[LGR Theme]
Greetings and welcome to Lazy Game Reviews.
Because I'm lazy.
[chuckles]
Yeah, I can't believe that I actually started this whole thing off
five years ago now - June 30, 2009 -
with that lazy tagline.
Made it up on the spot. I made like everything up on the spot.
I didn't know what I was doing. I was just having fun.
Uh...
It was in kind of a lazy way, so I called it Lazy Game Reviews.
Didn't think of the consequences. Didn't even check to see if anybody else
had the name.
And it was–
That's what it was, and it stuck.
And now five years later, I'm still doing this.
[laughs]
And now I'm getting paid for it.
It's like my job now. I mean, it is. It's my full-time thing. So, uh...
Just wanted to say a quick thank you and a sort of
"hi" to anyone
who is still watching after all this time and
apparently, according to my analytics, it's more than ever.
Last month, June 2014, was my best month ever on LGR. So,
it's continuing to grow. It's awesome!
But, yeah, as I was thinking the other day about this whole anniversary thing and
it's five years, and that's a number, so...
I should probably do something special, 'cause numbers.
And I got looking through my old archives of stuff.
Just backups on my computer, and I ran across
this script.
[chuckles]
And it was a script that I did in 2009
and I never did anything with it.
I don't know why, exactly.
Maybe I thought it sucked, maybe I didn't want to capture the footage.
I probably just got lazy and didn't do it.
But I started thinking, you know,
[chuckles] it'd be kind of interesting to see
how this script held up with my style and equipment and everything else
now.
And see if it actually holds up.
Uh... [laughs]
I'm not gonna do anything to the script at all. I'm just gonna read the script,
put the game footage with it and kind of edit it together
with the equipment and look and style that I have now.
But not–
not change the script. It's a 2009 script.
I think I ended up doing the "Top 17 Worst PC Games" video
instead of this one.
[exhales]
I don't know how this is gonna turn out,
but, uh, you be the judge of that.
This is...
LGR Reviews: Test Drive 4.
[2009 LGR theme]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
Have you ever looked back to when you were a kid and realized you were completely stupid?
I discovered this fact recently when I finally bought a boxed copy of Test Drive 4.
When this came out in 1997, I was seriously into cars and racing games,
and my favorite car was the Dodge Viper GTS.
So when I saw this big, shiny game cover with a speeding Viper GTS on the cover,
I had to have it.
I didn't care about the gameplay. I didn't care about reviews or the price.
I simply had to have it because of the cover art.
Stupid...
And I always wondered why it was called Test Drive 4,
since it was the first one I'd seen.
Turns out, there were three games that I missed out on at that point
which were developed by Accolade at the end of the '80s,
and were actually more simulation than arcade racing,
with car damage and attempted realistic handling
and with a living open world to drive through.
But Test Drive 4 was more of a reboot to the franchise made by Pitbull Syndicate,
instead of the original developer Accolade,
since some of the original team members went on to make the Need for Speed games.
So I suppose being naive has its advantages.
At least with no expectations, there's no way to be let down.
But once I finally got the game and played it–
Oh, wow. This game sucks!
It's really bad and I'm not just saying that.
And worse, I remember liking this game somewhat when I was a kid!
So why does it suck?
Because it blows.
And here's why.
The bad starts off with the main menu.
I hate this setup for some reason.
The menu music itself is awesome.
The menus are just annoying to me.
Every time I've tried to play this game, I end up having to take an extra second or two
just to make sure I'm looking at the correct bulbous button to choose
in the options and race selection.
The icons for things are dissatisfactory. Just give me clear text!
There are ten cars to choose from:
five modern cars and five classic muscle cars,
but they all handle pretty much the same.
It's like driving an aircraft on the ground with marshmallows for wheels
and using a broken pencil shoved in the flight yoke to steer.
The cars do have decently detailed interiors,
but outside, oh my goodness!
The graphics look better in the PC game,
but on both versions, the cars themselves...
they look horrible!
They're chunky and look like somebody mutilated them in their sleep.
