Driver

aka: Driver: Você é o Motorista, Driver: You are the Wheelman
Moby ID: 309
PlayStation Specs
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Description official descriptions

As Tanner, the player will go undercover to be the wheelman for a crime syndicate in order to break open a big case. On the way, they will have to eliminate competition, drive getaway cars, scare some people silly, evade plenty of police, dodge bad guys, smash through a few windows, save their love interest, and much more through four cities (Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York).

The game gives a lot of freedom to navigate the streets of the various cities, allowing to cut through alleyways or across sidewalks and parks while smashing benches and driving over traffic cones, and provides a wide variety of vehicles to ride through the different missions, as well as the ability to perform various maneuvers such as donuts, 180 spins, or reverse spins.

Also includes several game modes such as Practice, Carnage (cause as much damage as possible), Dirt Track (time trials), Pursuit (the player chases after someone), Survival (four super cops chase after the player), Lose the Cop (the player must avoid a cop tailing on them), and Drive About (just drive about the city and admire the scenery).

There is also a full Director mode, allowing to place cameras to catch the best moments in the custom replay file.

Spellings

  • DRIVER ~潜入!カーチェイス大作戦~ - Japanese spelling
  • Driver: אתה איש ההגה - Hebrew spelling

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Credits (PlayStation version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 67 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 121 ratings with 5 reviews)

A massive game - huge storyline, huge choices - everything Midtown Madness should have been.

The Good
It's big. I mean really, really big. The four cities are obviously greatly simplifed (every bend is a right angle for example), but they are big. The main game is the undercover section, which is a well-written, in-depth story spanning all four cities. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't got that far, but it's big.

There are so many sub-games to choose from, each has its own unique challenge. In Pursuit you have to tail another car as long as you can; in Trailblazer you have to follow a course knocking over cones to gain time; in Survival you have to survive as long as you can against a whole bunch of homicidal cops; in Carnage you get to see how much damage (in dollars) you can cause in one minute. Each is quite tough in its own way, and damn fun to do. With a whole group of high score tables you also feel a pressing urge to try to better your previous best.

The graphics in this game a pretty good, even at lower resolutions. The cars, both yours and the others are well-drawn and easily recognisable for what they are. None of them a painted stupid colours (as with Midtown 2), so the whole scene has a sense of reality about it.

There is also a very well developed replay mode, allowing you to replay a particular incident (or the whole race) in close detail. Choose from a huge variety of camera angles, and create a little movie! There really are some quite spectacular crashes, which can be a lot of fun to replay over and over.

Unlike Midtown, this game is a constant challenge, and it will take quite a while to get through everything. Occasionally it can get a little frustrating, but it is always worthwhile.

The Bad
The graphics are good, but you'll need a good spec PC to get the most out of it. If I connect my steering wheel, the frame-rate drops a long way, making the game almost unplayable, which is a pity.

The cops are complete lunatics. Even one minor infringement, and they will do all they can to destroy you. Doing 56 in a 55 zone? If they see you they will come after you and not quit until your car is wrecked. This can be a little annoying at times.

The car handling is very loose. This is the style of the game, and attempt to recreate Hollywood style car chases of the 70s, but it can be bloody annoying to drive when you have no grip and super-soft suspension.

The cities are vastly simplified, but that's not really a problem. It's not that kind of game. But why is it always night-time in LA?

The Bottom Line
Brilliant. Lots of fun, great story, great action. Not as much fun to drive as Midtown, but it beats it in almost every other area. And it's really big. This game will keep you busy for weeks.

Windows · by Steve Hall (329) · 2000

Insanely difficult, there's other carfish in the sea

The Good
The concept is really cool. You are a getaway driver for the mob. Through objective-based gameplay, you take on a good variety of missions carting people around, performing insane car chases while taking care of business.

After all is said and done, you can go back and review your chases from different angles, which is a really nice touch. You can also select a variety of locations to just cruise around before embarking on the game's main mission.

The Bad
The controls are completely obnoxious to the point of unplayability. Almost every turn results in a burnout, which is particularly obnoxious seeing as the police will pursue you without fail for having done absolutely nothing wrong and will attempt to obliterate you into a pulp if you don't frantically scramble away, which, for this reviewer anyway, typically resulted in a spectacular crash.

While there's a good array of missions, nearly all of them involve driving person x from point a to point b, and take several attempts. Many of the missions are timed, which means you're not allowed to deliberate on how to avoid a spectacular end by strategizing a method around the abominable controls.

