It's been nearly five years since a Driver titled made an appearance on the PC. Driver introduced us to Tanner, a tough undercover cop foiling the plans of criminals in an underground world of crime. The original title did a great job at providing movie-like car chases and an intriguing storyline to create an overall enjoyable gameplay experience. Fortunately, the car wreck that was Driver 2 never made it to the PC in one piece. Perhaps the series should have ended with the original game, but now DRIV3R (pronounced Driver 3) attempts to reinvent the formula of this series with a more Grand Theft Auto style of gameplay. It does this with a load of glitches, bugs, and a lack of variety in the missions.
Once again you reprise the role as the mean undercover cop, Tanner. Like something out of Gone in 60 Seconds, the story in DRIV3R sees Tanner trying to discover an unknown buyer of 40 stolen high performance cars. Tanner wants to find out who this buyer is and needs to stop the deal from going down. As usual he is thrust into a situation that's a little over his head and gets him close to losing his cover. The game's story is mainly unraveled in some nice cinematic cutscenes. In fact, it is these cutscenes that may just be the best part about the entire game. Not only do they look good, but they offer an atmosphere that feels more like that of watching a movie. This is certainly good for developer Reflections, as their main goal has always been to make the Driver series feel more like a movie. And fortunately, it works quite well here. Throughout the game, Tanner will need to find out who's double-crossing who while paying a visit first to Miami, then Nice, and finally a stroll down to Istanbul.
All three cities are quite large and can be compared to the size of the cities in the previous Driver games. Each city also has their own specific type of cars for you to drive. The total list includes up to 70 drivable vehicles. To put it simply, almost any vehicle within the game can be driven, whether it be a boat, bike, sports car or semi. Oddly enough though, some boats can not be driven. This is worth bearing in mind when you are being chased by the police: you might want to look more closely at which boats can be driven before hopping on a prop. One of the most enjoyable vehicles would have to be the semi. You can even hook it up to a trailer which is just unstoppable when speeding down a freeway being chased by the police.
Although DRIV3R does include a number of different cars to start with, some secret vehicles can be unlocked by finding them in the free-roaming mode. From here you can select which city you wish to cruise in as well as which car you wish to start out with. Carrying the same features of the original Driver game, this mode also allows you to set the weather, time of day, and whether or not there are cops patrolling the city.
Also like the original Driver , DRIV3R includes some mini games to pass the time. Some of these include checkpoint races and other events that have you running from the police or chasing down other vehicles. Much like any type of mission in DRIV3R, these mini games can become quite frustrating rather quickly. However, it's not just the mini games that become annoying. In fact, DRIV3R includes a number of very annoying and frustrating missions that span across the length of the story mode. Most missions just don't make any sense or are simply pointless. For example, there is one mission where you have to chase a truck whilst someone on the back of the truck throws out explosive barrels. Come within a few feet of these barrels and they'll send your car flying. It's the type of mission that requires you to try it over and over again. It eventually got to the point where we almost gave up on it all together.
Most of the missions in DRIV3R do consist of you chasing after other vehicles or being chased by someone yourself. These type of missions are further complicated by the driving physics. Now, most of the time when you become involved in a car chase, it looks rather cool. This is due to DRIV3R 's jelly-like suspension and realistic damage modeling which greatly resembles that of a movie. However, it makes missions even harder as you'll find yourself struggling just to keep your car on the road instead of merely having to avoid other traffic. These missions are then made even more challenging by adding very short time limits and a distance meter so that you can't get too far away from the vehicle you're chasing. When it's all over you end up with a game that should be only about 8-10 hours long, but it seems even longer as you replay each mission over again just to beat them.
Another annoying aspect of DRIV3R are the on foot missions. Sure it adds to the realism of the game when you can get out of your car whenever you want, walk around, steal other vehicles, and shoot your enemies. However, this area of the game seems very sloppy and undone. The aiming and movement is very stiff and it all just doesn't come together very well to create a nice presentation. With a name like DRIV3R, perhaps they should have just stuck to driving.
The AI is very dumb witted and doesn't seem to be much different from its five-year-old successor. The cops don't mindlessly ram into your car anymore when you stop, but they still don't know what they're doing as they will blindly smash into the same wall over and over again in order to get to you on the other side. The cops do, however, arrest you if your wanted level is low enough, but this simply ends the game with no second chances.
DRIV3R 's visual presentation is where you'll notice most of the problems. Actually the same problems that were present in the console version also crop up here. This is very peculiar considering that the developer spent almost a whole year porting this over to the PC. In general, the graphics do look nice and solid. However, problems become more obvious as you explore the environments. Flickering and corrupt textures become more and more obvious on buildings that are just down the street from your position. Also cars seem to simply "pop" right in front of you making it just a little harder to avoid hitting them. Some details are also missing such as bullet holes showing up on the cars which was present in the console version.
With the graphics having problems of their own, you'd think at least the sound effects would be decent for a game that supposed to be like something out of a movie. Well unfortunately that's not the case here. The gun and car sounds just seem a little flat and fake. The only good thing in this area is the music. DRIV3R includes an awesome setup of music which really belongs in this whole movie-styled game scenario.
