“Imagine the desert. Flat. Hot. Roads that drill straight ahead into perpetuity. A driver’s dream. Now, imagine yourself at the wheel of a silver gem known as the Porsche 959. The world’s fastest production car. That’s what they told you when you plunked down your quarter-of-a-million dollars, anyway. You’re cruising at 200 KPH, feeling very royal, very king-of-the-road.

Nothing in these parts can touch you. Or so you think.

Suddenly, there is a blur in the passing lane.

You blink. Whatever it was had to be going at least 240 KPH. You put your pedal to the metal and investigate. Up ahead, in a perfect red haze of automotive harmony, cruises a machine unlike any you’ve seen before. Your jaw drops. It’s the legendary Ferrari F40 – as sleek a piece of Kevlar and carbon –reinforced plastic as ever rolled off a production line.

You pull even. The other driver looks you over. He raises his thumb… then roars ahead, finding another 40 or 50 KPH in the bowels of his 478-horse, twin-turbo V8. You glance at your instrumentation. You’ve always wanted to explore the depths of that famous Porsche 6th gear. You shift. You rocket, head to head, down the desert chute. You wind up treacherous mountain curves. You hurtle through lush woodland corridors.

And the cops are out in droves.”

At its release back in summer 1989, Accolade’s “Test Drive II: The Duel” generated some kind of upper-class image… well, at least to my mind. Particularly the fact, that only two cars – namely the Porsche 959 and the Ferrari F40 - and one course were available (at least in the main program) increased this impression. Moreover, the cars’ specification screens as well as the box art added a touch of exclusiveness: Unlike other racing games, the cover artwork (and the advertisement respectively) of “The Duel” didn’t show the two cars in frontal view, but in bird’s eyes perspective, whereas the F40 appeared only as red blurred tail. But most notably was the graphical design of the two sports cars’ cockpits: The several instruments (speedometer, tachometer, radar detector, rear-view mirror, gearshift and of course steering wheel) looked just awesome; back in the day a real eye-catcher - almost photorealistic! Okay, that’s pushing it a bit, nevertheless it looked cool.

So, the overall package spread a whiff of classiness, therefore it wasn’t so bad that the presentation of the one and only course wasn’t that great: Standard bitmap graphics containing pseudo 3D scrolling in the style of “Out Run”, “Chase H.Q.” or “Combo Racer”, no vector/polygon graphics like e.g. in “Indianapolis 500” or “Formula One Grand Prix”. While 3D vector graphics were common in the early nineties, 3D racing games with bitmap courses were the standard in the eighties, so what?


The (urgent) Need for Speed
Okay, you take a seat behind the wheel of a Porsche 959/Ferrari F40, two lightning-fast machines, but at no time you have the feeling that you bomb down the road at 200 mph. In fact, the scrolling is not that fast - there’s no comparison to games such as Gremlin’s “Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge” or Sega’s/U.S. Gold’s “Super Monaco GP”. It’s rather like a relaxing Sunday afternoon drive – if there wasn’t the police, those killjoys! These Highway Patrolmen are extremely annoying and if they get you, you lose one of your lives. Lives? Yeah, unlike other racing games, in “The Duel” every time you crash or get arrested by the cops, the number of your lives decreases – and once your lives reach zero the game is over! Fortunately, you have a radar detector on board; so you are able to hit the brakes before you attract the police’s attention.


Gas Guzzler
At the end of a route section, you’ll reach a gas station: There you can and should refill your fuel tank, because if you don’t, you’ll bitterly regret it just a few miles later. Moreover, here the player can see his racing results, such as total time, overall score or average speed. Compared to the precursor, in which you cruise along a rocky mountain road, “Test Drive II” offers a far more diversified setting including trees, cacti, promotional signs, grasslands and desert landscapes respectively and even a background setting! Furthermore, in the sequel the road leads through tunnels (albeit I’m not completely sure if these were contained in the original “Test Drive”, but I think not). So, there are many improvements, unfortunately “The Duel” doesn’t include different weather conditions like rain, mist or snow as it’s the case in Sega’s “Turbo Out Run” or Gremlin’s “Lotus” trilogy. Not till the third instalment of the “Test Drive” franchise, called “The Passion”, such effects were implemented.


The Agony of Choice
Just like in “Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge” you can choose between a race against the clock or a duel against a computer-controlled opponent. Next select the skill level on a scale from 1 (very easy) to 12 (very hard) – by the way, the levels 1 to 4 include auto shift whereas the remaining ones don’t offer this service. Or in other words, “The Duel” can be played in the style of an arcade-like racer like e.g. “Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge”, or as a hard-core simulation such as “Formula One Grand Prix”, that doesn’t allow any mistakes! So, “Test Drive II” is a racing game for everyone; both for die-hard pros and – to coin a phrase – casual gamers, isn’t it? Not exactly, even if you choose the easiest of the 12 skill levels, nevertheless the program feels like a racing sim – not least because of the cockpit view, whereas in most arcade racers the car is shown via third person camera. Therefore you see much more of the landscape, ‘cause nothing blocks your field of vision. Secondly, there’s the speed of the 3D scrolling (as mentioned above), which appears to be relatively slow in contrast to programs like the “Lotus” trilogy, “Chase H.Q.”, “Crazy Cars III” or “Indianapolis 500” (which is, of course, a simulation, but containing vector/polygon graphics). Playing “The Duel” on a powerful machine, such as the A3000, naturally results in a better (because faster) experience, than on a stock A500.

By the way, the skill level doesn’t only affect the degree of realism of the chosen car, but the driving style as well as the speed of your virtual opponent, too. The same applies to the cops’ speed and the traffic density.


“Test Drive II: The Jewel”?
Well, “The Duel” is neither a total failure (far from it) nor a real milestone within the genre of racing games. It’s neither a second “Formula One Grand Prix” nor another “Fast Lane!” – the truth probably lies somewhere in between. However, apparently it was a huge success for Accolade which resulted again in a total of four add-ons, namely two car disks (“The Muscle Cars”, “The Supercars”) as well as two scenery disks (“California Challenge”, “European Challenge”). In a certain way, “Test Drive II” is a kind of pioneer of today’s fee-based download content... but the extra content was far more expensive! If you wanted to experience the game in its whole glory – that is the whole motor park and all three sceneries - you had to dig deep into your pocket. Back in the late eighties/early nineties such add-ons cost a pretty penny – the price for all four data disks was twice as high as the original program! Gosh, this must be a real front-end crash for fans of fast luxury cars without a fat purse...

...however, it appears to have been a further big success for Accolade, which resulted once again in a compilation called “Test Drive II: The Collection”. That was released in early autumn 1991 and contained the original program plus the four add-ons - at the price of one game! I guess these days you would call this a “Game of the Year Edition”.