"Yo! What's up. This is Huggy Bear and I got word that there's a shipment just arrived from a company called Reflections. The product is real hot man and word on the street is that the cops are lookin out for ya. Get the product down to the docks by 4am and I'll meet you there and remember........no tail! You dig!"
You are Tanner, a cop who has handed in his badge to go deep undercover and your mission is to infiltrate and underground crime syndicate and find out details of a big job that is planned. You will pose as a getaway driver for local criminals initially to get youself in and recognized as a criminal and then slowly edge your way into the nucleus of the crime ring to assess exactly what their big masterplan is.
Early reports claimed that Driver was simply Grand Theft Auto in 3D which I find a little annoying because the similarities are minimal. Using 70's style music, dialogue, cars and characters this game is pure Starsky and Hutch on acid. There are various modes to driver which include 'Take a ride' which gives you the opportunity to take a leisurely ride around one of the cities and explore the famous landmarks and plan getaway routes. Another mode is 'Driving Games' which gives you scenarios like pursuit and getaway which are infact just practice modes for the piece de la resistance which is the 'Undercover' mode. This is the story mode which is split into missions which you receive via your trusty answering machine. Sometimes there are more than one (and the odd wrong number) and you have to choose which mission to undertake. Missions branch off into different paths depending on what you choose and how successful you are in achieving it which gives the game good replay value. First of all though you must take the getaway drivers 'driving test' which involves you completeing a number of tasks in an underground car park within a time limit. It's not easy at first but the tasks you have to do will become invalueable within the game itself. Once you are a fully fledged 'driver' it's off to Miami to gain some criminal credibility. Missions include collecting and delivering people and packages, ram-raids and more, all which have to be done with minimal local constabulary interference. Once you receive your instructions you'll tootle off in your motor into the fully functional city complete with pedestrians, working traffic lights and piles of cardboard boxes in alleyways for you to smash through. The rules are as simple as everyday driving as you head for your destination using the on-board map which also doubles as a police scanner. Drive sensibly and you will be Ok. Drive fast and erratically and the fuzz will be crawling all over you. The missions are interlinked with cheesy 70's dialogue cut scenes and will take you from Miami to San Francisco, through Los Angeles and onto New York for the finale.
There are two meters visible on screen as you cause havoc in the streets. The first is a damage meter which is self explanatory. The more you hit, the more the damage level increases. The second is a felony meter which increases as you do naughty things and this attracts more police attention. It all seems like good stuff but what does it look, sound and play like. Here's the low down.....
Reflections were the company responsible for the Destruction Derby series and there are definite shades of this in Driver. It's not Gran Turismo in the car design department. Your car is obviously a 70's American muscle car and you can distingiush squad cars and taxis but the rest of the vehicles look very much like each other. Physical damage is very much apparent including wheel trims that go one way as you go another when you hit corners at high speed. As you hit other cars they burst into flames as does you car when the damage meter is at maximum. From what I heard the guys at reflections actually took a camcorder to the states, hired a car and drove round the city streets featured in the game to create a good digital representation (good excuse for a holiday if you ask me guys). The detail in the cities is sufficient and not over-elaborate. The cut scenes are done well enough but are nothing to write home about.
Apart from the few repetitive seventies style ditties that are used on the intro to a mission most of the audio is concentrated toward sound effects. Roaring engines, screeching tyres, wailing sirens, crunching metal. Oh sorry I'm thinking about my driving test again. No seriously the sound effects are good and the dialogue in the cut scenes is like a mild cheddar.
The graphics are good. The sound is good but not brilliant. So why do I find myself saying that Driver is pure class, go and buy it now? Gameplay is the secret. Remember when game designers only had Commodore 64 and Spectrums to work with so they sepnt all there time perfecting gameplay. Well Driver is like that. Obviously it looks a hundered times better than a Speccy game but it is immense fun to play and goes back to the good old days of computer games. We need more games like this. Well done Reflections.
