This is not just a game with car chases; this is a game that makes them exciting like they've never been before.
You play as Tanner, a cop forced to go undercover in order to arrest Castaldi, a brutal gangster boss. However, only Tanner's boss knows that he's undercover. This means that as Tanner drives crooks from point A to point B, his colleges will chase him, as they think he's a crook.
Driver features 40 missions taking place in 4 big cities in the US, starting off in Miami, on to San Francisco, down to Los Angeles and finally New York. The first tutorial mission takes place in a parking garage where you have to show the gangsters how well you can handle a car. When that is done you can start taking missions from them, from the answering machine in your seedy motel room. The missions can be everything from being a getaway driver for a bank job to delivering a crate full of explosives without making the crate blow up, while the cops are on your tail like a bunch of sleuthhounds.
Driver has two main strong spots: gameplay and sound. The cars in the game handle in a realistic way and the cities feel very alive as far as Playstation games go, which makes up for a great virtual driving experience. Combine this with a funky 1970's style soundtrack that will take you by heart, and you have a terrific gaming experience that few games offer. As for graphics, they aren't nearly as strong as the sound and the gameplay, but strong enough for you to accept them.
There are some flaws that unfortunately hold Driver down a bit. One of them is that the game can be a little frustrating. It can take you 10-15 tries before you can even get past the tutorial mission, and the last mission is so hard it almost seems impossible. Also, there are a lot of graphical glitches here and there. Sometimes cars will drive through each other, street lamps etc without any kind of collision whatsoever. Also, it might seem a little bit boring at first that you can never leave your car, but eventually you'll get over this.
Making a game with a great story, great music and an overall great game isn't easy, but Driver manages to have them all. If you've played GTA and GTA 2 and are looking for another great action driving game for the Playstation, this is the one you're looking for.