Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends Review: Fast, Fun and Beautiful

Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends Review: Fast, Fun and Beautiful

Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Racing

Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends is a racing sim available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This game has a deep campaign that will take you quite some time to complete. The campaign features three timelines for you to compete in and includes “Golden (1947 – 1973)”, “Silver (1974 – 1990) and “Modern (1990 – 2011). Each timeline features Ferraris from those years and you will have a decent amount of events to complete. Both Golden and Silver feature over 50 events each while Modern features over 100 events. I must say that I really enjoyed the opening presentation into each race when it comes to the Golden and Silver timelines – It’s nicely done.

Golden Race Gameplay Video

The events consist of time trials, qualifications, races and more. Some last only a matter of minutes while the bigger races can last upwards of 20 minutes or more. You’ll come across some events that aren’t the easiest as well. These will really push you to race hard and perform perfect. It causes you to learn the game quickly and how to handle a particular car a lot better because when it comes to time trials it will not be an easy, one and done. You will have to work hard for those times. There are 39 different courses for you to race on, a lot of those are different cuts from the same location. Each course looks smooth and can be both fun and challenging to race on, especially those courses that have high speeds and narrow roads.

There are over 50 Ferraris to unlock and race with as you play through the game. So, there is certainly no shortage on cars in this game and it will also be a challenge to unlock them because you will need to play through the entire campaign to get them. As for the control of the game, each vehicle handles a lot differently, which is how it should be. What makes the game tough is that it has very tight controls. It’s easy to put too much into a turn taking you off the course or into a wall. This is certainly something that took me awhile to get used to. It wasn’t easy at first. You will eventually get the hang of it, though some cars will still throw you off and give you a difficult time. Going from a slower car to a faster car is something that takes work and going from a tightly controlled car to one that feels very slick is also something that will throw you off.

F333 Gameplay Video

The gameplay is a lot of fun once you get a decent feel for the controls. There will definitely be some vehicles that you will enjoy a lot more than others and that is purely due to speed, power and control with the already tight gameplay controls. The racing is a challenge as well as your opponent. This is probably the first game that I have ever had this much difficulty with passing another vehicle. You can’t just simply bounce of a car; if you touch a car you are likely to lose control. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but far more often than any other racing game I’ve experienced. There is almost a glue effect going on as well which is interesting and this happens when you touch a car or wall, you feel stuck to it until you slow down. You can’t simply turn out of it at high speeds. As for vehicles, if you touch them and continue with speed, you will end up taking each into a wall. It is important that you try and slow down before turning out of it.

Ferrari Racing Legends also comes with quick races that are customizable by car, track, time of day and up to 15 AI opponents to race against. Having 16 fast cars on the smallest track with over 10 laps can be a lot of fun and very congested. There are also time trails with online leaderboards and of course, online play as well. The online leaderboards aren’t that fun to compete in because it is not separated by class or car, so each track will have a record time with the fastest car in the game. One thing that would have been nice is if the game had leaderboards for each campaign mission as well. It also has a profile that keeps track of your play time, favorite car, race wins and losses for both single player and online. I wish it had a little bit more to it though.

F355 Lap Time Video

It took me awhile to get used to the controls and the handling of the vehicles, but once I did, I very much enjoyed the game. It’s a nice racing simulation to play and especially those who love Ferrari’s! Who doesn’t love a Ferrari though? The cars are fast, fun and beautiful and so is this game. It also comes with a rather unique soundtrack for this style of game as it is orchestrated and sounds as if it belongs in some long epic adventure game instead of a racing title – I liked it!

Score: 8/10