Now, Where Did I Put My Provisional Licence? (Driv3r (PS2))

Member Name: Nomad

Product:	Driv3r (PS2)
Date:	24/06/04 (1816 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The best car chase simulator there is

Disadvantages: The on foot sections

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The following review was written in June 2004. I have left the review untouched but have placed an update at the end to cover any changes since it was written.
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The car chase. A staple ingredient in almost every action film that comes out of Hollywood these days. Yet few games have successfully managed to replicate the pure exhilaration of the chase although many have tried. Developer Reflections have come closer than most with a string of games to their credit including Destruction Derby, Driver and Driver 2 on the Playstation and Stuntman on the PS2.

Driver 3 or Driv3r as it has annoyingly now been labelled, is the first Playstation 2 outing for the series. Thanks to pre-ordering through Play.com my copy turned up a few days before the official release date of 25th June, happily coinciding with a few days holiday. Housework vs. Driv3r? Guess which won.

Since it's announcement almost two years ago this game has had more than enough time to build up gamers anticipation levels to fever pitch with a gradual release of information, pictures and videos. But the question is now that it's finally here can it possibly live up to all the hype?

You play the part of undercover cop Tanner who, along with his partner Tobias, is attempting to infiltrate a global car theft ring. The action takes place over three cities (Miami, Nice and Istanbul) and is broken down into a linear series of missions starting in Miami. You will need to complete all the missions in one city before you can continue to the next.

Primarily missions are vehicle based although about a quarter of them will require you to leave your ride at some point and go on foot. Driving missions vary from the usual get from A to B in a limited time or chase the enemy to more inventive tasks such as stealing cars and driving them into the back of moving lorries. On foot you'll need to get used to handling firearms as more often than not you'll find yourself in the middle of a gunfight.

The driving controls will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played either the first two Driver games or Stuntman; responsive and satisfying with the left analogue stick (or direction buttons) providing steering while the right analogue stick (or the control buttons) provides acceleration and breaks. The L2 and R2 shoulder buttons allow you to look right, left or behind you with both pressed, while L1 lets you enter or exit a vehicle and R1 either sounds your horn or, on some missions, fires your weapon.

You are free to exit a vehicle whenever you like but on foot things are a little more difficult. Use the left stick to walk and the right to aim while the control buttons allow you to switch weapons, draw or holster your weapon, reload or jump. I'll come back to these on-foot sections a little later.

From the moment the game loads you'll have a couple of options available to you. You can choose to play the undercover mode, which is the main bulk of the game and where you?ll find all of your missions. Take a ride does just what it says, enabling you to take a spin in any of the cities. Initially only Miami and Nice are available, so you'll need to play through the undercover mode to unlock Istanbul. You can choose the time of day, weather conditions, and even the vehicle you want to drive. If you like you can switch off the cops so you can speed around brushing up your skills without having the law chase you down for running a red light.

The third option, driving games, contains a number of sub games that should be familiar to fans of the series. These are quick chase, quick getaway, trailblazer (knock over a trail of cones within a time limit), survival (last as long as you can against the cops), checkpoint race and gate race. These are mostly standard options but provide a welcome break from the main undercover mode.

Inevitably comparisons are going to be made with Grand Theft Auto Vice City. This is not surprising since both games give you large open cities to play with, an ability to help yourself to any vehicle you find, multiple ways to complete missions and, of course the on foot sections. Additionally Driv3r features Miami, the city which Vice City was based on, so you can't help but think that Reflections are almost asking you to compare the games side by side, like for like. But I have to stress that these are two very different games. A love for GTA does not necessarily mean this game is for you.

Look on Driv3r as a car chase simulator because that is what this game is all about - the edge of your seat, nerve shattering car chases. This is a much more realistic game than VC but that's realistic as in Hollywood terms. Screeching tyres, handbrake turns, growling, throaty engines, bouncy suspensions and fully destructible vehicles are the order of the day.