That's only if you can make it out of the gate -- Driver's training mission is mandatory to complete before you can begin the main mission, and requires you to pull off nearly every stunt in the game's repertoire to perfection; something that would normally take time, or that you would learn along the way in a balanced game. Driver is the opposite of balanced.

The Bottom Line
Driver is a cool in theory, but provides neither the sandbox wonder of Grand Theft Auto nor the maniacal entertainment of Carmageddon. If you're looking for a cool driving/crime sim, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a cool replay function to bide your time between Dukes of Hazzard reruns, look no further.

PlayStation · by jTrippy (58) · 2010

Initially a lot of fun, then you start to notice all the flaws

The Good
The chase are a real blast, lots of authentic-looking streets to drive through, excellent driving model, ability to save chase replays and edit them with the "director's mode", third-party mission editor

The Bad
Brain-dead AI for the cops, infinite cop respawn, some extremely frustrating missions with too-tight time limits, too many missions based on time limits, some multi-part missions with no end in sight and carry-over damage, cars are too "bouncy", strange physics bugs that sends cars flying hundreds of feet into the air when colliding near a wall, ridiculously hard initial "test", virtually impossible final mission, absolutely NO multi-player (not even modem or split-screen), lousy voice acting and goofy looking movies, console-style design that has absolutely no concept of a "computer mouse", only 8 replays slots and 8 save slots... the list goes on and on.

The Bottom Line
Driver is a game where you drive through game-ized versions of Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, avoiding cops and fulfill objectives. With plenty of streets to drive on, you can pick your own route, cut through grass, drive on sidewalks, drive on wrong side of the street... Anything goes, just don't get caught! (i.e. have your car smashed into immobility by the cops) While there's a backstory about you being an undercover cop trying to track down a conspiracy (which eventually involves the FBI, plenty of local police, the Mafia, and the President of US), the action is in driving, and just driving. You get messages on your answering machine in a hotel room, and by choosing which message you answer, you go on different missions. Most missions are time-based. A typical mission: Go to location X in 2:30 seconds, no cops following you at the end! The cars look authentic, and the streets look pretty good (if a bit repetitive), but all the streets intersect at right angles, making this part look MUCH worse than Midtown Madness. Though you'll be driving so fast you'll hardly notice. The cars you drive are 70's muscle cars, though they all have automatic transmissions and they handle not that differently.

The problem with Driver is the developers ported this from Sony Playstation, and they did a very lazy job. The game does not use the mouse in any way even though it would make sense to use that in the main menu (you have to use keyboard). The options are console-style "hit left-right to toggle through the choices" when it makes more sense to use "drop-down" on a PC. The initial version does not even allow mixed keyboard and joystick controls!

Driver could have been THE cop chase game with a bit more effort like ability to export chase movie to AVI, use mouse in the interfaces (including director's mode when editing the chases), ability to bypass missions after X attempts, little touches like that. As is, it's a game with great premise but lousy execution that should have deserved better on a PC.

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2000

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Listed twice? Ƒreddƴ (5833) Sep 7, 2010
Driver returns Daniel Saner (3503) Jun 15, 2010

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Driver appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Advertisement

In the UK, Antonio Fargas took part of the advertising campaign for Driver (Antonio Fargas is best know for playing Huggy Bear in the classic 70s TV series Starsky And Hutch, which partly inspired the creation of the game)

Influence

  • The game was partially inspired by the 1993 film Driver by Eoin Moore.
  • It seems that Driver was heavily inspired by the 1978 movie The Driver, starring Ryan O' Neal, and Bruce Dern. The most notable is the first level of the game, taken from a scene in the film in which "The Driver" has to prove his skill to some gangsters. Some of the crash sound effects used for the game, also came from the film itself.

Physics

The physics engine in Driver seems to occasionally have hiccups when the player has collisions in close quarters. The player's car (or other cars) will fly up hundreds of feet into the air. See screenshots for some samples.

Awards

  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2000 - Best Racing Game in 1999
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/2000 – Best Racing Game in 1999

Information also contributed by DOS Boot, Grant McLellan and Indra was here.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Thomas Backman.

PlayStation 3, PSP added by Charly2.0. iPhone added by Mister-k81. PS Vita added by GTramp. webOS, Macintosh added by Kabushi. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: Kasey Chang, Foxhack, DreinIX, Zaibatsu, Duduzets, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance, FatherJack, Deleted.

Game added October 15, 1999. Last modified March 6, 2024.