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The other night I was lucky enough to be invited to a preview by Namco Bandai Games. Held at the Soho Hotel in London, a handful of slick looking new titles were demonstrated on the cinema screen. I was in it for the driving game, but my face was about to be treated to lots of cool looking titles.

A sweet Pac-Man Party release was announced to celebrate the 30^th Anniversary of the landmark video game – it’s kinda mad to think that Pac-Man was launched a year before I was even born! I remember playing the game in the arcades when we went on our annual family holiday to Devon. Good times! The latest version is a far cry from the original, but it looks the nuts!

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was also put through its paces for us. This epic RPG game is Written by British novelist and screenwriter, Alex Garland – you may have heard of a book he wrote called The Beach. He’s kind of a big deal.

Directed by Lord of the Rings legend, Andy Serkis, the game is clearly very well produced and looks to be a sure-fire winner. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting such amazingness from Enslaved, but the game blew my eyes clean out of their sockets and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Anyway, the real reason I hit up the launch was to check out Test Drive Unlimited 2. Due to be released later this year, the slick driving game is the sequel to Test Drive Unlimited and a crazy tenth in the series!

Taking place on two islands: Ibiza and Oahu (the setting of the previous game), off road racing is now featured and you can get behind the wheel of cars like Audi’s dope Q7 to race on dirt tracks.

There’s a strong emphasis on Social Networking and you can race against people you know, make friends in the game or just generally cruise around in hot cars whilst chatting with your online mates.

I really like the relaxed feel of the game and there’s some seriously hot metal too – cars like the McLaren MP4-12C and Gumpert Apollo can be unlocked when you rank up to a certain level.

The Vinyl Editor feature is pretty cool, allowing you to customise the look and feel of your ride. Overall the game looks bang-on the money.

I’m looking forward to having a proper play at Atari HQ in a few weeks time. We’ll bring you a full-on review nearer the release date. In the mean time you can watch a video trailer by clicking here or for all of the latest info check Test Drive Unlimited 2’s Official Website. Atari, I salute you!