On the graphics front, Driv3r puts Vice City to shame. The cities themselves are gorgeous. They are much more detailed and realistic than Vice City with twisting roads and lots of alleyways complete with mountains of cardboard boxes for you to smash through of course. Some missions are played during the day, some at night, and others at dusk or dawn. These are pre-set for each mission, unlike in Vice City where day changes to night as you play, but it does give each city a different atmosphere and adds variety to the game. Similarly you will find yourself playing in different weather conditions as you work through the missions.

The vehicles are also incredibly detailed and the real-world physics engine used means that they look spectacular especially when destroyed (download the video from the driv3r web site and take a look at the articulated lorry explosion to see what I mean). It also means that the jumps and stunts you'll perform look far better than those seen in any of the GTA games. While not so important, the cut scenes between missions are extremely impressive, easily amongst the best I've seen in any game.

Sound wise the game also excels. The roaring of the engine is exactly as you would expect - endlessly satisfying - and the various general sound effects enhance the realistic atmosphere of the game. But it's when you take a look at the cast assembled to provide the voices for the various characters you realise just how big these games are getting. Michael Madsen provides the voice of Tanner while Ving Rhames, Michelle Rodriguez, Mickey Rourke and Iggy Pop also feature. The in game music (also available on a separate soundtrack CD) is an agreeable selection of tracks perfectly suited to the intense chases that are to come.

Other new inclusions in the Driver series have resulted in a larger choice of vehicles to commandeer. As well as a variety of cars you can now drive motorbikes, boats and even a massive 18 wheeled articulated lorry although you won?t find any helicopters or planes. You are also now able to shoot certain weapons while driving.

As well as the expanded on foot sections and weapons skills (including a variety of guns and grenades), Tanner can also swim should he fall in the water. Once you have completed a mission you can replay it at any time via the undercover option. You can also choose to catch up on the story so far by watching all the cut scenes you've unlocked.

Features making a welcome return include the film director mode. This enables you to mess about with the replay option, placing cameras wherever you like to create a truly individual and occasionally stunning replay that can then be saved back to memory card and used to impress your friends. This is something of a novelty inclusion and is probably a feature that most people will only take one look at and never use it again. However if you've always thought you would make a good director then here's your chance to prove it. It's very easy to use and I've always found it great fun to tinker with.

The constant on screen map has changed very little through the series efficiently displaying your location along with any targets or police cars in the vicinity. Press the start button to pause the game, and you'll get a larger scale map of the city. The control sticks are used to move around and zoom in for a better look.

So far so good then but is it the perfect game we were expecting? Well, of course not.

One of the areas of concern is the on foot sections. Simply put, controlling Tanner is more difficult than it should be. Don't let me give the impression that it's terrible, it's not; it's just that I found the on foot sections were not up to the quality of the driving sections.

In the initial stages of the game it can be frustrating when, after several attempts, you finally complete a driving section only to get killed almost immediately you reach the on foot bit because it takes so long faffing about trying to line up the weapon crosshairs with your target. My advice here is to take a look in the controller options. You can enable auto aiming and reverse the aiming controls which helped a great deal. I also found that switching the view mode to first person made a big difference as well, doing away with the wandering camera problems that the third person view seems to suffer a little from.

The animation of Tanner on foot is sufficient at best. He always stands with his back to you so if you pull back on the stick he will walk backwards. Move left or right and he
will shuffle in that direction. In open spaces that's fine but some of the narrow interior locations prove quite difficult especially if you suddenly find yourself getting shot from behind it's difficult to turn around quickly.

Driv3r has a clearly defined linear structure, breaking the game down into its separate missions (of which there are 25, many being multi-stage affairs) with cut scenes between to move the story along. With Vice City you never felt like you left the city. Die and you would restart at the nearest hospital, fail a mission and you'd have to get yourself back to the starting point to replay it. Even the music was delivered via radio stations in the game.

