DRIV3R’S story focuses on a gang of Miami car thieves and their attempts to ship 40 of the world’s most expensive cars to a mysterious international buyer. Players take the role of Tanner, an undercover cop who must work both for and against the gang of car thieves. The story mode of DRIV3R features over thirty missions scattered throughout three diverse cities, Miami, Nice and Istanbul. DRIV3R’s story mode allows gamers to acquire up to ten weapons such as a grenade launcher, handguns and machine guns.
There are also a lot of interior locations which gamers will come across such as a Police Station, Club, Bar, Yacht and hotels. DRIV3R also features 30 highly detailed CGI sequences featuring the voice talents of Michael Madsen, Ving Rhames, Michelle Rodriguez and Mickey Rourke.
Reflections have had time to perfect their driving model since releasing Stuntman and it shows in DRIV3R. The damage model is fantastic and cars will crash, crumble and explode. The film director mode is back in force and will record all of your game play no matter how long it is. The film director mode also allows gamers to add special effects to their videos making no clip the same.
Aside from the story mode, the mini games from Driver return, the barrage of mini games includes survival, trail blazer, quick getaway, checkpoint races, gate races and take a ride mode, this is where the replayability in the title lies. Minor Xbox Live support is also included with the ability for gamers to upload scores and post their film director moves, It would have been much better if Xbox Live was better taken advantage of and the mini games were playable online.
DRIV3R also features a varied amount of vehicles with some vehicles unique to each city, their are vehicles such as muscle cars, sports cars, sedans, convertibles, hot-rods, pickups, artics, vans, dumpsters, flatbeds, forklifts, go-karts, buses, SUVs, sports bikes cruiser bikes, mopeds, off-shore powerboats, cruisers, fishing boats, and police patrol boats, as well as un lockable secret vehicles which are hidden around the city. Tanner is also able to swim but unfortunately this ability is not exploited and seems like a wasted opportunity and tacked on.
Not many improvements have been made to the overall game play of the Driver series. Most of the game takes place in cars, but when Tanner is walking around he is extremely blocky and unresponsive. For a title two years in development this is abysmal. It will mean common mistakes are made, not because of an error of judgment but because of the poor response from the controller. If you found the controlling and aiming in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City poor then don’t even pick up this game.
Loading is impressive, once the city has loaded that is it, all the interiors of buildings are loaded. The frame-rate only drops when a lot of things are happening on screen, this is present on both the Xbox and PS2 versions of the game and can often be an unforgiving problem. DRIV3R sometimes feels rushed as there are a lot of glitches which indicate the game was intended to be out before The Getaway: Black Monday and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
The driving physics are great but are let down by one aspect. Reflections were hyping how interactive the environment is but when a car drives into a lamp post or a pole the car will stop or bounce off the pole. This can lose valuable seconds in missions and is highly unrealistic.
The graphics are a hit and miss affair, the CGI is brilliant and show really good production values, more so than the rest of the game. The characters models are highly detailed, however, the in-game graphics can sometimes be jagged. The draw distance in the game is disappointing, as players can literally see trees and buildings being drawn in only metres ahead of them.
The Xbox version of DRIV3R allows for custom soundtracks, once again this feels like a feature which was added in at the last moment, as songs cannot be changed and are reset every time the player resets. The voice acting adds little to the title and seems like wasted potential even though it was hyped so much; kind of like the actual game. The rest of the music is dull and reminiscent of a dark criminal underworld. At times DRIV3R feels boring as the game doesn’t recreate much atmosphere in Istanbul, Miami, or Nice, it is hard to become immersed in the DRIV3R environment and DRIV3R’s levels quickly become monotonous and repetitive.
DRIV3R feels very rushed. It had the potential to be one of the best games of the year but ultimately fails by not bringing anything original to the crime sim. The poor controls are very unforgiving and once the story mode is over there is little to return to except the mini games. The lack of evolution since Driver 2 is disconcerting and after two years we expected more, little things such as being arrested without being touched feels unfair.
The game is very well presented and based heavily on style rather than substance. DRIV3R manages to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year. Severe glitches and terrible controls bring down DRIV3R’s score as many gamers won’t have the patience to see this game through. We found it very ironic that DRIV3R parodies Grand Theft Auto: Vice City by including hidden Tommy Vercetti’s to kill throughout the game, yet it is likely Rockstar will have the last laugh.
I'll give it a rent though, as all I really want the game for is cruising around the city and trying to escape from cops, that's all I used to do in the first Driver 
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