These make Mario Kart look like a more believable 3D racer.
The Viper looks like it was created in a third-world Saab factory
with a bunch of illegal aliens working there.
Aliens. Like actual aliens. From Uranus.
And why are there like 20 different camera views?
Most of them are useless and you can't see where you're going.
Like this view. What's up with THIS?!
It's just a close-up shot of the roof.
Are you supposed to see where to drive through the reflection in the paint?!
There is supposedly a competition aspect to the game
with tons of AI drivers racing against you,
and the police chasing occasionally,
but this is probably the worst part of the game.
It's quite simply impossible.
I've already mentioned the maddening car handling,
but combine that with AI that is a deliberately annoying cheater,
and you've got one awful time ahead.
If you crash - and you will -
it takes forever to get reset,
and rest assured the competition will have blown past you
with almost no chance to catch up.
And often a cop will get ahead of you, too,
and you'll get busted on top of THAT!
And why do they only seem to chase YOU and not your opponents?
According to the intro video, you're a rich caucasian male,
so according to stereotypes,
cops shouldn't be a problem.
The sound effects all suck too,
and you can barely hear them unless you turn the music way down.
Maybe that's a good thing.
Gone is the open landscape to explore from Test Drive III.
Now the tracks are bland and lifeless and full of suicidal Monday drivers.
And while there are several tracks to choose from,
none of them are particularly exciting,
other than maybe San Francisco.
Jumping down those hills never gets old.
Until it gets old.
Then it's lame.
There are more places to unlock, but I don't care.
There's also a drag race mode, which is decent,
but completely unbalanced.
There's no way some of the low-end stock muscle cars should be able to smoke
the three-second zero-to-sixty exotics,
but it happens.
A lot.
What's good about Test Drive 4?
Test Drive 4 has a car they try to call a Dodge Viper
and a somewhat memorable soundtrack...
That's it.
Everything else jumbles together in a nasty mess
that makes it a dry, crusty turd of a racing game.
Nothing is fun about it.
At all.
And that's hard for me to say because I can usually find something to like about a game.
I mean, it's not even unique,
except in its awfulness.
I even like Cruisin' USA better than this.
At least a fully-fledged arcade game can be fun.
But this is just an aggravating, poorly-made mess.
And can you believe they used the same game engine
and racing setup again for Test Drive Off-Road 2?
And that game's just as bad as this, if not worse.
Test Drive 4 is unnecessarily awful, plain and simple.
Yes, I know I've exaggerated a bit,
but you know what, my memories of this GAME were exaggerated.
Tricksy and false.
Don't get anywhere near this crap unless you're just bizarrely curious
about bad games, like me,
or perhaps enjoy self-flagellation.
If you play it, your friends will desert you,
a homeless man will pee on your head,
and you will come away from the experience an all-around worse person.
[engine revving]
So that's that. Um... [laughs]
Wow.
I must have been in a really sour mood and, like,
hating life or something when I made that script,
because, uh... man.
That's a lot of stuff
that is kind of unfair to the game, to be honest.
Uh, it's bad but it's not THAT bad.
In fact, I would change pretty much everything that I said in that review.
I would still critique it
for the things that I did, but I wouldn't say it the way I did. In fact...
most of it I would completely redo. And it was tough
when I was recording that to even
stick to the script because
it's so awful!
It's just badly written, I think.
At least according to how I do my scripts now.
So, uh...
eww...
Kinda cringeworthy, but whatever.
That's my fifth anniversary "celebration",
so to speak, and I hope you enjoyed.
And here's to another five somethings of LGR.
I dunno if I'll last another five years. I'd LIKE to.
I don't wanna stop this. I'm having more fun than ever doing this.
And I'm...
getting more viewership and success than ever, so...
why stop?
I've got a million and one PC games still left to cover and
Sims stuff, and uh...
Oddware and new show ideas and thrifting.
There's a lot more coming, so I hope you stay tuned.
And as always,
thanks for watching.
[MIDI rock music plays]