Two islands in Test Drive Unlimited 2

Namco Bandai and Eden Studios have revealed that Test Drive Unlimited 2 takes place in Ibiza, but that at some stage you unlock the airport and get to fly to the Hawaiian island of Oahu from the first game.

The open-world racing game's due out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn.

Eurogamer contributor Christian Donlan - who is in Barcelona at Namco Bandai's ongoing press event seeing the publisher's 2010 line-up - reported that Oahu "has been filled with new roads and new challenges and missions - i.e. game is huge!"

Ibiza is huge as well, with off-road networks to complement the miles and miles asphalt, and you can now make progress in the game's career mode through a mixture of competitive racing, exploration, social activities and collecting stuff.

It all adds to your global levelling up, but Test Drive Unlimited 2 is still largely about completing challenges, earning money, and buying fancy motors in a huge open environment.

On the social side, you can now get out of your car, at which point you discover you have a customisable PlayStation Home-style avatar, so you can wander around your house, buy and tweak furniture and chill out here on the deck etc.

Online and offline blend together seamlessly, but online you can form your own racing clubs with friends, customise a clubhouse and take on other clubs to buy more impressive stuff for, er, your clubhouse and cars.

As you've probably observed in the trailer below, released yesterday, it's a much prettier game too. There's also procedural damage modelling, but it doesn't affect car physics, only visuals. The handling has also been refined so every car has its own personality.

Check back later for our in-depth impressions of Test Drive Unlimited 2.