After four years, a lot of delays and speculation Reflections Interactive’s third instalment in the exciting Driver series handbrake turns its way onto our PS2s, with the logo “DRIV3R” on its license plate. Every Driver fan will remember the promises made for Driver 2, and what they really got. The same goes for this game - it definitely promised more than it can deliver.
The missions aren’t simply driving with a bit of pointless walking between places tacked-on anymore - there are now some pretty heated gunfights chucked in for good measure, and several ways to attempt missions. The problems appear pretty obviously from the start, however. The on-foot sections have still not been developed enough from Driver 2, which were poor to say the least. Tanner moves so rigidly he could be a Terminator. Couple this with the camera being superglued to his back, and you’ve got a pretty dodgy control system, allowing you to see chuff-all (at the best of times). On-foot missions essentially degenerate into simple trial and error, keep-strafing-until-everyone’s-dead affairs. It’s lucky that the AI enemies are complete buffoons, or I’d have actually had a hard time completing the missions.
The main part of the game lies in its Undercover mode. It starts with a lovely-looking cut scene of a showdown in the streets of Istanbul. This turns out to be the final scene, as it then cuts to a scene of our favourite American cop-Tanner. He may look pretty plain in-game, but being voiced by Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs’ Mr. Blonde to the uneducated) brings him back into the realms of cool. After some shows of his “I’m not a nice guy, I just hate criminals” attitude, you go undercover, infiltrating an international car-nicking crime syndicate, and trying to stop them in your own Tanner-style.
Luckily, the driving sections stay true to the originals. The cars feel weighty, and the back ends happily slide out when you need them too. You might come into problems if you clip a car, since you’ll slow down so much, you might as well restart the mission. Get those powerslides right, though, and you’ll be grinning like a Cheshire cat, especially when the car tailing you takes the corner too wide, and ploughs into a parked car. This is what made the original great, and what saves this one from the scrapyard - high-tension, seat-of-your-pants driving, with that cinematic style thrown in. The driving missions haven’t exactly changed, ranging from follow this car, to escape the cops, or ram this car until it falls apart, but you still can’t help playing on.
Welcome additions to the gameplay are the on-rails sections. There are times where you’re in the back of the car with a gun, and lots of ammo, trying to escape from the police, or other bad guys. This requires you to pummel the crap out of anything chasing you with hot lead, or even some grenade launchery. They’re great fun, and make a change from either the fairly routine driving missions, or hideously frustrating on-foot ones. Another improvement is the on-water sections that have been put in – GTA-style. In some sections, you have to drive a boat, but at other times, it can provide an alternate way to overcome that tough mission. The fact that Tanner can swim is also a good inclusion-I never understood how Tommy Vercetti (or the other stars of the GTA games) could survive horrendous car crashes, brutal fights and gun battles, but couldn’t stand a drop of water…
The only problems with the water sections come between driving and getting on to land - it’s bloody fiddly (just like GTA), and frustrating when there are a few unsavoury characters waiting for you at the dock with automatic weapons… If you get tired of/stuck on/complete the undercover missions, there are the usual other modes you’d expect to find in the Driver games- a range of mini-games, from timed chases, to obstacle courses, and the pant-wettingly insane Survival mode - a bunch of insanely aggressive cop cars wanting to smash you to a standstill in the shortest time possible.
The tour de force - the Take a Ride mode is back again, and just as fun as ever. This lets you take a car/bike/bus/truck/boat of your choice out in any of the cities you’ve unlocked in Undercover mode. There are so many things to do, my best being taking the Arctic lorry for a spin, complete with trailer, then jack-knifing it on the motorway, creating a lovely-looking pile-up in your rear-view mirror. Or shooting an innocent passer-by to get the police involved, shoot them, steal their car, and go on a bent copper rampage through the city, or…. or… The possibilities for mayhem are endless, making this my favourite part of the game.
The next best thing in Driv3r has to be its film director mode, which allows you to review and edit up replays of missions, free rides or mini games, with, it has to be said, some remarkable results when you get the hang of the fiddly controls. You’ll be amazed how good a film director you are! We could spend hours (and have) messing around with this excellent feature. The director mode is something that obviously should have been in Reflections’ last game Stuntman and wasn’t, and saveable replays should be mandatory in this genre from now on - GTA San Andreas and all.
The graphics are good, for what the game handles. The cars look very pretty, and look even nicer when you smash seven shades out of them, either by collision, or grenade launcher. Glass shards and body panels fly everywhere, a good example of working particle effects. The environments aren’t bad, and all show their character, be it the wide, sun-drenched bachelor pads and apartments in Miami, or the small narrow streets of Istanbul.
With this much detail and scope, though, there are bound to be problems. The game does suffer from some dodgy pop-up, regardless of what you’re doing. This problem isn’t that much of a problem, since if you’re paying attention to only the road, then you can avoid the cars that appear in front of you, rather than whine about buildings that you should be able to see, but can’t. Only when there’s a lot of action do things really go awry. Have a couple of cop cars on your tail and the pop-up will extend to “random car-dropping simulator”, making driving pretty damn difficult. Not to worry, however, as Driv3r’s frame rate will then slow down to about half its running speed whenever you crash into anything. This could nearly pass as Burnout-style slow-motion. Nearly. If you still have trouble weaving through the rapidly-appearing traffic, then every so often, the game will pause for you (although this happens on foot too). The game also has poor collision detection at times. This results in Tanner not getting into cars when you tell him to, or melding with the dashboard when he gets out of a speedboat, both frustrating as you usually have people shooting at you at the time. It’s not good to see a game in production as long as Driv3r has been, arrive riddled with bugs, some that make the game borderline unplayable, even if some are forgivable in their less-dodgy state.
DRIV3R is without doubt a fun game. The driving sections feel very cinematic, and, like the other Driver games are lots of fun to do, even if they do suffer from the inherited sameness and silly time limits. The on-foot sections really let the game down, but some other new features make the game more interesting. The game also suffers from some dodgy bug problems at times, but, by and large, the game holds steady enough for you to play. Due to the massive hype campaign it had following it, Driv3r will undoubtedly be picked up by a fair few people without even reading reviews, either fans of the series, or people who believe the hype. Some people will read reviews trashing the game, and avoid it completely. Some smart people will read the reviews, and then rent the game to decide for themselves. Driv3r has its problems, but are not intrusive enough to make me want to melt the disc, and if you persevere, there’s a lot of fun to be had, and a lot of stuff to be smashed.
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