Test Drive patch coming

Eden Studios, Atari and Microsoft are working on a patch for Test Drive Unlimited, aimed at fixing a number of issues discovered since the game came out on Friday on Xbox 360.

Although the game's ambitious multiplayer ideas have held up well in our experience, apparently that's not the case for all, and Eden says one of its goals is to increase server capacity within the week to sort out performance, Clubs problems and connection issues.

Headline issues to be fixed by the upcoming patch include one that loses the player's progress and has resulted in the E-trade system being suspended. That's a bug, but other problems - like Club invites getting lost, "TDU server unavailable" messages and the difficulty in finding friends - are apparently down to server saturation at peak times, and should be fixed when capacity is upgraded.

For more on the problems and specific information on how to overcome some minor issues, keep an eye on the Atari forum. That post also notes that a small patch was released yesterday fixing a few issues, mostly exploits.

There's no word, meanwhile, on those two free cars promised yesterday, but we understand they're due to appear on Xbox Live Marketplace sometime this week.

Still, don't be too put off by all this - Test Drive Unlimited is quite an excellent little computer game, as you'll know if you've read our review.