Test Drive 5

The Good
The graphics are quite fast, and rendered well. The environment mapping on the cars is a nice touch, and it switches from location to location (see screenshots for a shot under a bridge).

The soundtrack is good, with real music from real artists.

The Bad
Oh lord, where do I begin?

• Bugs, bugs, bugs. When you hit another car hard enough, you abruptly start rotating in mid-air around the same two axises for about 3 revolutions, then suddenly you're back on the road again. There's environment mapping on the inside of cars (like the Aston Martin). The game will not quit--you have to kill the game by alt-tabbing out of it. Selecting "Music Test" locks the game. And so on...
• There is no convincing sense of speed.
• The automatic shifting shifts way too fast, so you are automatically left in the dust from the get go.
• The handling of any car is terrible--it feels like a boat. The keyboard and gamepads give you better control than that of analog joysticks and driving wheels, which says it all, I think.
• The user interface requires you to double-click on single-click buttons.

This has to be the most annoying thing I've ever worked with.

The Bottom Line
Avoid it. It wasn't worth even the paltry 14 US dollars I paid for it.