Test Drive Unlimited Tips from Prima

With virtually limitless customization and tons of amazing cars and motorcycles to choose from, Test Drive® Unlimited is the ultimate driving experience. Use these tips from Prima Games to give you an extra edge as you start on the path to being a world-famous racer with a garage full of sweet custom rides.

Making Bank
Every choice you make affects your bank account, so the more scratch you have to work with, the easier your choices will be. There's nothing like being $50 short of buying the one car you really, really want.

• Player-created single-player challenges can be phenomenal ways of earning lots of fast cash. Look for ones that feature large cash payouts with low entry fees.
• Beat lots of Vehicle Transport challenges during the early stages of your career. They're all highly profitable, and they have no time limits or challenge level restrictions. This makes them easy events for anyone with a bit of patience to cash in on.
• Score perfect runs through Vehicle Transport challenges to receive large cash bonuses in addition to your reward money.

You want this car, so save up for it.

Saving Money
So you've scraped some cash together. Your first instinct is going to be to spend it. Sit on it instead and have the patience to make wiser purchases.

• Save up and buy the highest level performance kit for your vehicles. In the end, this costs you much less cash than purchasing each level kit in turn.
• Buy the Nissan 350Z NISMO S-Tune from the Nissan dealership and spend $100 less than you'd pay to upgrade the standard Nissan 350Z Coupe up to the Nissan 350Z NISMO S-Tune with kits.
• If you're about to fail a Courier challenge, restart or quit the event to avoid suffering the cash penalty.
• Luxury homes are ridiculously expensive and don't offer a whole lot of additional storage space for the price. Save cash by buying several cheaper, smaller homes.
• Finish Top Model challenges without losing any driving points to receive bonus shopping coupons.

Look at those sexy lighting effects.

Challenge Tactics
The challenges in Test Drive Unlimited can make or break you. Use these tips to stay ahead of the pack and keep advancing your game.

• In many Speed challenges, you will often have several seconds of extra time to play with. Make good use of this! Look for ways to give yourself some extra track so you can build up more speed before cruising past radars. For example, watch for radars that are stationed near turns and intersections. Instead of turning toward these radars, turn away from them. Tear down the street a few hundred feet in the opposite direction, pull a quick 180-degree turn, then come back at the radar at top speed.
• Many Time Attack challenges start you off with a set number of driving points. You lose some of these points each time you collide with anything. Points also steadily tick away while you drive off-road. You fail an event if you run out of driving points, and you're usually penalized at the end of a challenge for any driving points that you've lost (approximately one second is added to your time for every 10 points lost). Preserve your driving points by racing smart and staying alert.

Article by Prima Games