Tired of games like Project Gotham Racing forcing you to finesse your way into a victory? Are you sick of all these "underground street racers" emphasizing how "pretty" you can make your ride? Have you ever wanted to slam into a school bus at ninety-seven miles per hour in a muscle car? While it would certainly be plausible for any of these questions to be the punch line to a "You Might be a Redneck" joke, they're actually more closely related to the demographic that Atari's new Test Drive: Eve of Destruction targets.

Gameplay:

Test Drive borrows a concept that's quickly becoming a standard in gaming, one first made popular by Rockstar's GTA series. Like in Tony Hawk's Underground, players in Test Drive don't just go from event to event for the sake of continuing forward; and while you may not be able to get out of the car and roam around the countryside, between levels you will be able to drive around town and stop at salvage yards for new vehicles, or at diners to place wagers on independent races.

Granted, town is something of a generous term for where you'll spend your time when you aren't racing. You will literally begin your career with the game telling you that trying to make it as a demolition derby driver is better than "chicken farming", and your home is, you guessed it, a trailer. You'll have to be the judge of which beginning is worse, Test Drive's or T.H.U.G.'s since in Underground your career begins in New Jersey?

The controls are exactly the same as every racing game on the Xbox, with the right trigger being used for gas and the left for the brakes. This isn't anything to criticize or praise, however, because they work as efficiently as you'd expect. The performance of each vehicle varies, so choosing the right car for the right event is key to success. The bigger, more durable cars you'll want to choose for the destruction derbies themselves, whereas the faster cars are a must for the pure racing. While each car can be customized with parts to upgrade your vehicles' speed, durability, or handling, you'll still have to be careful since each vehicle can only take so much damage before it's permanently disabled.

Graphics:

If Test Drive sounds like it's shaping up to be a solid game, then I've done my job. Without a doubt, it is, but the proverbial rusted armor has a weakness, and that weakness is easily the visuals. With the typical lowest-common-denominator graphics that come with the territory of a multiplatform game, the environments are average, at best, and while they are very detailed, the textures aren't. The cars are the most visually attractive part of the game, but that doesn't mean much as they mimic the environments; they're ugly (compared to what the Xbox is capable of) but very well detailed during a crash, in that you'll see bumpers and scraps of metal and glass fly.

Sound:

The sound is well done, with some great licensed tracks for your listening pleasure, and the now mandatory addition of custom soundtracks. So, if you aren't into Rob Zombie and "Never Gonna Stop", feel free to drive from your trailer to the arena listening to Beethoven. This is something I'd actually recommend since we all know that cars, jumps, and crashing all goes great with classical music.

The arena announcer is a mixture of sometimes funny, often making corny jokes and the usual commentary on passing and crashing. There's nothing very noteworthy about the sound effects, as the "roar of the engines" is now standard fare we've all come to expect. The crashing does occasionally add some audio sweetener, but, again, it's nothing very noteworthy.

Longevity:

Of course, Test Drive has more to offer than just a career mode, as you can play with as many as four friends by using instant action. Here all that's required is for you to choose a car and a paint job, and then just rock and roll. The great part is that you can unlock more goodies by playing both the Career, and the action game types, giving an otherwise short lived game a nice little bonus for the replay value.

What absolutely kills the replay value, however, is the lack of Xbox Live play. Without a doubt, Test Drive is an amazing party game, which makes the MIA friends list, Optimatch and, well the entire Live service, just downright inexcusable. No DLC is one thing, but no Xbox Live play at all is something entirely different, and for a game it's so well suited for, it's wrong.

Overall:

Test Drive: Eve of Destruction is a fun, solid game marred only by a few flaws that are more peculiar than detrimental. Still, you'd be hard pressed to find a game that would be more fun among friends, and with an entertaining single player to boot. Hopefully, with Xbox Live play and a few minor tweaks to the next game - especially to the visuals - this will become a solid series for our favorite console(s) in the years to come. Until then, it's worth at least a second look for casual fans of the derby, and definitely a purchase for the hardcore crowd.

Pros:

• Great party game.
  
• Custom soundtracks.
  

  Cons:
  

  • A minimap would be great, but it's missing.
    
  • Poor graphics.
    
  • No Xbox Live features at all.