Driver: San Francisco review – Coma Chameleon
Back in the late 90s, before there was Grand Theft Auto 3, Reflections Interactive (Now Ubisoft Reflections) gave us an open-world multi-city-based driving game, ahead of its time and its competition, that practically pushed the PlayStation to its limits. That game was Driver. Unfortunately for Reflections and gamers alike, it was downhill from there.
Looking to renew the franchise, Reflections took what was arguably the most fun city in the first game, San Francisco, and built an entire game around it. Would it be possible to catapult such a once-loved, now mostly disregarded series back in to the limelight?
Driver: San Francisco continues the story of the series stalwart, police veteran John Tanner, continuing right where Driver 3 left off. Jericho, San Francisco’s evil criminal godfather has been apprehended and is set to be incarcerated for a very, very long time. During transit, however, Jericho escapes. Tanner - aided by his partner Tobias Jones give chase. It all goes to hell when Jericho, piloting 18 wheels and 10 tons of truck, rams in to Tanner’s car, leaving him in the confines of a coma. Instead of having this terminate the game as the world's shortest interactive digital narrative - because there’s not an awful lot of driving to be done from within a hospital bed - it instead introduces the “shiftâ€mechanic, allowing Tanner's psyche to hop out of his body, and from a birds-eye view, jump in to any of the hundreds of vehicles on San Francisco’s streets, gaining control of it's primary occupant,and experiencing their lives.
Looking to renew the franchise, Reflections took what was arguably the most fun city in the first game, San Francisco, and built an entire game around it. Would it be possible to catapult such a once-loved, now mostly disregarded series back in to the limelight?
Driver: San Francisco continues the story of the series stalwart, police veteran John Tanner, continuing right where Driver 3 left off. Jericho, San Francisco’s evil criminal godfather has been apprehended and is set to be incarcerated for a very, very long time. During transit, however, Jericho escapes. Tanner - aided by his partner Tobias Jones give chase. It all goes to hell when Jericho, piloting 18 wheels and 10 tons of truck, rams in to Tanner’s car, leaving him in the confines of a coma. Instead of having this terminate the game as the world's shortest interactive digital narrative - because there’s not an awful lot of driving to be done from within a hospital bed - it instead introduces the “shiftâ€mechanic, allowing Tanner's psyche to hop out of his body, and from a birds-eye view, jump in to any of the hundreds of vehicles on San Francisco’s streets, gaining control of it's primary occupant,and experiencing their lives.
-Lazygamer
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