Genre: Driving, Action
Publisher: GT Interactive Software
Developer: Reflections
Platforms: PS1, PC, GBC, Mac
Modes: Single-player
1999 was one hell of a year for gaming, some of the most memorable games came out during this period, Unreal Tournament, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Age of Empires II, Shenmue, Medal of Honor, Wipeout 3, and Resident Evil 2 to name a few, the Playstation was well into its life and the Playstation 2 had been announced. During this time my main racing games were Crash Team Racing and Wipeout. I'm pretty sure I had not really gotten into any kind of realistic racer apart from possibly Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing on the Super Nintendo. My first foray into open-world driving would have been the original Grand Theft Auto for PC and it wasn't until I tried Driver 2 that I really got a taste of a true 3D open world. I loved that game and played it many times even when others had their PS2 consoles and were playing the likes of GTA3 and it wasn't until recently that I decided to try the original Driver. I had decided all those years that I'd just go straight to Driver 2 but from the recommendation of my good friend Brok I decided to give Driver 1 a go as it was highly regarded within the gaming community. I knew that it was more basic in terms of features in comparison to Driver 2 especially the fact that you did not have the ability to leave your car. But technically even having this ability in Driver 2 did not mean much as 95% of the game you drove your car the only time you needed to get out was to run up the stairs of a train station etc and it was really just a gimmick. This kind of roaming around a 3D open-world city on foot didn't really come in until GTA 3.
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| Taxi's! everywhere! |
The Driver series of course does not just contain Driver and Driver 2, there is also Driv3r which appears to be named by the same person who came up with "Th4if". There was also Driver Parallel Lines and Driver San Francisco which I have played previously. I decided to play via the Epsxe PS1 emulator as this was the easiest way to play, you could also save anytime you like and have fun playing around with the frame rate limiter. I enjoyed the initial opening cutscene of the game, with the protagonist Tanner escaping a parking garage while being chased by a cop. It was such a simple scene, It reminded me of Driver's roots coming from 1970's car films such as The Driver and Vanishing Point. Indeed scenes like this just wouldn't fly in movies today, no explosions no rocket launchers, no hanging outside the car driving another car at the same time or whatever the action hero's are doing now. Come to think of it I played the entire game and I don't think I saw any explosions in the whole thing. I must also mention the loading bar, it's not much but it's goddamn huge, and seeing it again made me nostalgic for my old PS1 games, it's such a classic console thing, well the Playstation really, the Nintendo 64 still had its cartridges.
The initial missions with Rufus in sunny Miami
Driver's main storyline is titled 'Undercover' with the protagonist being John Tanner who you may remember from a certain GTA 3 mission. He is apparently an ex-professional racer who now works for the NYPD as an undercover cop and is tasked with infiltration a mafia crime syndicate. You do this by being a getaway driver, tailing then taking out other cars, smashing cars, stealing cars, performing crimes and running from the cops, all of which is done inside the car as you never get out though other characters do get in and out of your car. The storyline, set in 1970's USA plays out over 4 different cities, Miami, San Francsico, LA and New York, each with a varying layout and weather and can be a different time of day with each mission. Watching the cutscenes are humorous by today's standards but of course this is a game from the early 2000's, Tanner often moves like he is some sort of android, the scenes where he is on the phone l appear to be just a still image as he doesn't flinch a muscle. Also the voice acting is corny and the sound quality just isn't there yet but It all strangely works for that low budget 70's film which I know all too well watching the original Gone in 60 seconds.
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| Some shady figures getting in the car |
In terms of the actual driving and gameplay, you get one hell of a trial by fire as the very first thing you must do is complete the infamous 'parking garage' training section where you have to do a list of stunts to prove your worth as a driver all within a set time limit. This I have found is a scene taken right out of the 'The Driver' film. This part of the game is possibly the most famous aspect of all of the driver series as it was often criticized for it's difficulty specifically the garage section and the final mission since you could not play the game until you passed it, making Driver also frequently appear in lists of 'hardest PS1 games'. It was no surprise that in Driver San Fransico this section was hidden and unlockable by finding a DMC Delorean and taking it to 88mph, wow there's two cultural references in one.
I was so close!
