<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by MeLoN:
Ok, now to me, this game looks mighty. It looks like it could kick alot of tail, but I'm not going to throw down 49.99 usd if the game doesn't get good reviews. The thing that is bothering me, is that there are no reviews. This game comes out the 21st. Which is tomorrow. There are zero reviews on the internet. Zero. I checked everywhere. Ign usually has a review a week or so before the release of a game. There are no reviews, and the game is released tomorrow.

I am miffed.

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2"> Having already read the preview of the final build of DRIV3R for the ps2 here at eurogamer, I did not go into this game expecting much. It is surprising then that it still turned out to be such a big disappointment. I am only about 7-8 hours into the game ('if ' each of the three cities gets roughly equal playtime, I should be around about the 40-45% mark, which would make this a short game for the genre) so this is not a full review. It is more of a warning to anyone who's thinking about picking it up on its first day of release.
If high production values could make a game good, this here DRIV3R would undoubtedly be the big kahuna. From big hollywood stars (Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez,Ving Rhames, Iggy pop) to excellent music in the richly detailed prerendered cutscenes, to slick menus, to the feature which stylishly recaps the whole story (upto that point) using prerendered cutscenes every time you load from a save file. Its got them all.
Starting with the good, the driving segments of the game are reasonably good owing to the tight handling of the vehicles. The damage model though detailed, doesn't offer anything which you won't already have seen before (in the likes of 'the getaway'). Parts do get crushed in, tail lights get broken, bumpers get dragged, shot tires produce sparks. But its all been done before.
The much touted car physics is very subtle, so much so that it did not make any significant impact until about 5 hours into the game when ( *spoiler* during the getaway mission on a van *end spoiler*) firing on the pursuing cars would noticably send a few flipping realistically (not scripted) across the view with appropriate momentum and weight considerations.
The last good news is that unlike something I read somewhere, a bike handles just like a bike is expected to handle, not like a car on two wheels.
The driving missions are obviously the real meat of the game ( read on to see how the on-foot sections compare). Although fun, once again the game suffers from a been there done that feeling. There is nothing here that you will not already have seen before a good few times. Standard chase, chase whilst firing, getaway, rail shooting, keep speed above 50, etc.
To some extent it would be unreasonable to blame reflections for this because after all there is only so much that can be done in a car. They can't however be excused for 'lifting' some missions directly from other games.
On a positive note though, the difficulty is well balanced in the driving missions so far. Challenging enough to make you think that you can get it in the next try but not unreasonably difficult to the point of being frustrating. Hence warranting a few tries in a good few. But always in good fun. Also, I'm in Nice, France now and the game 'seems' to be picking up.

In case you were wondering, the story so far is setup nicely to blend in with the missions. The prerendered cutscenes pack visual eye candy, and together with impressive direction, good voice acting and brilliant music, are arguably one of the few higher notes that the game hits (doesn't say much for the game).
However, Tanner (voiced by Michael Madson) does not come through as 'one real character'. Some how the voice /personality/scenario do not blend well. So far there has been nothing in the way of character development (*possible spoiler* like his motivation for being so brash *end spoiler*) so maybe a little backstory will flesh things out. (*spoiler* Baccus voiced by Iggy Pop was shot fairly early on in the game after an onscreen appearance of no more than 10-15 seconds. If he survived I haven't yet come across him again, but if he didn't, the fact that Atari billed him up so much is amusing. They have so much to answer for * end spoiler*).

The bad: You probably already know this but the in car to on foot weightage isn't 70%-30% either. Its more of a 1:1 ratio. If you get this game you will find yourself suffering through one tediously long and boring on foot mission so that you can get to the following regular fun driving mission, atleast in the 7-8 hours that I've played of the game ( though I have to mention here that the shift of scenario from Miami to Nice has visibly brought with it some subtle improvements in terms of both graphics and gameplay, especially the on-foot sections in the 'two' missions i've played so far in Nice).

The on foot missions in DRIV3R (*possible spoiler* atleast in the first five or so hours in Miami *end*) are every bit as bad, if not much worse than the previews lead you to believe. There are a lot of things which can hinder the fun in a third person action game, you will find almost all of them here.

Right off the bat, the graphics at first glance will disappoint the graphics whore within you (did within me).
Tanner's character model is low in detail but it doesn't matter that much (although looking at his shadow might lessen the immersion factor). His awkward jump and slow running speed do affect the gameplay and Tanner gets suspended in mid air for a good few seconds every time he jumps against a solid object until the direction is changed.
His swimming animation is also barely an animation and he can't simply pull himself up out of the water, you have to find a ladder! (it is however still a very useful gameplay addition which saves from the frustration of having to restart if your vehicle gets knocked into the water mid-mission).
The indoor environments are very basic, paper thin walls and doors (bump into a door to open) and there is a lot of recycling of the already poor flat textures. There are also some very notable clipping issues, which will sometimes leave you staring at the darkness outside the gaming world.

