DRIV3R

"GTA killer? No. Fun game? Yes."

CONCEPT: Go deep undercover and take part in lots of missions spanning across three cities. Or simply take a ride.

GRAPHICS: The graphics in this game overall look pretty decent. Sun light shines off of cars nicely and the cars themselves show a nice amount of detail. Sometimes the wheels can have a squarish look to them but that is a minor gripe. The real problem with this game's graphics lies in the draw distance. objects and cars seem to pop up as you drive down the road. This can be a real pain when you are being chased by the cops because you will be speeding down the road and suddenly a tree or a street lamp will appear out of nowhere causing you to crash which will result in a mission failure (sometimes). Most of the time this does not happen but there will be the occasional crash into a pole which will make you extremely angry.

PLAYABILITY: The game controls quite well on foot and in car, both feel true to the Driver series. When on foot Tanner can run backwards which is nice considering the fact that in GTA this cannot be done. The in car controls are nice but can sometimes feel a bit clunky. Meaning this isn't PGR2 or RSC2 and you are not driving a Ferrari Enzo or a tricked out Lancer EVO. The motor cycles in this game are definitely a nice addition to the series but can sometimes be pain because when you hit a curb at a certain angle you will not ride up the curb but will crash into it and be thrown from your bike. I know that this is realism (I own a motorcycle) but this is a video game and it shouldn't be this way. Shooting with Tanner is nice because if you are more of a FPS type of guy then you can switch to that mode just by hitting the back button. Also in the options menu you can change the sensitivity to your liking. One of the main problems in this game is the getting in/out of cars. Sometimes you go to get in the car and Tanner will run around the car for no reason and get in on the other side. He does this even when nothing is blocking his way. Sometimes he will just stand there in front of his car and do nothing at all. Overall decent playability.

SOUND: The sound in this game is excellent. Flying into a wall at 70 mph never sounded better. All of the gunshots sound good but the music is lame. The same songs loop over and over again depending on what city you are in. This game does support custom soundtracks but if you are doing missions then it is likely that you will never hear more than one song. The reason for this is because whenever the gameplay is broken up by a cut scene or Tanner dying then the song will not change. Every time you begin to play it starts at song one and doesn't change until the song is over provided the gameplay has not been broken up. This is definitely a problem because you will often hear the same song over and over.

ENTERTAINMENT: This game is very entertaining because it is fast action and has excellent crashes and chases. It was made to look like an action movie and I think that the developers did a good job at this. Some people won't be able to get over the glitches in this game but they are the kind of people who demand a certain amount of quality from their video games. There is nothing wrong with this but this game glitches or no glitches is still entertaining. The glitches in this game are normal glitches that you would see in any free-roaming video game environment. The glitches overall are no big deal.

REPLAY VALUE: This game has good replay value. It is Xbox Live enabled which means that you can get online and upload replays which you can edit in the director's mode to the Internet. This is very cool because you have a number of different camera angles including a brilliant tripod camera and you can add slow motion and blurring effects at will.

RENT/BUY?: For a hardcore car sim guy, I would say rent. For fans of the series I think 50 bones is worth it. For someone looking for a break from GTA I think a rent would be good. And for someone who has never played any game in the series, I think a rent first would be wise just to see if it's your cup of tea.

OVERALL: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/04