Game Review: Driver Renegade 3D

Game: Driver Renegade 3D
Console: Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Ubisoft
Release Date: 6th September 2011

Technically the newest instalment in the Driver series (we're not counting Driver: Speedboat Paradise for mobile), Driver Renegade 3D was released almost alongside Driver: San Francisco and features the same iconic yellow and black car on its cover. The differences end there however, as the plot begins after the events of the original Driver for Playstation, with a disillusioned Tanner attempting to find work outside of the police force.

The story of the game as a whole is contrived and cliché to the point that players should be able to work out the final boss of the game within the first cutscene where there's apparently doubt about who is behind every crime mob in the city. Taking down the crime mobs and their bosses one by one through various driving missions allows Tanner to find the man behind everything, clear his name (which is only necessary because he decided to get involved in the first place), and not manage to save any of the likeable characters introduced in the plot because killing them off was more convenient than having loose ends.

The game features dual main modes of sorts with Story and Career modes selectable from the main menu. Story mode has the aforementioned plot driven forward by a variety of Chase, Escape or Destroy missions. While the handling is bearable, cars damage incredibly easily and will have flames coming from their bonnet after 2 or 3 hits against obstacles. This makes Destroy missions especially annoying as players must keep dodging into garages in order to fix their car.

With 20 Story missions in total the game initially seems like it'd take a while to complete, but after 3 hours or so I had completely finished the Story missions, none of which were challenging, but a couple of which were poorly designed. The difficulty level is mismatched with the adult tone of the storyline and voice acting, pairing gameplay aimed at 7 year olds with voice clips such as "Sorry, shithead" upon hitting other cars amongst other profanity and adult content. I'm not entirely sure who the target market for this game was, but there can't be that many gamers who enjoy painfully easy missions mixed with cringeworthy voice acting.

Between missions there are graphic novel style cutscenes which advance the plot. While visually impressive, these overshadow the graphics of the gameplay by a long way and really only made me wish they'd put more effort into recreating New York. In the bottom left hand corner whilst driving, there's a Rage meter which fills as players do stunts and destroy property. Once full, this enables players to boost their speed for a short while. It's definitely a concept we've seen before in gaming and having to go out of your way to destroy items of street furniture can be annoying whilst trying to complete missions.

Career mode would have been more accurately titled as Arcade mode, as players face single races which unlock the next race in the same series (up to a total of 12 races in each type) and unlock cars along the way. There's an experience system, and gold cups for performing well, but it feels very much tacked onto the end of Story Mode and is only useful for unlocking more cars, none of which are particularly exciting or worth winning 12 races for.

Graphically the game doesn't make use of the full potential of the 3DS except for its cutscenes and features a bland representation of New York, various cars and driving in general. The fact that cars are always aflame or smoking is laughable and there's almost no damage modelling aside from this. When enough damage has been done, cars explode into thin air as if they were in a Playstation game from the mid 90s. The soundtrack is bland and goes generally unnoticed behind the rest of the game, and the voice acting has many moments worthy of cringing.

Overall Driver Renegade 3D is a bad game; the mismatch of difficulty (bear in mind I played in Hard mode for the entirety of the game) and the attempt at an adult tone mean that players receive a short and unimpressive experience from Story Mode. Career mode isn't much better featuring a lot of repetition and effort to unlock cars which aren't much of a reward thanks to a lack of licensing and visual effort. If Driver: San Francisco was all in Tanner's head as he heard various new reports on the radio about Jericho's wrongdoings then Driver Renegade 3D was spawned when he heard a news report on poor quality videogames.

Rating: 36/100
Grade: E