The level design (for on-foot) in some of the first few hours of the game is so terrible and repetitive that getting to the end of the mission is a chore from the get go.
The enemy AI in these on foot missions is also non-existant. There are basically two types of onfoot enemies in Miami (with no exceptions). Those that will stand in a fixed position, all the while firing at you (they WILL NOT move). The other type runs to one of the two preset positions for each, ducks, and waits for you to come around.
While terrible, the AI could still have been tolerable with a little more clever level design. But as it is, in one of the earlier missions, it is rediculously easy to move close enough to the enemies to see them while they remain oblivious to your presence, fire 4-5 shots to take each down. You can take down three guys standing shoulder to shoulder one by one without the others noticing.
When at a distance it is not even necessary to see the enemies, just wave the cross hair around until it turns red, fire 4-5 rounds. No matter which weapon, tanner's accuracy is mindboggling.
There are collision detection issues too. A particular enemy standing in a bar comes to mind who can be targeted and shot with ease, but to no effect. This apparently happens because the crosshair fails to turn red. Requiring you to run across him so you can stand directly infront of him.
Any enemy standing in a room can be killed by maneuvering one border of the wall between yourself and him so that your crosshair turns red without him seeing you, or you seeing him.
If it helps, the last two on-foot missions that I played before writing this (i'm about 7-8 hours in now) were surprisingly playabe and fun. It might be because the structure required tanner to be constantly on the move, giving no excuse for walking around at your leisure, exposing all those flaws. The newer guns also sounded and behaved realistically and havocs physics had started to blend in with the gameplay nicely.
So while I am very aware of the lacking AI now, had the action been executed like this all along (scripting and fast pace), being a gamer and not a critic, I could have easily looked past some of the issues the game has. But sadly they stick out like a sore thumb as it were.
The fact that the last two onfoot missions (of the long hours that I've played) were fun does not necessarily mean that the rest of the game would be too. It could go either way from here on. But having seen what most of the game has had to offer uptill now, I can't say i'm very optimistic.

The save system is a hit and miss in that while some times it appropriately starts Tanner off at the beginning of the section he died in, at others, it might start off during an earlier point, requiring the player to first drive all the way to the location.

The bottomline:

DRIV3R is a very disjointed mess of a game. There are some highs (most not concerning gameplay) and a lot of lows.
While I can sympathise with Reflections for opting to include on-foot missions initially, the part should clearly have been scrapped in development once they had realised their complete and utter inability to deliver on that front. Atari really has no excuse for releasing this game in the state it is in. It is far from finished at this stage ( as suggested by the variation in the quality from one mission to the next).
While the driving missions are fun, from the hours i've put into the game so far, I can't tell you to expect any new ground to be explored here. It shouldn't have mattered so much had there not been so much hype surrounding this game. Atari made a lot of promises, none of which they could have had any possible reason to believe they could deliver on (had they seen the game running).
So while it is reasonable to assume that the pre-release hype will still carry the game some distance, should it be a complete bust, it would only serve Atari right.
High production values and some above average driving sections accompanied by very very sub parr on foot missions, obvious lack of polish in the gameplay department and no coherence at all, leave a lot to be desired.
In the end it doesn't matter how big a fan of the series anyone is (even the GTA enthusiasts dying to get their hands on it) or how willing they are to put up with the bad parts to get to the good parts, DRIV3R simply cannot be recommended to anyone because it is not a finished product (far from it). Anyone considering buying it must first give it a good long look once it comes out.

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Loading times - nice to have some good news... they're very short! (no Stuntman-esque shenigans here...)

I've played it up to about the third Istanbul mission, and quite enjoyed it - probably not worth £40 though. The problems and glitches are as Isere and others have reported - visually there is a LOT of pop-up, although the draw-distance of the stuff that doesn't pop up is impressive. And no, there aren't that many cars or people on the roads.

Personally I found the on foot stuff tolerable but unimpressive. **Spoiler** There's quite a nice mission in Miami where you have to escape from a dockyard, where after a while you can basically choose to slug it out on foot or nick a vehicle; baddies try and run you down in cars and other vehicles, but you can kill the drivers by riddling their windscreens with bullets, which is very satisfying.

Things do pick up in Nice and Istanbul, which also look nicer than Miami. There is definitely a large "seen-it-before" factor with the missions, but some of them have some interesting variations - for example **spoiler** the standard "nick 3 cars within a time limit" mission is enlivened by the fact you have to load each one onto the back of a moving lorry as it heads across town, Italian Job-stylee...

Be warned though, I basically stopped playing it because the chase missions are unfairly hard - the "escape distance" of your target is so small that make one mistake on the later levels, however teensy, and you've had it. At least on Stuntman the obstacles were the same every time, but here you could be doing really well only to come round a corner and collide head on with some random traffic that you had no way of avoiding, thus necessitating a restart. Remember the last President level on Driver? Yup, these levels are virtually as hard, yet it's only mission 3 out of 9 (I think) in the final city. Grrrr....

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Freylis, I'm afraid that the 'worst bit' you've described gets much worse.

As generic as the whole story (for the lack of a better word) is to begin with, and as 'empty' as Tanner initially comes across as due to the lack of any sort of back story explaining his motivations, one might think that the subject would atleast be touched upon as the game moves along (I did!).

I'm about halfway though the missions set in Istanbul right now. While the story degenerated a long time ago into nothing more than a lame attempt at setting up the missions (and it doesn't even serve that purpose well), Tanner's character is also every bit as underdeveloped as it was to begin with.

I really wanted this part of the game to work because had it worked, there would atleast have been one reason (for me atleast) to stick with it till the end.

How you can get on board the likes of Michael Madsen and Ving Rhames and still have a **** narrative is beyond me'.

Couldn't agree with you more on that.

http://www.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_posts.php?thread_id=14404&forum_id=1

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Right off the bat, the graphics at first glance will disappoint the graphics whore within you (did within me).
Tanner's character model is low in detail but it doesn't matter that much (although looking at his shadow might lessen the immersion factor).</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by MeLoN:
I have an xbox, so I wasn't looking at ps2 reviews.

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Dj Yoshi:
You know it IS the same game right?

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by DrkJedi82:
you know there can be MAJOR differences between the versions...

look on gamerankings for any multiplatform game and notice the different scores for each version

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