With Driv3r each mission is very much self-contained. Complete one and you'll get taken to a menu screen with options to enter the film director mode, view the replay or continue with the next mission so it's not as immersive an experience as that of Vice City. It's not necessarily a bad thing just something that emphasises the differences between the games.

In VC there were always multiple missions streams active at any one time. Get stuck on one mission and you could do other things until you figured out how to do it. With Driv3r, if you get stuck you're not going to make any more progress in the game until you complete it.

And this is a good time to introduce the second main problem you should be aware of. Play this game and you'll discover the meaning of the word frustration. Some of these time limits are seemingly impossible and as with the previous Driver games you'll find yourself playing certain missions dozens of times until you're screaming at the TV and throwing your controller down in disgust.

It?s not only the time limits but also the ferociousness of the cops that make things difficult. It seems as though you only need to run a couple of red lights or hijack one car before the entire force is chasing or shooting at you. Could this be a sign of rushed work on the AI front. Possibly but then the cops reacted much the same way in the first two games. I have just reached the second city at the time of writing but I honestly don't expect to complete this game any time soon.

The on foot sections and the high difficulty level of some of the missions are the main problems here but there are others. There is a little pop up and occasional slight slowdown. Once or twice there have been glitches where I've had cars appearing from nowhere immediately in front of me and on one occasion I got stuck in the scenery. These are not regular occurrences at all but I'm just mentioning them because they do happen.

But for all these problems I'm still giving it five stars. It may have some graphical glitches but that is the price of ambition. Clearly this game is pushing the PS2 to its limits with the amount of detail on screen and to put up with the odd glitch seems a small price to pay for what you get.

As for the on foot sections they could be improved upon but there is a reason this is called Driv3r and not Ped3strian. It's really all about the driving; the on foot sections are just to add a little variety. Driv3er does what it is supposed to and it does it better than any other game out there at the moment.

Is it better than Vice City? Yes and no. With regards to giving you a city to play with until your hearts content then perhaps Vice city is the one to go with because there is more to do. But if it's more realistic edge of your seat driving thrills you want then Driv3r is undoubtedly your game. Ultimately it depends on what you want from the game because they are not trying to do the same thing. The only honest advice I can give is to get both and enjoy them for what they are.

To conclude, Driv3r is well worth the money. It's not perfect but then, what game is. Does it live up to all the hype? Perhaps not, but that doesn't stop it being an essential purchase if you adore your driving games. And that's why it gets five stars, because in spite of its failings it's still one of the most entertaining games I've played.

Perhaps it takes a little longer to grip you than Vice City, but grip you it does. However frustrated you get you can't help but try again and again and again. It does have it's fair share of faults but most of the time you won't even notice them because you'll be so engrossed in the game. And for me that's what great games are all about.

Thanks for reading.
© Nomad 2004


Game information
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'Driv3r' by Reflections. Published by Atari on Playstation 2
Elspa age rating - 16+
1 player
Memory Card for PS2 - 87KB Min
Analog Control Compatible: All buttons
Vibration Function Compatible
Also available on X-Box and shortly out on PC

Some websites worth a look
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Official Driv3r Website (some movies to download as well as a ton of information on the game) - http://www.driv3r.com

Related reviews
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'The Thrill Of The Chase' an opinion on Driver 2
'Drive Time, Liberty City Style' an opinion on Grand Theft Auto 3


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Update - August 2005

This met with a right old mixed reaction. I strill think people were assuming this was a GTA clone. It was not (although elements had been shoehorned in to cash in on the GTA bandwagon) it was about the thrill of the car chase and as such it did it's job fantastically.

Originally awarded five stars, I'm sticking with that decision because even though those on-foot sections were annoying at best and some time limits seemingly impossible, the driving experience was second to none. And I still don't understand why people complained so much about the graphical glitches. There was no more pop-up than in Vice City.
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Summary: The number one Hollywood car chase simulator.