Test Drive 6 is an arcade racing game similar to previous titles in the series. The game features Single Race, "Race Menu" (career) mode and a splitscreen multiplayer mode.

Single race allows players to choose a car and track and play it without any of the requirements or repercussions of career mode. Likewise, this mode has a small selection of cars from all classes available even if the player has not unlocked or purchased them in Race Menu.

The Race Menu career mode allows the player to purchase a vehicle from the Tier 1 dealership and provides them with tournaments to race in, limited by tier. The player wagers ingame currency on each race in the tournament and can receive an extra bonus payout for overall finishing position. Tournaments increase in length, difficulty and payout amounts by tier. The mode also features Stop The Racers and Stop The Bomber modes wherein the player drives a police car in pursuits.

Test Drive 6 received "mixed" reviews on all platforms except the PC version, which received "unfavourable" reviews, according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.

The writers of IGN gave many different opinions to each of the game's system releases. First, David Zdyrko said of the PlayStation version: "After six tries, they still haven't gotten it right". Arun Devidas said of the PC version: "It's not the best racer in town, but Test Drive 6 still has a few redeeming qualities".[24] Craig Harris said of the Game Boy Color version: "Cruising along city streets in real cars should be more fun than this Game Boy racing title".[23] Matt White said of the Dreamcast version: "Infogrames struts their stuff, showing us that they have what it takes to slaughter an innocent game". Nick McElveen of Computer Games Strategy Plus gave the PC version twoandahalf stars out of five, saying, "While it is not as good as the last two Need for Speeds, Test Drive 6 nevertheless succeeds to some extent at being an enjoyable arcadestyle driving game that gets the heart racing, so to speak."

Matt Sammons of NextGen said of the same Dreamcast version: "This strange mix of bumper cars and sports cars is stunningly mediocre. Test before driving."