of featuring two of the world's then-fastest production cars, the Porsche 959 and the Ferrari F40, racing against each other. Indeed, these are the only cars featured in TD2, which may seem a little unreasonable considering the first game gave you five to choose from, but then the first game only allowed you to race against the clock on one track. While the roster of cars may have dropped, TD2 is certainly an improvement over the original in all other respects. There are now six stages in all (although some of them do feature the cliffside scenery so prominent in the first game) and you can elect to race against a computer opponent - with the intention clearly being that you pit one supercar against another.

The aim of the game is really to beat said opponent, although you?ll also have to contend with the two inevitable side-effects of driving on public roads - the almost impossibly-conservative driving of law-abiding citizens, and the fact that the police don't like it when you drive too quickly. Of course, this arrangement will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played this type of game before, especially Need for Speed, right down to the presence of the 'cop-detector', beeping away almost incessantly throughout the game.

However, Test Drive is slightly less forgiving than more recent titles. Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, when you collide with anything, be it on the road of off, you, well, crash. And when I say crash, I mean that the windscreen shatters and you grind to a halt. Anyone expecting a "bump" sound effect and a slight reduction in speed is going to find it tough going at first. Luckily, you get a number of "lives", earning an extra one at the end of each level. The police are also pretty tough customers. While in Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, they chase you around for miles, trying to bump you off the road, setting up roadblocks and slashing your tyres, only to let you off with a couple of warnings once they catch you, in TD2 if you evade the police and then get caught, it's game over.

It can be frustrating early on, especially if you can't deal with slightly twitchy steering, but once you get used to how it all works, it makes for a surprisingly enthralling experience. The need to avoid hitting other vehicles at all costs means that overtaking slow-moving traffic at will feels like the dangerous and irresponsible thing it undoubtedly is. The feeling you get when you accelerate onto the wrong side of the road only to see a flat traffic sprite lurching towards you is a mixture of excitement and fear notably absent from many modern racers. You can feel yourself tensing up when there's a police car in the rear-view mirror, and losing a life through carelessness can prompt brief fits of swearing, especially if it happens at a crucial stage. There are no saved games in TD2 - you play until you finish, run out of lives or get arrested.

Initial annoyance at having to finish the whole race in one sitting soon turns to shock as you discover how short the game is. If you're the sort of person who automatically gravitates towards the easier difficulty settings, then there's a chance that you could have it over and done with inside an hour. Without the option of saving between stages, TD2 has to be short enough to give players a chance to complete it, but the result is a game that fails to provide either pick-up-and-play thrills or a lasting challenge.

TD2 is fun while it lasts, though, and on a moderate difficulty setting you can have a good couple of evenings? entertainment trying to finish it. In spite of the lurchy EGA graphics and the shrill sound of the PC speaker filling your ears, it still plays pretty well, and there are a few exciting moments to be had. However, once you?ve played through it once, there's very little to bring you back, and few will find themselves trying again with the other car or a different skill level

That Test Drive 2 looks and feels absolutely nothing like driving a car should not necessarily count against it: while the cars in, say, Need for Speed 3 look a lot better than the flat sprites on offer here, they still handle like hovercrafts and can be bounced off the scenery with gay abandon. And with damage frequently absent from modern racers, the sense of danger while overtaking or approaching the wall of a tunnel is something TD2 has to recommend it above more recent offerings. Ultimately, with only one real game mode, "The Duel", to keep you interested, it's an extremely short-lived experience which (understandably) no longer has the 'wow' factor it had when first released. Good fun for racing nostalgia freaks - for a few hours, at least.

The Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 are nothing less than the two fastest production road cars in the world. The Porsche was the first to hit the streets, the most technologically advanced supercar ever, with a 197mph top speed and a £145,000 price tag. The Ferrari, many feel, was built with the express purpose of proving Italian supremacy over the 959. Accordingly the F40’s twin turbo, V-8 engine will rocket it to 201mph for a price of £160,000. But the difference between the two cars is more than that. While the Porsche is the height of refinement, the Ferrari has no carpets, plastic side windows and doors which are opened by pulling on a piece of string! If the Porsche is the world's most sophisticated supercar the Ferrari is ‘merely’ a full blooded racing machine made street legal. Test Drive II offers you the choice of these amazing dream machines.

