Test Drive is a series of racing video games that were originally published by Accolade until they were bought by Infogrames, the first game was released in 1987 and has since been followed by several sequels and spin-offs, the last of which was released in 2012.
Gameplay
In Test Drive, the player typically uses one of several exotic performance cars to race to a finish line against opponents or in a time limit, while avoiding traffic and police.
History
In 1987, Accolade published Test Drive as a computer game worldwide, and Electronic Arts imported it to the United Kingdom. The quality of the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS ports differ from each other. The Amiga version's detailed visuals and audio realistically depicted the game's racing theme, while its Atari ST counterpart used simplified graphics and sound effects. The Commodore 64 and DOS ports were of similar quality to the Amiga version. The gameplay was kept intact for all platforms. Test Drive was a commercial success, with sales having surpassed 250,000 copies by November 1989. It received generally positive reviews from video game critics. Computer Gaming World stated in 1987 that Test Drive "offers outstanding graphics and the potential to 'hook' every Pole Position fan". Compute! praised the excellent graphics and sound, but noted that the game only had one course. The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #132 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars. Test Drive spawned several sequels and spin-offs. Distinctive Software developed its 1989 sequel, ', using several software libraries. Distinctive used the aforementioned software libraries for a MS-DOS port of Outrun, resulting in the Accolade v. Distinctive lawsuit. Distinctive Software won, so the rights to make the Test Drive games without the source code transferred to Accolade. The court also found that Accolade had failed to demonstrate that the balance of hardships was in its favor. Another sequel, ', was developed and published by Accolade in 1990. In 1997, Accolade distributed ', an off-road truck racing spinoff, and Test Drive 4, the first video game developed by Pitbull Syndicate. In 1998, Pitbull Syndicate developed two further Test Drive titles, Test Drive 4X4, a sequel to the Test Drive: Off-Road spinoff, and Test Drive 5; both games were the two last entries in the series to be published by Accolade. In April 1999, Accolade was acquired by French video game companyInfogrames Entertainment for a combined sum of, of which in cash and in growth capital, and was renamed Infogrames North America, Inc. The company chief executive officer, Jim Barnett, was named head of Infogrames Entertainment's American distribution subsidiary. As a result, Test Drive 6 was the first game in the series to be published by Infogrames in 1999. ' was the last entry in the series to be developed by Pitbull Syndicate, and as a result, the next game in the series, , was developed by Monster Games in 2003.
Games
Future
It was reported in December 2016 that French publisher Bigben Interactive acquired the Test Driveintellectual property from Atari, with plans to reboot the franchise. In 2018, Bigben announced the acquisition of French game developerKylotonn, with Roman Vincent, president of Kylotonn suggesting they were working on the next installment of Test Drive. In April 2020, Nacon filed a trade mark to the Intellectual Property Office for Test Drive Solar Crown, the last two words referring to the Solar Crown in-universe racing competition series featured in Test Drive Unlimited 2. The full title of the next game in the series is Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. The Kylotonn-developed game will feature a 1:1 recreation of an unspecified island, similar to the recreations of Oahu in both the first two Unlimited games and Ibiza in Test Drive Unlimited 2, and will run on WRC 8s framework and handling model.
