Test Drive II: The Duel

STORY / GAMEPLAY
In The Duel: Test Drive II your goal is to finish first in a 1-on-1 super cars race and evade the police that initiates an APB every time you exceed speed limits. The game made its debut on the 16bit Amiga and Atari ST home computers. The Duel is the sequel to the first Test Drive and has more features based on its overall design. The game is played through the car's dashboard view. The main sports cars featured is the Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959. The background is no longer the old brownish rocky cliff and the scenery presents a variety of different environments like forests and mountains. There are also lots of hazards throughout the races that you need to avoid otherwise you'll be making some serious damage to your car. Apart from racing against the computer, you also have the option to race against time. This time-trial helps you do a little practice with the car's controls before you race against the AI opponent. When racing, you not only have to beat the other super car but you must also race as fast as you to escape the police and reach to the next gas station; your car is equipped with a radar that can alert you every time a police car is near. The game is quite addictive and well presented and if you master its controls you will be playing it for hours!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The MSX version is a direct ZX Spectrum port and offers acceptable graphics, quite similar to the Amstrad CPC and almost identical to the ZX. The visual suffer from rather slow scrolling but I liked the car's interior details. The MSX still cannot compare to the better C64 version which uses way more details (some found only on the original Amiga version). On the MSX version the dashboard indicators (speed and rpm) are digital while the C64 version offers the original analog speedometer and rpm meter. Although the scrolling suffers, the game is playable enough to handle. As for the sound, the MSX version is quite simplistic and identical to the CPC and ZX, having a few typical engine and crashing sound effects.