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)

Huge Areas, High Speed, and 3 Cities.

The Good
This game's lovely areas are great to drive on, the sounds are great. There are several game modes like Undercover, Take a ride, and Survival. The story is great, you are Tanner, an Undercover cop who must work undercover to find out the secret of the most fearsome Mob Boss in America.

Contrary to other driving games you can drive in parks, alleyways, and wreck almost everything!

The Bad
The graphics are extremely dissappointing, your turns are very sharp, making the car very difficult to control.

The Bottom Line
This game is NOT a traditional driving game, this game is extremely violent, you will have to destroy several objects, and completely destroy cars, you will also need to maintain your car (don't damage it too much or your game will end), keep away from cops, and drive decently.

Windows · by Jim Fun (207) · 2001

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

Groovie!

The Good
First of all, lemme tell you, this review might be a bit biased, simply 'cuz I'm mad about 60's - 70's american muscle cars! So, having that said I'll leave it up to you to decide if you'll get on reading, you dig?

San Fracisco, sometime in the 70's (can't remember now, it's been a loooooong time). My black '71 Plymouth GTX purrs on idle as I'm about to push the pedal to the medal and become a screaming fury out in the streets. The thug's orders on the phone just a minute ago where clear "Yo driver! I've got a little job for ya. Git yourself down and pick up our friend cause he needs a little ride". I didnt' answer, but they knew I accepted the job. After all, they were my talents that got me the inside all this. Driver. I pushed the monster out and my rear wheels started spinning and screaming, eating sunny tarmac. The driver's loose baby! Big time!

That's what I loved in the whole game! The atmosphere! Driver really puts you in the seat of an undercover police officer x-racing driver, who's mission is to witness the deeds of some mafia circuit and bring them to justice.

In the game apart from being able to drive all sorts of nice and cosy vehicles (and wreck'em to pieces) you'll get the chance to get in contact with the creme de la creme of the crime scene. What's good in that? I hear you say. Well 2 things basically, first it dresses the whole game with the crimey atmosphere veil it was mented to have and secondly if you're not American (like myself, I'm Greek) and never lived to the U.S. it's good for your English learning 'cause you can pick up some badass slang, you dig cowboy? I know there are hundreds of games that are doing that too, but as I said this is review is biased!

Ok, seriously now, Driver wouldn't be as good without the crime storyline. Also the playing worlds, which are mapped after the real cities are quite big.

On the driving aspect now, the game enables you to do a few tricks, that you wouldn't be able to in a real situation! Let's face it; How many times have you passed a police car in the middle of your town by oversteering though corners? And how many times have you passed a red traffic light, did a 360 spin in the middle of the crossroad and then driven away only driving on the wrong side going against the traffic. Well, that's an idea of what you can do in Driver, or to put it right: that's what you need to do in Driver in order to survive.

Gameplay wise, there is a strong storyline which keeps the game together. The good news is that you have many options to choose from on which mission you're going to follow. You see cowboy, if your wheels ain't good for driving me downtown, how about taking this little package to my friend? On the beggining of each drving session you're at your apartment where there's an answering machine (it's vintage style too! yes) where the creme de la creme leave messages for jobs you have to do. You don't have to drive each one of them, just one will do the job and get your status to the next level. The crimes that you'll get involved in are of various types like: your everyday bankrobbery, your everyday getaway, your everyday nasty delivery, your everyday get a girl who's just ODed to the hospital and finally your everyday presidential assasination, to name just a few. All of them requires driving your monster through the hostile city environment and get away from cops.

The vehicles handling is arcadey to say the least. Ofcourse this helps the game excitement levels and you soon forget that. After all this is not a simulation.

The chasing cops AI is relatively good. They get easily on your tail, but with a few tricks you'll be able to lose them. It's not easy, but you'll get it.

The music's cool too! Strummin boogies and funk, what else suits best your enormous collars, fly-shape shades and bad wheels?

The Bad
The bad and the ugly is that the majority of vehicles you get to drive are nowhere near the famous and fabulous sportscars (or sports editions)of the era. Most of the cars at your disposal are everyday simple versions. One explanation to that could be, that a sportscar would get more easily noticed (oh yeah! as if the way you're gonna drive on this game won'get you noticed at all). If somebody could explain me though how come all of the cars you get to drive have burnout abilities (which means biiiig horsepower) and they only get to top speeds of about 110mph (i think). So forget the camaros, forget the hemicudas, the corvettes and the firebirds too... :(((((

Also could somebody explain me what is this Wrangler Jeep is doing to one of the later levels???!!! Way out of date cowboy!!! The wranglers begun to be produced in the late 80's, not the 70's. Maybe they couldn't find a photo of the Renegade Jeep, Wrangler's predecessor.

Graphics-wise, the game will never be noted for it's outstanding graphics. I dare say that it's graphics are nuff and dull and boring in the end. The cars models are nothing too spectacular, nor the world that you will encounter on your driving ventures. Detail is kept to a minimum, something that applies to models and textures too.

On the sound department, things aren't spectacular either. The engines sound all the same, the engine sound tries to immitate the sound of a real V6, comes close but fails in my opinion (needs more bass!!!). The rest of the sounds are ok, but nothing too special.

The Bottom Line
Let's face it! It's the storyline and the whole concept behind it that holds the player and not the gimmicks. And that's a success for a game, i believe.

It's a big success for a game that doesn't boast superior graphics and sound. Yes, you'll be coming back for more and more, especially if you like old American cars and exciting driving.

If you don't then maybe it's the 70's concept the one that will get into you, but I'm afraid that you'll get bored with Driver quite easily, cause it's not just a 70's lifestyle game. It's lifestyle, crime and cars above all. You like all these, you're in for Driver, you don't you can still have a try cause it's addictive.

Windows · by SifouNaS (1309) · 2007

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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.