So once you complete that section you then appear in the filthiest shittiest barest motel room I have ever seen. I mean I know Tanner's not one for anything other than cars and you could argue that his car would be immaculate but come on urgh the bed even has poop coloured linen. Sorry to go on about this but I do have a liking to the accommodation you recieve especially in RPG games and whew what a shithole that is. However the quality of your apartment changes and gets better as you change cities which is pretty damn cool, I guess you are promoted in the mob. So you can look around your gross apartment and do things like save your game or take a ride around the city but most importantly is your answering machine where you listen to recording and go on jobs to continue the story.
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| Your initial motel room, classy isn't it? |
Once you've accepted you're out in Miami and into your undercover work picking up your fellow felons from a bank job and escaping the cops. As mentioned before the missions are varied you could be simply driving fast to a destination, delivering a car, picking up some pixelated passengers, escaping the cops, taking out another car or any combination of those. The game's graphics have not aged well but using a PlayStation emulator sharpens them up a lot and makes everything nice and crisp. The draw distance is also not the best but unless you are going full tilt it's pretty easy to see what's coming. As for the actual gameplay I liked the shape and weightyness of the cars, it really felt like you were throwing around a large heavy 70's Chevy or Ford and all the details such as the car being smashed at different angles and the hubcaps flying off. Oh and also the dedicated burnout button no holding down brake and accelerate this time hehe. You are guided to your destination by a giant semi-transparent black arrow on the minimap that gets smaller as you get closer, the full map itself is a classic Melways style map.
San Francisco and LA with a few cutscenes thrown in. I remember LA having these hugely long strips of road that I was always charging down.
While doing the missions the difficulty of the game quickly comes into play, I had to redo a few missions especially the ones that involve stopping another car or heavy police presence as I found myself either wrecked or out of time on many occasions though I didn't have too much trouble indeed the only missions I had trouble with was the initial carpark mission and the final mission which I could not finish. The main story has a decent amount of cutscenes and you have enough variety to keep yourself interested all the way to the finish, I couldn't get enough of the voice acting and animation though it really felt like I was in a 70's film "It's MAYA! Castaldi's MAYA! She's O'deeeeed on me man!" "You gotta get here QUICK!". I don't know whether it's the way they are modeled but all the cars look great, maybe it's just the way they all appear flat and sleek unlike a lot of cars today which are boxy and have a high centre of gravity. I think the beauty of Driver is that when it was released there were open world racing games with the likes of Carmageddon, Crazy Taxi and Midtown Madness but all of which were based on a destructive arcade style of driving. You could argue Driver was one the first open world realistic driving games as all the other realistic driving games were circuit based like Gran Turismo for example.
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| Meeting with someone or other. |
There is plenty of other game modes as well as the story that get you right into the action, you can drive around the city you can initiate a quick car chase or getaway from the cops. Trailblazer is an interesting mode where you have to drive through cones as long as you can, but by far the fan favourite is survival where you spawn randomly in the city and then are set upon by what is apparently the entire police force. All of these modes are very useful for one of the best features of Driver: the 'Film Director' mode. This allows you to replay your last mission or run with automatic cameras or set up up your own scene and angles with a timeline and eveything which was pretty cool for a PS1 game to have this feature. I only toyed around with it briefly but I knew that many players would have spent hours making their own 70's action car film. It's these kind of features that really increase the longevity of the game, the only thing they could have done was make a two player mode but I should know from experience that often two player-split screen modes put a tax on the console and they often aren't worth it as the gameplay experience has to be scaled down so there's basically no point, I remember some racing games back then having a two player mode but only with no other computer-controlled racers which was pretty shitty.
A clip made in the video editor by my good friend Brok.
Driver was a masterpiece in it's own right that couldn't be compared to GTA at the time with it's top down view and comical driving and physics. Basically if you wanted to cause bloody carnage you could go play that but Driver was more of a game made from a film then GTA ever was, it didn't matter that you couldn't run over pedestrians and they magically dodged out of the way every time, this isn't Carmageddon this is a 70's action film, this is Driver.
What I liked:
- Great driving physics
- Good storyline and setting
- Different cities, time of day and weather conditions
- Humerous dialogue and cutscenes
- Classic movie feel
What I didn't like:
- Lots of graphical popup and short draw distance
- Can be challenging at times
- No in car view
9/10
JD
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| Screeee! |
Pedal to the carpet
