GamingNexus: Music and the open road are culturally inseparable marriage partners. Will players have the ability to upload personalized soundtracks, or will everyone be tuned into the same station?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: Test Drive Unlimited will offer the most ingame music of any racing game ever. We will continue to offer downloadable “radio stations” after the title launches.
GamingNexus: The game features both cars and motorcycles, are there area’s of the game where only motorcycles can go or is everything open to all of the vehicle types?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: The great thing about the Test Drive Unlimited world is that everything is Open! It’s what the O in M.O.O.R. is all about: Massively Open Online Racing!
GamingNexus: The game features quite a few licensed vehicles, where there any vehicles that you wanted to get but weren’t able to get a license for? Do you have a favorite vehicle? Will the vehicles show damage from crashes at all?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We do have particular vehicles that we wanted to put on the DVD, one being BMW, but they don’t license their brand out. That’s not to say that they won’t change their minds, but for now, they are not included in the game. We have a ton of favorite vehicles, it’s hard not to develop favorites as you work on the game and play the game. Some of our favorites are Aston Martin, Koenisegg, Ferrari (of course), and some of the smaller more niche vehicles like Pagani and Noble.
The vehicles will not show damage for several reasons, the first of which being that we didn’t think it would be fair for an enthusiast to spend numerous hours obtaining a rare car and then have some amateur jerk online only to wreck other people’s cars come along and smash it. We felt that it would take the fun (and the point) away from the game. The A.I. cars in the game can be damaged but your car will not receive damage.
We’d like to thank Ahmed for taking the time to answer our questions and to Stephanie for helping to coordinate the interview.
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