In fact you can choose to race either against the clock or a computer controlled 959 or F40. Acceleration and braking are activated by moving the joystick forwards/backwards, gear changing is either automatic or via pressing fire depending on skill level. Of course, the steering is most important but the onscreen wheel only moves left and right when your steering is extreme, otherwise a little blue dot on the wheel indicates subtler steering movements.

If your steering is less than precise be prepared to meet an oncoming Ford at a 256mph — the roads are busy so overtaking is hazardous. Smash into something and you lose one of five lives, as well as getting twenty seconds added onto your race time. You can also lose a life by failing to stop at the gas station at the end of each level! If you do manage to slow down in time, the race statistics are shown, including average speed and overall time.

In-game info is provided by authentically styled dashboards both with the addition of a radar detector to warn when police cars are about. You don't have to slow down but the cops are fast and if they catch you a ticket adds seconds to your race time. Ram the cop and it’s game over — this is America and the cops are tough!

If you get tired of the two included cars (Ferraris are so dull, aren’t they?!) or even the scenery, extra car and scenery disks can be bought to expand the game. At first using these involves much disk swapping but a Play Disk can be created by copying parts of the master and extra disks onto a blank disk. This eliminates most of the disk-shuffling.

SUPERCARS

This contains five of the sleekest, fastest sports cars from around the world:
Porsche 911 RUF — Louis Ruf’s custom-built, twin-turbo 911 has a top speed of 211mph.
Ferrari Testarossa — £90,000 to get to 60mph in 5.3 secs from a standing start.
‘88 Lotus Esprit — Real thing a touch unreliable, but Bond used to drive one so it can’t be that bad.
‘88 Lamborghini Countach 5000S — Its performance is as stunning as its looks. A V12 engine can shoot it to 179mph.
‘89 Corvette ZRI — Detroit’s ‘best kept secret’ was designed to be the world’s fastest production car, with a top speed of 185mph.

CALIFORNIA CHALLENGE

This scenery disk encompasses seven stages through California, from Oregon down to the border with Mexico. Along the way you’ll see spectacular redwood forests, the Pacific Ocean, steep hills and the Golden Gate bridge.

Robin Hogg
The addition of a computer-controlled competitor adds a whole new element to the Test Drive format which really urges you on to take risks overtaking, running from the police and going into corners on tight mountain roads way too fast. Yeah, the Amiga version may look better, but on both machines the road movement is sturdily done, although the only improvement graphically over the original game is the addition of some trees, tunnels and cacti. Personally I think it falls just short of being a Sizzler on the Amiga as well as the C64, but there’s no denying that it is extremely playable, and the cars are great.
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Phil King
On the Amiga the scenery moves smoothly and the other traffic is well-drawn. What really makes you feel like you’re driving though, is the realistic noise of the engine; different for each car. If you’re looking for a great driving game, then look no further.

The C64 version is less convincing, mainly due to oversensitive steering and the way oncoming traffic suddenly appears from nowhere. Most of the playability of the Amiga version is retained however, and the ability to expand both versions with add-on disks should prolong their appeal.
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Paul Rand
So it’s basically along the same lines as its predecessor, and it could do with a few of its raggedy edges clipped, but Test Drive II on the Amiga is simply brilliant. The view from the windscreen, when beating a hasty path up one of the many twisting, winding roads, is particularly effective. Sadly, the outside objects, such as trees, do tend to go into spasms when travelling at low speeds, but then again this is a game where acceleration is not only a lot of fun, but a necessity, so less than 60mph is a rarity. So while it won’t get you through your driving test, it will provide some superb entertainment.

The C64 game has been crammed onto one disk, and in terms of general gameplay, little has been lost in the transition from one computer to the other. But both colour and sound are bland, while oncoming vehicles lack detail and advance rather jerkily. Apart from those small gripes though, there is little actually wrong with the 8-bit version which stands up as an impressive piece of programming.
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Ratings
PRESENTATION 85%
Plenty of options, especially with the extra disks. The 'play disk' option eliminates irrating disk swapping.

GRAPHICS 78%
All vehicles are well-drawn but the colour scheme is rather bland.

SOUND 58%
The theme tune ain't too hot and engine noises not that realistic.

HOOKABILITY 75%
Putting your foot down in a fast car is instantly appealing.

LASTABILITY 80%
Driving at 200mph is so exhilarating, you'll be playing this for months.

OVERALL 77%
A worthy sequel - great fun for all fast car fans.


This review was typed in/OCRed by Iain