GRcade

What a load of f**king sh*t.

Playing this now is like going back to the bloody stone ages. It's unbelievably difficult, the cars handle like tanks - it's truly atrocious, the sheer amount of pop-up is incredible, the collision detection is broken, the on foot stuff is lamentable & worst of all, the game is glitch ridden to buggery. Passers by literally walk straight through walls.

If you have a demo or the full game lying around somewhere, I suggest you stick it on just to see how badly this has aged. Less than 8 years have passed yet it feels like it came out at the introduction of 3D.

1/10. I'm not even joking.

(Well it is Retro...this is a Retro-Rewind)

I prefer Driv3r

Minty14 wrote:I prefer Driv3r

What, for badness?

I must admit I got a good way through Driver 2 before slinging it, but I found Driv3r completely unplayable from the start.

Driver 2 was ok IMO obviously when you try it now it's terrible but back then it was ok I especially loved the challenges and such

OLIN wrote:

Minty14 wrote:I prefer Driv3r

What, for badness?

I heard it got some good reviews....

Scandelous pop-up!

Minty14 wrote:I heard it got some good reviews....

From a quick Google:

IGN - 5.4 (mediocre)
Gamespot - As above
Gamerevolution - D+
Eurogamer - they really liked it - 3/10
TeamXBox - 6.5 - maybe the Box version was better - it was the PS2 incarnation that I was unfortunate enough to so very briefly own.
Gamezone - 5.9 - but they then go on to warn you about purchasing it at anything other than a discount price if you're an avid Driver fan and sticking to a rental if otherwise, so maybe their actual grading is a little overgenerous in relation to their actual review?

On my purchase of the game, I would give it 1 out of ten, but that 1 point is only because when I bought it off of ebay, my purchase fee + P&P was actually less than it cost the seller to send it because the official walkthrough (or should that be 'drivethrough - pretty irrelevant actually because I did very little of either in the short time that the disc was in my console) was included in the auction and he vastly undercharged for P&P.

I thought it was alright, but i preferred Driver. Parallel Lines was ok, too.

KKLEIN wrote:Playing this now is like going back to the bloody stone ages.

It felt like that when playing it on the week of release.

Didn't this get a perfect 10 in OPM? I remember being thoroughly disappointed by it back in the day having been a huge fan of the original.

Bizarrely (as many of you will probably remember) I then went on to quite enjoy Driv3r in spite of its unfinished state. Parallel Lines was surprisingly good too, especially off the back of Driv3r.

Well, the next one should turn out quite well, or at least better than 2 and 3, whatever it is. Now Ubisoft have the license rather than Atari. That can only be a good thing.

I had hours of fun with it back in the day, listening to Chris Moyles' evening show. Will's Music was the best feature on that show.

DPAD Dave wrote:Didn't this get a perfect 10 in OPM?

It did indeed. The following month they gave Tomb Raider 5, 10 too. 2000 was not a great year for them.

Jaxley wrote:I thought it was alright, but i preferred Driver. Parallel Lines was ok, too.

Yeah, Driver was superb, I wouldn't mind trying Parralel Lines, it's gotta be an improvement on 3.

OLIN wrote:I wouldn't mind trying Parralel Lines, it's gotta be an improvement on 3.

It is, but it's still too hard mind you. The on foot stuff is a massive improvement over 3.

The twist is rather clever, but they ruined it right before release, which was extremely stupid.

KKLEIN wrote:

OLIN wrote:I wouldn't mind trying Parralel Lines, it's gotta be an improvement on 3.

It is, but it's still too hard mind you. The on foot stuff is a massive improvement over 3.

The twist is rather clever, but they ruined it right before release, which was extremely stupid.

Yeah, the "Twist" turned out to be the games big selling point so everyone knew - hell, even the boxart gave it away.

Gamespot review quote:

Driver: Parallel Lines is a mostly competent GTA clone, but the dull storyline and remedial gameplay prevent it from being recommendable.

@ "remedial gameplay".

Though from other reviews I've looked at I might just pick it up.

I wouldn't say Parallel Lines is hard, it's about right in difficulty, IMO.

Driver 2 had bad pop up, the original Driver was actually better for it.

As i said before at old GR, i always thought it was funny that one of the main selling points of 2 was that you could sit in chairs. That was only needed once in the whole story, and you can't do anything while sat.

Back in the day Driver 2 at least seemed awesome, but time has not been kind to poor old Tanner. All the graphical faults werent really the games fault though, more the hardware it was running on. Still, was a laugh. Driver 3 was just as glitchy, but running on the right hardware this time. Idiots.

Parallel Lines however was awesome, a pity when Reflections finally got it right (especially the handling) noone cared. Go buy it if you see it.