I don’t know about you but when I first heard about Driver:San Francisco I was almost bi-polar about it. I mean; the last Driver game was awful in so many ways – things could only get better on third generation hardware. However, on the other hand, I had heard that they were going to do some mad ‘supernatural’ thing with Tanner, having him ‘jump about’ from ‘body to body’ at will. Now hands up who actually thinks that, that is going to work? Er…yeah…me neither.
So begins another entry into the Driver Franchise and perhaps the most outrageous premise in computer game history seen in a decade. Man, I would have loved to have been at the developers table at Ubisoft when they thrashed that idea out; I am guessing that they would have been more raised eyebrows than a Roger Moore convention. Yet for some insane reason it got the go ahead and here we are, Driver:San Francisco is a reality that has had gamers raving. But is it as good as they say?
Well I might as well cut to the chase and blatantly say DRIVER: San Francisco is not a ‘10/10’, a ‘gaming masterpiece’ or a ‘must buy’ like a lot of reviewers are/were saying and I don’t care what anybody says the multiplayer is never going to be a ‘Call of Duty killer’ but as far as a single player driving game goes it does hold up to provide an enjoyable race experience. Once you get past the aforementioned ludicrous storyline and clichéd scripting the only negative thing you are left with is the terrible handling of the vehicles. Yes – Burnout, Split-Second, Need for Speed, even Motorstorm Apocalypse fare better when it comes to the handling of the incredibly weighted vehicles of Driver which sporadically felt like I was steering a tank at times through quick drying cement.
Other than those ‘facets of joy’ though everything else is largely excellent; San Francisco is a beautifully glossy, detailed vista and the whole jump into another person’s head idea – called ‘Shift’ despite being an absurd idea actually works quite well; thrusting you into the mainstream driving, racing, chasing and crashing scenarios with ease.
Now hands up if you want to know more on this whole ‘shift’ thing? Thought you did. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) the first 60 minutes of game play is taken up with the storyline and ‘mere reasons’ to justify the plot. John Tanner the undercover cop from the main game has finally tracked down his long time nemesis Charles Jericho. In an attempt to take him down he is forced into a near fatal collision and ends up in a coma. This means the vast majority of the game takes place in Tanner’s head and in which he continues to track his nemesis down; mind jumping from person to person in order to get close enough to stop Jericho once and for all.
Just in case you couldn’t tell – I had huge doubts about the whole ‘shift thing’ but in play I found what it brings is some real immediacy to the proceedings and a kind of ‘cocky but coolness’. What it also gives is options; trying to chase down a target? Hey why not just jump into a bus driver coming in the other direction – he-he laugh out loud as you say ‘any more fares’. What’s more every crash, every explosion happens in beautiful slo-mo so there is always a reason to do it; the game delights in bringing you thought out destruction.
Being a sandbox game there is a fair bit of exploration to be had and as typical for this type game alongside the main missions you have a plethora of side missions. However fortunately Driver: San Francisco has the least boring side missions I have seen this year besides perhaps those seen in LA: Noire. One such mission sees you jumping into the body of a young weedy chap, nervous as anything about his driving test. Do you think the idea is to help him pass? Nope…the idea is to put the fear of the devil into the test instructor by driving as insanely as possible.
Other than this though for most of the time you have standard Driver fare; follow this car, get to x in x amount of time, come first in this race, smash this car etc. Of all of these though the most exciting is shaking off the police and it has to be said that for all of the faults synonymous with driver of the past, one of the things that they have got right here is the police AI. No longer can you shake off the police by just bombing it down a road or even driving into oncoming traffic, they really do keep up the pressure and you have to be good to get away from them.
Longevities is sadly not a strong point of this game; the whole title taking me just over 6 hours to get through resulting in an ending hardly inspired enough for me. Although completing the game opened up some challenges and online multiplayer which in all honesty was not too bad and I am sure enough people went out there to buy this so there is hardly going to be a drought online. There are issues with balancing out gameplay between players of different ability so my advice is be the best you can be before you go online or else you will lose…a lot. Quite controversially I read the developer stating in interviews that no DLC (Download Content) has been planned which is an incredible shame.
My Verdict
Despite my initial concerns about the whole shift thing I do have to say it brings a level of originality, even if it makes serves to make the script clichéd and downright weird I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy this game. I am hoping that further patches will be released to improve the atrocious handling and fix balancing issues because once those issues are resolved the game will go from great to being fantastic. At the moment I would say whilst it is a great purchase it is far from essential and for some hardcore gamers I would even say wait until it comes down in price before giving it a long hard look.
8.0 / 10
How does this game compare to others in its genre?
This is a hard one as although there are other racing games, none have the ‘shift’ feature and so are not the same and can’t be compared.
Equal to: Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit (only just)
Better than: Burnout Paradise
Worse than: None