DRIV3R

"Spend time with Driv3r and you may be able to see past the flaws."

Driv3r,

INTRODUCTION
Those who have not rented or bought this game will surely find numerous reviews from websites and other users of this site heavily criticizing this game for its flaws. The true, "hard core", and jaded gamers will see the less noticeable flaws and attempt to reduce this game to rubble with their criticism. The "casual gamer" will attempt to go through certain parts of the game and find several difficult parts which they may not be able to get through and, those gamers will attack the game and say that it is too hard.

Then, there are the gamers in a class of their own. Those gamers are people who actually like and thoroughly enjoy this game. These gamers find comfort in the certain parts of the game. They can see past the games flaws and, in some cases, even learn to exploit them for entertainment. Some of these games may enjoy the vehicles, driving, and theme of the game. Others may enjoy just making a good replay to show off. Then, there are those who enjoy all of the above.

GAMEPLAY
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The Good
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Driv3r maintains its driving mechanics from the previous games before it. The driving can best be described as not being too much like an arcade racer and not being to much like a simulation racer. The vehicles that you will drive in the game don't handle like Indy cars and yet they do not handle like the cars from a game such as Gran Turismo on the Sony PlayStation. It is a pleasant mix of the two. You can find yourself in the game navigating narrow alleyways and at the same time you can find yourself chasing a car through the streets and making sure you hit the apex of the corner just right so that you may produce enough speed through the turn to close the distance between you and the one you are chasing.
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The Bad
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One real outstanding negative aspect I can find with the driving is that all the vehicles seem to only have four gears. The vehicles you drive in the game can never go above 80 MPH. Now, this has been true for past driver games but, I would really love to just go screaming down the street at 110 MPH in my muscle car or in my Asian model Motorcycle. The other negative aspect of the driving is that the player is not able to shoot out the car window. Now, I don't get a cheap laugh from seeing my alter-ego in the game going around and murdering innocent civilians while in the seclusion of his car. I just look at the box and I see Tanner with a gun in his hand, sticking it out his car window and firing it. This is false advertisement. I plan on filing a lawsuit with Reflections on this matter. Of course I am only kidding. This is a minor flaw and it really is barely worth mentioning. Now, to discuss the part where you are playing as Tanner without a vehicle. The police artificial intelligence can be, at times, just that. Artificial. When the police turn into kamikaze cops and start disregarding everything just to get you their cars' torque will turn into that of a monster truck's and they will come flying after you with wreckless abandon. If you are hiding in a little walled-off alcove to protect yourself from the kamakaze cops, you will find them ramming into walls, buildings, and pedestrians just to get to you.
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The Good
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Driving aside, I will now focus on the on-foot portion of the game. At the beginning you will start out with only a pistol but, as you slowly work your way through the undercover mode you will be given a wide array of weapons that you may use. The aiming and shooting of weapons will come natural to any player that has a history of playing console first-person-shooters. And, for those who aren't familiar with the aiming system can go to the options menu and turn on auto-aiming to assist them in fire-fights. Blowing things up and destroying certain parts of your environment in the game is entertaining. The great thing about being on-foot is the ability to change the camera perspective from third person to first person.
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The Bad
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During undercover mission the player may find it hard to shoot at enemies while they are coming into a new room. The player may also find it difficult to spot enemies around corners. In some circumstances the player will come to a door, open the door, walk through the doorway, and get shot from multiple directions without any warning. This could severely hamper one's ability to complete the mission. Another flaw is that there is no implemented way to peek around corners other then through the manipulation of the third person camera perspective. This can be frustrating to players who are not adept in shooting in this game. I think it would have been a simple addition to the game to add a wall-hug feature. It might have kept a good amount of gamers from giving-up on this game.

GRAPHICS
I am not big on graphics. Graphics won't sell me a game. However, this game does look quite nice. I will just give the certain portions of the graphics a grade and a short description to make it easier to read.

=Textures: :C+: :Compared to a lot of the games that are coming out, this game's textures are sloppy. They aren't very smooth at all.

=Lighting/Shadows: :A: : Playing at dawn, during an overcast morning or in broad daylight looks great!

=Framerate & Other: :C+: : The framerate slows down during heavy gameplay. The "jaggies" in this game are pretty rampant but, not too noticable. The cut-scenes are gorgeous.

SOUND
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The Good
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As always, the Driver series has delivered on their tire peeling and body chassis smashing sound. There is nothing quite like peeling out through a turn and then punching the gas to speed out of the turn. Also, the cut-scenes' sound and voice-acting is top-notch.

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The Bad
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"Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "AHHHH!!!" "Hey!" pretty much describes the sound that comes from tormenting the pedestrians in this game. When trying to run over a pedestrian or, if you are simply veering off the road into one's path they will give you a sharp "Hey!" and quickly dash out of your way. This is funny and annoying at the same time.

OTHER
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The Good
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Three words: Film Director Mode. I have made and directed close to 40 high quality replays. Film Director is easily the best feature in the game. You can play in the game then, when you are done, you can pause it and go to Film Director mode to go through what you jut played and add camera angles. There is a moderate assortment of cameras to choose from (chase, tripod, front & rear bumper). If you are creative enough, you can create an impressive replay or, you can make your decent gameplay look like a hollywood production. The capper on this feature is the fact that you can go on Live! and upload your videos so that other may watch them. Soon enough you will be watching others' videos and getting ideas from them and then meshing them with your own ideas to create some good work. Film Director mode steals the cake for me.

The storyline is fairly intriguing with a real hollywood twist in the end. The story is present with all the bells an whistles. Paying the big-bucks for good voice talent really payed off in Driv3r's case. There is a really good assortment of missions. One mission will even find you in a Speed type situation where if your car goes below 50 MPH it will blow up. But, instead of sticking with that cliche of a mission the developers decided to add a twist. You end up driving that car to the location of the person who planted the bomb in it and bailing out of the car before it rams into the target and blows up. If you can get past some of the difficult mission you will find yourself quite involved in the story.

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The Bad
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The storyline is linear. You have no say in what you do and where you go.

The Film Director mode could use more cameras. I would have appreciated a true customizable chase camera. Or, a camera the can slide as if it where on a rail. This would help the many game directors like myself come up with even more creative ways to present our material.

The camera limit. This is the most frustrating thing about Film Director. I will come up with all this great material and I will come up with all sorts of cool camera angles to present it only to find out that I have run out of cameras. Now, you have to use A LOT of cameras to reach the camera limit but, it is frustrating for the gamers like me who want to have more.

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The Ugly
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Or should I call this segment, "The Glitches". Trying to point out all of the glitches in this game would be an act of futility. All games have glitches/bugs. This game just has a little more than your average game. I will just give examples. Sometimes, during a police chase, you will come across a kamakaze cop bashing itself into a concrete barrier or a building to get to you. Sometimes, if you run a pedestrian over and you park your car over the pedestrian's body when they haven't died from the collision the pedestrian will stand-up inside of your car. You know what? I am just going to stop there. The majority of the bugs are clipping issues (things going through walls).

CONCLUSION
This is a good game if your not in the two categories I listed in my INTRODUCTION. You will find enjoyment out of it. If you are unsure of the game, just rent it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/13/04