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Driver Package Art
 GENRE
  Racing-Action
 DEVELOPER
  Crawfish
 PUBLISHER
  Infogrames
 NUMBER OF PLAYERS
  1
 CONNECTIVITY
  No
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Driver

Driver was released for the PlayStation more than a year ago now, and it still holds it's own against the best of the best racers on the console. The game's unique blend of insane racing action, big city environments, and criminal activity set new standards for the racing genre. Instead of a top-down view like Grand Theft Auto before it, Driver used a beautifully crafted third person, behind-the-car view, and put increased emphasis on trick and offensive driving. While the car's physics are less complicated in the Game Boy version, it remains a very fun game to play.

The manual says it best;

"You are Tanner, a maverick cop who hands in his badge to go under cover and take on the kingpin of crime - Castaldi."

To get to the Castaldi family, Tanner must prove himself in the world of crime by becoming the best getaway driver in town. While eluding cops and pissing off rival gangs, Tanner runs jobs that include everything from smashing rival gangs vehicles to delivering ultra-cool sports cars to garages across town without scratching the paint. What a ride!

gameplay
The camera angle is top-down rather than behind-the-car. Because of this, we don't get a lot of eye candy, but we do have a functional, easy to look at system.

The graphical effects are pretty sweet as well. A cool trail of smoke follows the screech of the tires when you make a tight turn. The lights on the cop cars don't look that bad, but it'd be cooler if they illuminated objects nearby. The street lights don't look too shabby either despite not illuminating anything either.

My one major beef with the graphics are the cars themselves. The sprites were made too small to include any detail, so instead of driving a cool black roadster, you drive a black cylinder with white dots for windows. The cop cars are usually totally indistinguishable from civilian car, save for the small black square on top. Hopefully graphical elements like these could be improved without sacrificing gameplay on the Game Boy Advance.

gameplay
The background music in the game is fairly annoying. It sounds fairly first generation compared with other current titles, and it almost never fits the situation. Luckily the music can be turned off. The problem with turning off the music is that it lets the second rate sound effects shine through. The engine sounds are nothing short of retarded. A dopey hum climbs higher, jerking all the while, as you accelerate. When a cop is on your tail, all the other worldly sounds are drowned out (just like real life, eh?). The one cool sound is the tire screeching, a tried and true effect that has been used time and time on the handheld. You're best off to find your own cool motor music (I like Metallica's song "Fuel").

gameplay
Driver's gameplay doesn't disapoint. The gameplay engine makes for hard pounding, adrenaline pumping fun. The three cities, Miami, Los Angeles, and New York, are huge, and missions often take you from one side to the other. That's why it's important to always check your city map by pressing start, and plan a sure route to your destination. There's nothing worse than driving across town only to find yourself in a dead end with 4 seconds left. Redoing missions is a pain in the ass, but in a title like this, anything to add replay value is worth a shot. The missions are pretty much ripped straight from the PlayStation title. I remember my excitement as I learned I now had to run down Di Angelo in 2D, only to have it pass a few seconds later after pinning him to a wall and running up his damage meter in two hits. Oi.

The mini games to play are fun, but don't offer much gameplay. In Checkpoint, your job is get to various points at different ends of the city in the fastest time without wrecking your car. Fun to try, but it gets old quick. In Getaway, you must elude the cops ASAP. Getting funner. In Survival, you must elude the cops once more to stop your precious car from getting smashed. Funnest! Take a Ride is basically practice mode, so I won't rate it on the fun factor scale.

I found it slightly disapointing that the game had very little replay value after it's beaten. There are only 14 missions, and I got through 12 of those in one afternoon. The side games add some replay value, but there's no cheats, extra levels, or cars to earn, so there's little reason other than boredom to explore them.

The PlayStation title had no multiplayer mode, and niether does this one. Too bad. A good game of Getaway with you as Tanner and a friend as a pig would be seriously cool and would have added plenty of replay value.

The last nit-picky thing I have to mention about Driver is it's lack of a battery save. It seems silly to me that in this day and age I still have to save a piece of paper with my passwords written on it. Speaking of the password system, it doesn't even use letters or numbers. Only weird icons for us. But I mean come on, when all your mini games are highscore/fast time based, a battery save is vital!

multiplayer
N/A

overall
When I first heard that Driver would be a top-down style game, I immediately thought of Grand Theft Auto. Not the crappy Game Boy GTA, but the killer PC series. Good news if you like the unstructured, violent mayhem of GTA, folks. Driver 2 is coming to the PlayStation, and this time around, Tanner can get out of his car and steal a new one. Hopefully, this will mean that we see a good Grand Theft Auto style game on the GBC.

If nothing else, rent Driver to see how fun it is. Then email Crawfish and Infogrames and tell them to put in more missions and link cable support. Driver is an incredibly fun and well made game, but for the $30 ($40 Canadian), it might be better off for hardcore gamers to rent the game and beat it in a few hours. It's not like you'll be missing anything.

final score 7.0/10




WRITER INFORMATION
Staff Avatar Ty Kris
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"Boomer? But, but, my name's Boomer!"


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