Oh my god, how much I played this game..
The fun of this game is that you can just get in a car and drive drive drive. Police chases are quite exciting, and once you lose them you can find a new car and start again. There are also fun games, and the missions are very challenging but at times very amusing. It's like the text says when you enter Take A Ride (the sandbox mode): Just Drive.
Well... For years I played this game a lot. Then Driv3r came around. The graphics and new capabilities in that game just pulled me away. And later on I found GTA, which is another very fun driving game with extra crime-oriented stuff to do. Eventually I came back to Driver 2 and thought, "Man, how did I spend so much time on this?" I suppose it was the best at the time.
GRAPHICS: 7/10
The graphics weren't too bad at the time. Nice cars, nice cities. However, the cities were very large, which meant quite a low amount of detail on everything. There also could have been some nicer textures. Looking at the game from a distance it's quite nice, but up close you'll see lots of pixels. The draw distance is pretty lame, you can actually see the edge of the rendered buildings in front of you! Cutscenes, on the other hand, had great graphics for the time.
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
This game is very addictive! Of course, it was more addictive before hugely immersive titles like GTA 3 or even the later Driver games came out, but it's still fun to play. In Take A Ride, you can just drive around the huge cities. Police chases are pretty fun too. There is a cult classic replay editor that lets you make movie style chase videos, but I never wanted to bother with it. The missions in this game, that unlock two new cities, can be frustratingly difficult, but they leave you feeling very satisfied once you beat them. There are driving games with a split screen option, these can offer some quick entertainment. As fun and free as this game is, framerates lower considerably when there are lots of cars around, making it feel a bit tedious.
SOUND: 9/10
The sound feels a bit dated, but I'd say it has its own style that really makes you think "Driver 2". The background music for driving matches the environments, and it also gets more intense when you are being chased. There are also some good licensed songs for the cutscenes. I'd buy the OST!
OVERALL..
..This game was highly addictive at the time, and is still fun today. I think the base problem with the game is that the developers tried to do too much. The cities are huge (and there are 4!), and there are detailed cutscenes. If they had cut down on the expansiveness, the game might have been of higher quality. It would be neat to see this game redone with modern technology. As overly ambitious as it was, the story and the fun of it make it a classic. There will always be a place in my heart for Driver 2.