The Wheelman is back and with his new innovative Shift mechanic, he is back with a vengeance. This game is fantastic.
This review is by no means an objective analysis of the games inherent quality, or a representation of anything other than the reviewer's personal experiences with the game. Any recommendations given out are based merely on the preferences of the writer and are by no means a guide for the reader to warrant purchases. Any reader should take this review with a grain of salt and if they are unsure as to whether the game will please them, to try it out before buying, as we all have our own personal preferences.
-REVIEW-
Driver is back. And better than ever.
When I first tried the demo for this game, I was apathetic. It seemed weirdly ridiculous and odd. Then after some coaxing, I tried it again, and instead of playing the demo, I just fooled around with the "Shift" mechanic, and discovered what made the game shine. And does it shine.
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Gameplay
The game revolves entirely around the "Shift" mechanics, which allows the protagonist, John Tanner (recurring since the beginning of the series) to instantly "leave" a car, and jump into another. It removes walking, which was the bane of both Driver 2 and the horrid DRIV3R. This speeding up of down time between missions, activities and just moving from one place to the next, increases the fun-to-time ratio beyond what any other driving or racing game has done in the past. It really is an exceptionally innovative and ingenious creation, that despite requiring significant suspension of disbelief, works incredibly well.
The driving is what this game focuses on, so it should be good. Fortunately, it isn't good, it is great. It finds the perfect medium between "arcade" physics and "masochistic simulation" physics. I tend to define it as "Hollywood-style action driving," or more simply "stunt driving." It is over-the-top, but still feels like a real vehicle (the 140+ licensed vehicles also add a nice touch).
There are hundreds of things to do in this game, and it forces you at points to go out and try something new. Races (on- and off-road), chases, tailings, takedowns, stunts, risky dares, checkpoint runs, movie-based challenges, armored-car defense and adrenaline pumping maniac-driving runs sum up just the basic set of mission types in this game. There is never a point where the player could get bored unless they hate driving/racing games. The variety is a selling point of this game, and it has it in spades.
Everything the player does accumulates "Willpower Points" a form of currency used to buy new cars and upgrades (that include a boost, ram, token finder and income multiplier). The riskier the things you do, the more you make. It is a nice way of letting the player choose how to unlock things.
Sound/Music
Muscle cars grunt, semi horns blast, tries SCREECH and everything sounds great. The soundtrack has a wide variety of tunes, mostly from the 1970's, but thankfully, one can switch the track at anytime with the d-pad.
Technical Design/Graphics
60 fps. Sixty frames per second. Something the modern video game industry should have as a standard for every game. The smooth locked framerate makes everything feel incredibly visceral and the almost complete lack of slowdown (only with TOO much stuff going on in very late missions) perfects the experience. This is exactly what a gameplay-focused game should be like.
The graphics themselves are not the best the generation has to offer, but the 200+ square miles of road with no loading times, the above-mentioned framerate and the hundreds of cars on the road at any one time are a good excuse for the lack of high-fidelity graphics.
There is some minor pop-in every once in a while when a car appears close by without any notice, but I have only noticed it a handful of times. Overall, no serious problems with the graphics (for the 360 version at least).
Art Design
Yellow lines, sepia filter and tire smoke sum up this game's art style. It isn't the most original, but its consistency and context within the story sell the world quite well and set it apart from other driving/racing games out there going for the "realistic" look.
Story
It is ridiculous. Silly even. But it works. The CG cutscenes mixed in with game graphics add a great level of detail for the conversations. The ending fits, but it is kind of a let down how quickly it turns up, and how easy it is to beat.
Content/Value
As of the writing of this review, I estimate that I put at least 35-40 hours into the game (and 10+ into the demo). I have finished half the dares, 3/4 of the activities and all the story. I'm missing about 30% of the cars (some of which cost hundreds of thousands of WP points). There is a lot more I need to do and there is a "New Game Plus" feature that lets you start the story over again with your current unlocks. Not to mention a whole multiplayer portion with 19 different game modes that I haven't even touched yet. If one is a fan of cars and driving, this game will not disappoint in terms of content.
Difficulty
The game is pretty easy for a veteran of the series (who is used to missions that required 25-30 tries to beat) and probably would be pretty easy for anyone used to playing driving or racing games. The driving mechanics are very forgiving and accessible, and while the difficulty steadily increases over the course of the game, nothing is really unfair (like Driver 2's final mission).
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-Overall-
There are a few gripes I had.
- The lack of a day/night cycle ~ they even have the engine coded for time of day (I've had dusk and dawn missions) and different weather... but it cannot be accessed in Free Drive. It annoys me.
- The citizenry are a bunch of brainless boobs ~ at least they TRY to stop and get out of the way when I'm in oncoming traffic, but they usually just stop right in my way.
- The head-on-stop ~ when you head on a car, be it police, enemy or citizen, it just stops and pushes you, making it necessary to back off and turn around them. I found this out the hard way a few times.
- The difficulty ~ more accurately, the lack thereof. The Driver games are known for their crippling difficulty, but I've barely failed a mission due to anything other than personal error.
- The lack of trams ~ THIS IS SAN FRANCISCO! And there are tram rails everywhere. Even the original Driver in its highly-pixelated goodness had a couple trams rolling around the city... where are they?
But aside from these issues, the game is extremely well-made, with a high amount of passion for getting it right. There are a bunch of things that could be polished up a little more, or added in (the day/night cycle especially) to make it better. But as a driving game, it is easily one of the best this generation of gaming has seen, and definitely would be worth playing for anyone who is a fan of the old Driver's, car-chase movies and just driving in general. This is the true sequel to Driver (PS) that gaming has been waiting for. Welcome the Wheelman back, because he's not going away this time!
Verdict: 9.0/10
Note on score: The way I score games does not in any way reflect its content or quality. This score is merely a quantification of how much I enjoyed playing the game, and how "good" of a game it is to me. As the reader, you may disagree entirely, but this is how I felt about the game, and not how I think others *should* feel about it. Go and try it for yourself before you decide whether or not its worth your time and money. I am merely writing this review for my own benefit. If you get something from it, that's great.