Test Drive Unlimited

Your aim in the game is simple: earn buckets of cash by winning races and buy tons of gorgeous vehicles. There're plenty of other things to splurge your money on, too, from official Ben Sherman or Ecko garb to dress your character in to real-estate on the island. And, of course, you can tune your car or bike to eke out even more power.

Offline, gamers can still enjoy all the action racingagainst AI controlled opponents, although the electro-brained rivals are pretty erratic and reckless at the moment. The game's September release gives plenty of time for final tweaking on the AI's racing behaviour, though.

But Test Drive Unlimited has been designed to be played online for the full community experience, alongside hundreds and hundreds of other players. We'll be getting a taste of this massively multiplayer action next week, when we go hands-on with the game at Atari's headquarters, and we'll have our first gameplay impressions for you right after we tear ourselves away from this potentially groundbreaking racer.

Above: The various motorbikes also benefit from the same incredible detailing as the super cars

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.