Driver
1999
- racing
- simulator
- action
- single player
The story
The player is John Tanner, an undercover cop who try to take advantage of his own excellent driving skill in order to infiltrate a criminal organization. In the storyline, the player has the chance to drive several cars in four american cities (Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York), facing many different missions and tasks such as delivering a vehicle without damaging it, eliminating competitors or being the getaway driver in a bank robbery.
What it’s like
Low-poly 1970s-style city streets rendered in flat, saturated colour: Miami's sun-bleached boulevards at midday, San Francisco's fog-grey hills, Los Angeles and New York sliding through dusk and night, with a day/night cycle that shifts the palette from warm amber to sodium orange and wet neon blue. The camera sits low and close behind the car, so the world rushes past in chunky polygons, and the engine noise, tyre squeal and crunching impacts carry most of the sound, with a funky wah-guitar and synth-bass soundtrack looping under the menus. The vibe is gritty, sun-faded and a little sleazy, a cheap-thriller road movie that suits a late evening with the lights off, or a nostalgic session of retro driving. Pacing is stop-start: short missions of tailing, chasing and getaway runs, each with a clock or checkpoint, and an undercover cop's quiet tension about being found out runs underneath the bravado. Violence is vehicular and cartoonish: crashes, shootouts from the car and explosions, with no gore and little menace beyond the danger of failing a mission. It is a good fit for players who enjoy driving games with a crime-story edge and a period-retro look, and less so for anyone who wants realistic simulation or gentle, low-stakes play.
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