Conclusion
Simply put DRIV3R just can't deliver. For $30 it may keep you tied over for a certain amount of time until Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas hits PCs later this year, but keep in mind that some of its best parts only lay in its cinematic videos and music. While the car chases can be fun during some free-roaming, and you can make your own replays by using the somewhat confusing film editor, overall it creates a very sloppy and unfinished experience that really isn't worth the price of admission.
Once again you reprise the role as the mean undercover cop, Tanner. Like something out of Gone in 60 Seconds, the story in DRIV3R sees Tanner trying to discover an unknown buyer of 40 stolen high performance cars. Tanner wants to find out who this buyer is and needs to stop the deal from going down. As usual he is thrust into a situation that's a little over his head and gets him close to losing his cover. The game's story is mainly unraveled in some nice cinematic cutscenes. In fact, it is these cutscenes that may just be the best part about the entire game. Not only do they look good, but they offer an atmosphere that feels more like that of watching a movie. This is certainly good for developer Reflections, as their main goal has always been to make the Driver series feel more like a movie. And fortunately, it works quite well here. Throughout the game, Tanner will need to find out who's double-crossing who while paying a visit first to Miami, then Nice, and finally a stroll down to Istanbul.
All three cities are quite large and can be compared to the size of the cities in the previous Driver games. Each city also has their own specific type of cars for you to drive. The total list includes up to 70 drivable vehicles. To put it simply, almost any vehicle within the game can be driven, whether it be a boat, bike, sports car or semi. Oddly enough though, some boats can not be driven. This is worth bearing in mind when you are being chased by the police: you might want to look more closely at which boats can be driven before hopping on a prop. One of the most enjoyable vehicles would have to be the semi. You can even hook it up to a trailer which is just unstoppable when speeding down a freeway being chased by the police.
Although DRIV3R does include a number of different cars to start with, some secret vehicles can be unlocked by finding them in the free-roaming mode. From here you can select which city you wish to cruise in as well as which car you wish to start out with. Carrying the same features of the original Driver game, this mode also allows you to set the weather, time of day, and whether or not there are cops patrolling the city.
Also like the original Driver , DRIV3R includes some mini games to pass the time. Some of these include checkpoint races and other events that have you running from the police or chasing down other vehicles. Much like any type of mission in DRIV3R, these mini games can become quite frustrating rather quickly. However, it's not just the mini games that become annoying. In fact, DRIV3R includes a number of very annoying and frustrating missions that span across the length of the story mode. Most missions just don't make any sense or are simply pointless. For example, there is one mission where you have to chase a truck whilst someone on the back of the truck throws out explosive barrels. Come within a few feet of these barrels and they'll send your car flying. It's the type of mission that requires you to try it over and over again. It eventually got to the point where we almost gave up on it all together.
Most of the missions in DRIV3R do consist of you chasing after other vehicles or being chased by someone yourself. These type of missions are further complicated by the driving physics. Now, most of the time when you become involved in a car chase, it looks rather cool. This is due to DRIV3R 's jelly-like suspension and realistic damage modeling which greatly resembles that of a movie. However, it makes missions even harder as you'll find yourself struggling just to keep your car on the road instead of merely having to avoid other traffic. These missions are then made even more challenging by adding very short time limits and a distance meter so that you can't get too far away from the vehicle you're chasing. When it's all over you end up with a game that should be only about 8-10 hours long, but it seems even longer as you replay each mission over again just to beat them.
Another annoying aspect of DRIV3R are the on foot missions. Sure it adds to the realism of the game when you can get out of your car whenever you want, walk around, steal other vehicles, and shoot your enemies. However, this area of the game seems very sloppy and undone. The aiming and movement is very stiff and it all just doesn't come together very well to create a nice presentation. With a name like DRIV3R, perhaps they should have just stuck to driving.
The AI is very dumb witted and doesn't seem to be much different from its five-year-old successor. The cops don't mindlessly ram into your car anymore when you stop, but they still don't know what they're doing as they will blindly smash into the same wall over and over again in order to get to you on the other side. The cops do, however, arrest you if your wanted level is low enough, but this simply ends the game with no second chances.
DRIV3R 's visual presentation is where you'll notice most of the problems. Actually the same problems that were present in the console version also crop up here. This is very peculiar considering that the developer spent almost a whole year porting this over to the PC. In general, the graphics do look nice and solid. However, problems become more obvious as you explore the environments. Flickering and corrupt textures become more and more obvious on buildings that are just down the street from your position. Also cars seem to simply "pop" right in front of you making it just a little harder to avoid hitting them. Some details are also missing such as bullet holes showing up on the cars which was present in the console version.
With the graphics having problems of their own, you'd think at least the sound effects would be decent for a game that supposed to be like something out of a movie. Well unfortunately that's not the case here. The gun and car sounds just seem a little flat and fake. The only good thing in this area is the music. DRIV3R includes an awesome setup of music which really belongs in this whole movie-styled game scenario.
Conclusion
Simply put DRIV3R just can't deliver. For $30 it may keep you tied over for a certain amount of time until Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas hits PCs later this year, but keep in mind that some of its best parts only lay in its cinematic videos and music. While the car chases can be fun during some free-roaming, and you can make your own replays by using the somewhat confusing film editor, overall it creates a very sloppy and unfinished experience that really isn't worth the price of admission.
