DRIV3R Preview

Developer	Reflections
Publisher	Atari
Genre	Driving
Release Date	3/23/04

The original Driver on the PlayStation was a huge hit for Reflections, selling over one million copies within a year of its release. The game’s appeal came from its four gigantic, meticulously rendered cities (New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Havana, Cuba) modeled after their real life counterparts and its inherent freedom to let the player drive anywhere around them. Driver’s story mode was also no pushover, requiring some of the tightest driving reflexes in order to complete many of the missions. Many gamers today go so far as to say that the free-roaming gameplay of Driver was the original inspiration for Grand Theft Auto III (the first 3-D GTA game).

Following an underwhelming sequel and currently subject to comparison of the game that largely owes credit to the franchise for its success, Reflections is hard at work gearing up for the release of the third Driver title, DRIV3R. With some amazingly detailed graphics and Reflections’ trademark car physics, DRIV3R is looking to bring back the sheer fun of the original with much improved technology thanks to the power of the next generation systems.

In DRIV3R, you play as Tanner, the undercover cop who has had a hard time of staying undercover for the past two games. This time, he’s out to put the brakes on an international car-theft-ring. After getting a lead on a mysterious individual who has ordered the theft of 40 well-equipped automobiles, Tanner wants nothing else but to stop this deal dead in its tracks. Just as in DRIV3R’s predecessors, his undercover work is in jeopardy of being revealed, which would not only lead to the proliferation of this theft-ring, but no doubt to the end of the road for Tanner himself.

The game’s three modes of play (Undercover, Take a Ride, and Driving Games) are not all that different from what you’ve seen in the past two. Evidently, Undercover is the Story Mode, with approximately 30 progressively difficult missions that take place in the game’s three real-to-life cities: Istanbul, Turkey; Nice, France; and Miami, Florida (which was also a city in Driver 1). Take a Ride mode is exactly like it was in the past games: just drive around the game’s cities (choosing either day, dusk, or dawn) and explore at your leisure, for as long as you want. This mode proved to be even more enjoyable than the missions in Driver 1 and 2, considering how large and detailed the cities were. There’s no doubt that DRIV3R will just be one of those games that is just fun to explore, in addition to completing the main story mode. The last mode, Driving Games, lets you play an assortment of minigames in any city, such as pursuing a suspicious vehicle or a police “survival” mode in which you try to outlast a barrage of cop cars for the longest time possible – this one is a Driver trademark for the hectic nature of outrunning a dozen or more police cars.

Driver 2 received a lot of heat for its shoddy controls and jerky viewpoints when Tanner was on foot. Reflections is hoping to counter that with various improvements to control responsiveness and the third-person camera. When Tanner enters an indoor area in DRIV3R, the camera automatically switches to a first-person view to avoid the many potential camera problems that occur in third-person while exploring small areas. Immediately after exiting an indoor area the camera zooms out to a third person view once again. While in first-person, you cannot see your weapons onscreen. There are shooting missions that happen indoors, so it remains to be seen how well DRIV3R plays while you’re trying to shoot in this view.

While on foot outdoors, Tanner can hi-jack any vehicle he chooses, ala the Grand Theft Auto series. The final car count is said to be roughly 70 different vehicles, including motorcycles and boats. Tanner will also have access to a number of different weapons, although it is unknown how ammo management will be handled. (Will you find ammo icons scattered throughout the cities or will the game take a more realistic approach and have you buy ammo from a weapons shop?) So far, weapon types include pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, and the ever-satisfying grenade launcher. Tanner has a health bar displayed on the screen, and each vehicle he commandeers also has its own condition gauge, just as in the first two Drivers. Another meter that makes a return is the “Felony” bar. Fill this up and you’ll have every police squad in the city hunting you down.

While the game’s graphics still need to go through some polishing stages, the cities and automobiles’ immense detail is still evident. Reflections, always known for their superb car-damage physics, once again impresses with DRIV3R. If you can think of a way to damage your car, you can do it in this game – even the roof can be completely totaled (if you can somehow figure out a way to drive upside down…). The game also makes use of a modified shadow engine that was employed in Reflections last PS2 game, Stuntman. As a result, almost every object in the game casts realistic shadows and lighting depending on where the sun is in the sky. It makes the already authentically modeled cities appear that much more realistic.

Reserving any judgments on the first-person controls and awaiting the final visual touches, DRIV3R is looking like a solid cinematic action game that should please fans of the series as well as gain the interest of Grand Theft Auto fans who may be looking for something in the same vain, but original in its own special way.

Preview by Nick Pappas