Driver: San Francisco

As a franchise, Driver has had a long history of ups and downs since it's inception. The 1998 original turned heads with it's physics-based damage engine, and the the sequel used the same engine with some good on-foot gameplay, it instantly became a cult classic, but as GTA stole the spotlight, publisher Atari tried to cash in through developers Reflections's Driver sequel. In the wrong way. After a PR scandal, a rushed and troubled development, we got a buggy, glitchy, outdated, and outright incomplete TRAVESTY that was Driv3r. Later, Atari went bankrupt, and Reflections was bought by Ubisoft, and thus, Driver: Parallel Lines was released. It wasn't a great game, but it did sell enough copies, as Ubisoft allowed Reflections to release one last game. This turned out to be the best in the series, and probably one of the best games in the arcade-racing genre. That game is Driver: San Francisco. Now that the History Lesson's over, let's finally take a look at the game itself.THE PRESENTATION: Driver: San Francisco( now to be abbreviated as D: SF) is a good-looking game, for the most part. The game's graphics engine has managed to achieve a living, breathing recreation of the city of San Francisco. While I have never been to the city, ( Hell I've never crossed the Indian border at all) , the game does have an American feel. The game's presentation comprises of in-engine cutscenes when the cars are the main focus, while the human models are shown in CGI. This, for the most part, works well, but kinda highlights the game engine's biggest flaw- it renders character models HORRRRRRRRRIBLY! This flaw is hidden well for the most part, but sometimes, it just slips through the cracks. That's the only problem though, and the graphics are damn good. The vehicles are really goo-looking, and the damage model is still greatly designed. When it comes to the audio department, D: SF is well polished. The voice acting is well done, and the SOUNDTRACK! It's just a great collection of Copyrighted music, and the game's original score is rather cool. Overall, the presentation is great.THE STORY: This is where D: SF goes in the WHATTHEHELL? ! direction. The story is a bit cheesy. YET, it is pretty self-aware, and the circumstances the game puts you in makes everything that much funnier. You play as returning series protagonist, Detective John Tanner, after nabbing the high-profile kingpin Charles Jericho. Everything's fine and dandy. Until an RPG from a GODDAMN NEWS CHOPPER! helps him escape. In the ensuing mess, Tanner's car is hit by a truck, and he goes into a coma. From here, the rest of the game occurs as a coma dream. Yes. I'm not spoiling more, and the story is rather amusing. It's well-paced, and fits really well with the gameplay. Good job! THE GAMEPLAY: This is where D: SF goes in the OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD! direction. The gameplay is composed of driving in an open-world world, where you complete various types of missions. These missions are split into different tiers. You have the story missions, all of which are required to be completed if you want the end credits. Some story missions are unlocked by completeing City Missions. These are their own story arcs and are not directly connected with the main story. These missions imvolve you helping other people out in some crazy scenarios. The last type of challenges are Activities, small missions that can be completed by any car you want. They may be races, or may be some type of challenge( like driving fast for a certain amount of time, racking high jumps, etc.) . These are all well-designed, and all support the game's main feature- SHIFT. Since John Tanner's in a coma, his dream gives him the superpower of possessing people to drive almost any car in the city. Pressing a button will bring you to a bird's-eye view of the city, which can be zoomed in or out. Pick a car, and press the button again to shift into the car. There are some exceptions though- you can't control enemy vehicles. That would actually break the game. No worries, because every other car is fair game. See an irresistible Ford GT? Take it for a spin! Want to ram a fugitive on the run with a dump-truck? Sure! The mechanic proves itself to be much more than a gimmick, and is well-integrated into everything. This mechanic is also sed to provide character, as a ot of times, the ars you possess contain passengers, which creates a lot of genuinely humorous interactions. This mechanic is very good, but players might fear that this may make the me too easy. The game balances this by using a challenging control model. While it's not a realistic sim, the cars have a lot of weight, and can skid, drift, oversteer or understeer if you're not careful. It really makes the game fun to play, and you'll keep returning for more. The game, however, does have a progression system. Completing every activity, or busting a victim in a quickly while driving in the open world using cop cars rewards you with WillPower points, WP for short. This WP is used to buy garages around the city, unlock cars permanently in these garages, and buy some upgrades. Buying these garages also unlocks special challenges, which further reward a ton of WP. You can also unlock certain missions by finding movie tokens in the open-world. These tokens are placed in jumps, gaps and other secret spots. Finding a set number of these unlocks Movie Challenges. These challenges are special missions, which are inspired by popular movies and TV shows. These give you a lot of WP as well. Overall, the game offers a lot of content.THE VERDICT: Everything thing about D: SF showcases style, character and a lot of charm. The game is challenging, and fun, and the content is an overflowing river. Overall, this game is a must buy for any arcade-racing enthusiast.

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Driver: San Francisco is one of the best driving games ever released and now it’s become my favourite driving game. The graphics are awesome, the cars are cool, they handle well and the game play is nice. But the reason it’s my favourite is not down to these factors. It’s all down to one simple thing- Shifting!

The concept of shifting is new to me as I haven’t played the previous Driver games but boy is it awesome! Shifting means that you’re driving one car a moment and then you change from your body to another one and then you’re driving a whole different vehicle. The practicality of this is suppose you are losing a race and the leader is going to take the checker flag. You shift into a car in the oncoming lane and you head straight towards the leader and ram in head-on. He crashes and Ta-da you’re first. Shifting also proves many different purposes in different scenarios

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The story of Driver: SF is a bit bizarre. You’re a handsome looking cop with out of this world driving skills. A criminal named Jericho escapes out of prison and you’re trying to stop him but you crash your car and go into a coma. In this coma you dream of gaining your ability to shift and you do police work to stop Jericho. But after a while you realize that all this is fake and then you try to stop Jericho for real in the real world.

The main part in a driving game is the cars and Driver: SF has a lot of them. 140 to be exact and you can drive every one of them. Some game developers cut corners in their games and many times you can find that many cars handle the same way even though they are totally different. But that’s not the case in Driver: SF. Each car behaves differently and in each type of surface they are on. For example an Aston Martin travelling at 290 km/h behaves differently than a Lamborghini travelling at the same speed. Some of the more awesome cars include the McLaren SLR, Pagani Zonda Cinque, Ford GT and so on. It also includes some classic cars such as the Ford RS 200, Jaguar E-Type and many more

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The graphics in the game is very good even in the lowest settings. San Francisco has been beautifully crafted and the map is very big meaning that you have tons of stuff to find and explore. The game play is very nice and you will feel to keep playing this game for so long. The final verdict is that this is a very, very awesome game and this should be on top of everyone’s bucket list.

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