Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Reflections
Release Date: 21st June 2004
The third game in Atari's Driv3r series was not all too well received at the time of its release, gaining around 6 out of 10 from most sources. The elements of the game receiving most criticism were the on-foot parts of missions due to the lack of melee attacks available in game, the police's double speed rubberbanding which makes them almost impossible to outrun and general glitchiness of some parts of the game (it's possible to fall into a kind of underworld at points).
While I can understand this criticism of the game, especially at a time when both Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City were available to play, I'd like to make a fair case for it in this review. Both series share elements but represent different gameplay focuses; Grand Theft Auto goes for a general gangster/kingpin working his way up feel and so has general missions involving both driving and shooting. Driver differs from this in that the series has traditionally been more focused on driving (in the first game, you couldn't even exit the car). As such, the driving in Driver feels better than the GTA games of the time, but the on-foot elements suffer which is a shame in this installment since a lot of the game is set outside of a car.
The mission mode is based around a car smuggling storyline, beginning in Miami, moving to Nice and ending up in Istanbul. There's about 10 separate missions in each setting and most of them feature a driving section, and some on-foot shooting. Sometimes there's a base to shoot up or infiltrate and every so often there's a standout mission like planting explosives to blow up a yacht. The missions are less varied than those of GTA, due to their focus on driving, and the difference in storyline.
Controlwise the driving is definitely the best part of the experience, although its not perfect crashes and the general feel of driving are nice. In more extreme driving situations the physics of the game do seem to go a little crazy resulting in cars flying up in the air and other glitches. On-foot the controls are somewhat worse; walking looks quite clumsy and jumping even more so. With regard to shooting, there's no targeting system and so the player must aim the crosshair manually which does make missions a little harder, but I wouldn't say worse.
Graphically the game is very middle of the road; the cutscenes are impressive and some parts of gameplay also look nice, especially the weather and time of day effects. Trees and other environmental effects are not so impressive, however appearing literally in 2D if viewed from the wrong angle (as can be seen above). There are also a fair few invisible walls scattered throughout the game which make things feel that bit less impressive. For the game's soundtrack there's a few originally composed songs which noticeably loop on longer missions. These songs are more like elevator music most of the time and an in-game radio would have been preferable.
In addition to the career mode, the game also features a free roam mode and a driving mission mode. In free roam the player is able to choose a city, car, time of day and weather condition to drive in for as long as they like, and there's also a Film Director mode where you can customise replays into something more cinematic. Driving Mission mode features some interesting challenges to brush up your driving and learn the best ways to shake the police in a chase.
Having looked at the game in detail, I'd say there's fun elements to it and the crash mechanic and some of the driving gameplay is more impressive than the Grand Theft Auto series. While the missions in the game itself aren't generally as fun as some in the GTA series, they're more direct and to the point with advancing the storyline; you'll find there's a lot of filler missions in earlier GTA games. With a large rivalry between the series at one point (a bonus feature of Driv3r is hunting "Timmy Vermicelli"s hidden around the city, styled after the GTA III protagonist), its not hard to see which franchise is bigger nowadays and most likely had the better games overall.
The fact remains however that Driv3r isn't a bad game and got a slightly worse press than it deserved upon release; most reviews compared it to the Grand Theft Auto games of the time and although there is a similarity, Driv3r is a game in its own right and driving and missions in the game aren't completely unenjoyable at all. I'd reccomend this game as something that's fun to play through, the mission mode especially has its moments and there's a less grimy feel to its cities than those in GTA games.
Rating: 74/100
Grade: B
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