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Test Drive Unlimited takes you to the island paradise of Hawaii, where you get to drive around in high performance sports cars, take time trials and race other car nuts on curving mountain roads. As you play, your global positioning system will lead you to a challenge; when you complete said challenge, your GPS automatically uploads your next challenge location and gives you directions for how to get there.

As you progress, you will be taken on a tour of the island and have an opportunity to visit numerous car dealerships. Each dealership handles a different make and model of car and will allow you to either purchase them - and at a million bucks a pop for some, you probably won't own many - or test drive them. And here is where the name of the game really shows, as you can go from dealership to dealership test driving all their cars until you find the ones you really want to drop your hard-earned cash on.

The challenges that you will be lead to include time trials, in which you have to drive a course in a specified amount of time; speed trials, in which you have to drive a course and hit the maximum speed possible when you drive past the radar guns, also a specified amount of time; and races, in which you are put up against three other drivers that have similarly rated cars as you and you have a number of laps to complete.

There are other things on the island besides races and car dealerships. There are auto body shops, where you can get upgrades for your cars and can make them better, faster stronger, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc. OK, maybe the leaping tall buildings isn't one of the upgrades, but one can dream can't one? There are also residences for sale. You can't have a lot of cars without having someplace to put them, and the best place to put a car is in a garage, and where's the fun of having a garage if there is no house attached?

There are also car clubs. The only requirement for entry into a club is to own the right kind of car. Some of them are based around the car manufacturer; others are based around the style of car. Each car club has a ranking system for who is the best driver. And you have the opportunity to challenge those on the list for supremacy within the club. If you win, your name goes in that person's slot; if you lose, you get to hang your head in shame and forever be branded a slomo.

Each car is rated from A to E, A being the fastest, fanciest of cars. You start with an E-rated car, and once you acquire enough cash - from winning races - you can buy yourself a new car. Once you move up the rating scale with a new car, new races and challenges become available to you. At times, you may be lead to a race that will make you change vehicles due to the race restrictions.

Each car also has a set of stats which can be used to compare vehicles: Acceleration, Speed, Handling and Braking. These stats will affect how the car drives and its performance on the road. And you will notice a difference in performance from vehicle to vehicle.

The game is not difficult to play, and as you play, your skill at driving improves with each race- well, one would hope it does. When you move up to a higher performance car, you should be ready for the more difficult races. There is also diversity in races; some of them are on the seriously curving mountain roads, and others occur on the flatter terrain near the water and have straight-aways that you can really get some speed on. And some have a combination of both.

There is not much in the way of "story line" to this game; it's all about fast cars - unfortunately no beautiful women - and faster cars, and there are some classics thrown in for good measure - like a good ol' Corvette. But once you get driving, it's very easy to get lost in the virtual speed and to feel the road zipping buy underneath.

One nice part of the game is that you can pretty much go anywhere on the island. There are hundreds of miles of roads to explore, and if you get adventurous, you can even go off-road and explore the hundreds of square miles of terrain waiting for you.

Oh, and the music - the wonderful and exciting music; we have to mention the music. This game has music for the road - lots of music for the road - music for nearly any mood, from funk, to jazz, to good old rock and roll. The music will play endlessly as you drive the highways and byways of Hawaii; it will play as you compete in races and even if you're not driving. You can choose music to get the heart racing or music to calm you; you can play nearly any kind of music you want. If you like music, you will like this game. It has loads of ear candy just for you.

The graphics are great, and the detail on the cars is magnificent, the developers have done an excellent job of re-creating each vehicle. And it is obvious, even on the small screen of the PSP. The user interface is simple and direct: You have a speedometer and your GPS map, and you don't need much else. There are also many view options for the game to change your perspective; two of them are from behind and above the car, and the third is first-person mode and makes you feel like you're mounted on the front bumper of the car.

The uniqueness of the vehicles from make to make and model to model is amazing, there is a definitive difference that can be experienced as you drive different cars. The sound effects are very realistic and really help enhance the ambiance of the game.

If you like racing games, I'd highly recommend Test Drive Unlimited for your collection. If you are a car nut, I'd also highly recommend it. And if you just want to go on a virtual tour of Hawaii, this is a great way to do it.