izigame.me

I need you to believe me when I say this: I want to like this game. I really do.
But it sucks. Like... "where do I even begin" levels of suck.
Lost cause
Edited to add this to the original review (which begins with the next header).
It has been over 3 months since this game's full release, and the developers have improved nothing, and have even worsened parts of it. I've been watching from afar with no interest in reinstalling it, but it's on its way out and it isn't even half a year old.
It is so close to being an outright scam (seeing as multiple missing in-game features are still mentioned on its website) that I think exceptions need to be made to Steam's refund policy for it. Unbelievable.
Some of the worst AI I've ever seen
The AI is dumb as doorknobs and will frequently brake check you on straightaways and slam into you with the weight of an aircraft carrier. But worse yet, their cars are 2-3x faster than you no matter your or their car's performance rating. Make no mistake, upgrades mean nothing. You can literally be a 550PR in a max-550PR race with all of your upgrades geared towards accel/speed, be going 150mph, and an Abarth 500 and/or Alfa Mito will blow by you like you're standing still. Hell, my 680hp 700PR SLS AMG gets gapped by A110's... from 1973. No, that is not an exaggeration.
And even worse, the AI takes corners like F1 cars on steroids. Adverse camber, over a crest, high speed, low speed, doesn't matter, they're on rails. In fact they quite literally have access to more steering angle than you, since this game insists on speed-limiting yours, so have fun trying to take a turn without ripping the E-brake. No, this is not a skill issue. That is to say the controls suck. You're going to understeer a lot - have fun!
Engagement farming
After your 4th or 5th time repeating a race, the rewards are reduced by half and then reset every 24hrs. And worse yet, nothing in the game tells you any of this - you are only shown the full payout for each event, meaning you need to remember every single event you've repeated to this extent every single day. This also means you need to remember to login and play EVERY SINGLE DAY to have any chance of keeping up with the meta.
This comes off as a publisher or shareholder engagement farming design choice - make it harder to make money so people have to play for longer. Congratulations, you've now made the game unenjoyable. Is this really what 13-18 years of industry development has gotten us? Games that are less fun and more work? Really, guys? You had both previous entries as cheat sheets... why didn't you use them at all?
The other frustrating part about these race reward reductions/cooldowns is that because the AI is so dodgy, if you do find a race you enjoy and can reliably win, you only get to do so a handful of times before getting shafted. Maybe some people like this, but I think it's stupid. I like working for rewards in games but I don't like being punished for doing so. Games don't have to be like this. Grinding can be fun. Do I need to repeat myself?
Limited (10) FRIM cash-ins per car, per day. Who decided this was worth adding? I don't think anyone ever thought "man, TDU would be so much better if it was harder for me to make money while freeroaming." If anything it comes off as engagement farming by the heavy hands of shareholders and/or publishers. The irony of this is that by making the game less rewarding and less fun, they're accelerating the attrition of the game. Crazy concept, I know. Why do I need to point that out?
The map is too small
I'm sorry, but nearly 20 years ago, in 2006, TDU1 gave me a full scale, 1000 sq mi Hawaiian island that ran buttery smooth on everything from an Xbox 360 to a PS2 and PSP, that is STILL a ton of fun to drive and race around to this day. In 2011 we got TWO full scale islands, totaling somewhere around 1500 sq mi.
So why is the 2024 entry only 48 (yes, 48) sq mi large?
The difference is so hilariously absurd that I wouldn't blame you for thinking I'm joking or lying, but I am not. That is how much smaller this map is compared to what we had 1.5 decades ago. Exploration was one of the main pillars of TDU, so this is beyond disappointing. I don't know what can be done about this. The map is already made, and it's just not good enough.
And no, I'm not hearing the "this map is more meticulously crafted" BS. It is not. It's serviceable at best. It's no industry shattering piece of work, and inch per inch, it's hardly any better than TDU2 or TDU1. I mean seriously, the cities in this are barely any more detailed than the PS2 TDU1's Honolulu. And no, I don't consider alleyways full of fruit/vegetable stands to be "detail." And no, I don't care about the global illumination and rain reflections. I just want lots of fun roads to drive on, and 13-18 years ago I had, literally, 20-30x more of that than I do, today, in 2024. My god.
No lifestyle features
These are what made TDU relevant and they don't exist in TDUSC. You have a soulless apartment/hotel room thing, and that's it. We had houses 18 years ago and customizable ones 13 years ago. Why are these gone?
The lowest effort "car dealerships" I've ever seen. They look like AI-generated Warframe levels.
Useless "club" system
Pick which HQ you wish to visit every 10 levels. That's it. That's the club system.
"Always online"
Make no mistake, this is not an online game. This is a single player game that sometimes puts you in laggy lobbies with other players who will probably rage quit or disconnect halfway in. You might see some other players cruising or walking around...? Cool, I guess? I don't think that's worth the inconveniences.
Speaking of inconveniences, there have already been 2-3 waves of server related issues and the game isn't even out yet. The last round of server maintenance has left many of us unable to discover new locations with saving - yes, saving - becoming a hit or miss endeavor. Needless to mention the ongoing threat of being disconnected from a seemingly offline race - meaning one with no other connected players, AI only. Yes, you read that right.
So please remind me, why am I forced to play online? Why am I forced to deal with all of these inconveniences?
Other stuff
Oh yeah, if a race you need to complete is the currently selected "ranked" race, you have to wait to be matchmade with other players... or just sit and wait until it rotates to another race.
Also, a little nitpick... even on imperial units, torque is expressed in N/m and weight in KG. Not a huge deal, I know the conversions, but like... how was something that simple glossed over?
...and why are we constantly racing in the wrong direction? Seriously, it's like they forgot the game was set in Hong Kong when building the race routes.
Also, the game runs like crap. It looks bad, but I'd be okay with that if it ran well, but it doesn't. RTX 3080, 3900x, game loaded on a game-only SSD, on 1080p medium settings with DLSS set to "balance," and I'm usually looking at 45fps while racing in the city. I get higher framerate on Cyberpunk 2077 and RDR2 set to high. This is pitiful.
Conclusion
I'm exhausted. I cannot believe how poorly this turned out. Every bit of effort was put into the exact wrong aspects of this game. As a result, we have an unbalanced, unfun, punishing, lackluster racing game that fails to pay homage to the games it desperately clings to the identity of. This is not TDU, it's just called TDU.
A good chunk of this stuff can be fixed through some updates if the developers are willing to swallow their pride about making this into an engagement farming gacha game, and turn it back into an actual TDU game where we can just bang out races and buy cool cars. If everything I mentioned here that can be resolved, gets resolved, I might recommend the game.
But until then, absolutely not.