Driver (game series)
Driver is the name of a computer game series that offers the player missions with a high proportion of driving. In the first two games in the series, the player is busy driving from point A to point B, often under time pressure. From the third part, third-person shooter elements were added to the game, but these were removed again in the fifth part of the series, Driver: San Francisco . Large, freely drivable cities that are modeled in 3D form the game environment. Driver: Speedboat Paradise is an exception . Here, the entire game content is driving boats - there is no free-run mode and cars are also irrelevant here.
The games were developed by Reflections Interactive . After several changes, Ubisoft is now the publisher, who has acquired the rights to the Driver brand for 19 million euros from Atari together with the development studio Reflections. Up to this point in time (July 2006) the game series had sold 14 million pieces.
All titles at a glance
| title | Playstation 1 | Playstation 2 | Playstation 3 | Playstation Portable | XBOX | XBOX 360 | Smartphone, iOS | Smartphone, Android | Windows | MAC | Nintendo Wii | Nintendo DS | Nintendo 3DS | Game Boy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | yes, 1999 | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2009 | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | Yes |
| Driver 2 | yes, 2000 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2000 |
| Driv3r | - | yes, 2004 | - | - | yes, 2004 | - | - | - | yes, 2005 | - | - | - | - | Yes |
| Driver: Vegas | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2006 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Driver: LA Undercover | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2007 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Driver: Parallel Lines | - | yes, 2006 | - | - | yes, 2006 | - | - | - | yes, 2007 | - | yes, 2007 | - | - | - |
| Driver 76 | - | - | - | yes, 2007 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| COP The Recruit | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2009 | - | - |
| Driver: San Francisco | - | - | yes, 2011 | - | - | yes, 2011 | - | - | yes, 2011 | yes, 2011 | yes, 2011 | - | - | - |
| Driver: Speedboat Paradise | - | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2014 | yes, 2014 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Driver: Renegade 3D | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | yes, 2011 | - |
Driver
The first game in the Driver series was released for PlayStation in October 1999 under the title Driver - You are the wheelman . Versions for Windows , Mac OS , and Game Boy Color followed . In December 2009, Gameloft implemented the game for iOS . The iOS version was later removed because it was not profitable.
For the first time in video game history, car chases were offered as a game world in a three-dimensional freely drivable city. The driving behavior of the 1970s cars is designed more for realism and there is a damage model for the vehicles.
The game is divided into a so-called "undercover mode", "free ride" and several "driving games". The undercover mode is the centerpiece and tells a story about the undercover cop Tanner. In a motel room, the player accepts different jobs via the answering machine. With the car made available at the beginning of the mission, the specified task must be fulfilled, although it is not possible in principle to leave the vehicle in the game. The story told by means of pre-rendered cutscenes contains a total of 35 missions in four different cities, whereby the basic structure of the two-part tasks is always similar: In the first part the player has to reach a certain goal in the game environment under time pressure, in the second part it is important to go unnoticed by the Police and with a working car to complete the mission.
In the mode “free travel”, the player can move freely through one of the four selectable metropolises without having to do any objective tasks. As in undercover mode, it is not possible to leave or change vehicles. Here, too, in addition to normal civil traffic, there are patrolling police patrol cars that pursue the player in the event of a traffic offense and ram him until the player's car is totaled. "Free ride" is suitable for getting to know a city or for fast car chases with the police.
There are several variants to choose from in the "Driving Games" mode, such as B. "Escape", "Persecution" or "Survival". For example, when you "escape" you are abandoned in a selected city with a chasing police car and the aim of the game is to shake off the chaser within a very short time. In "pursuit" the player must pursue another vehicle until either a certain time has elapsed or the vehicle to be pursued has been scrapped.
Another novelty in the history of video games was the film director included in Driver . This made it possible to record a completed mission, free journey or a driving game and to define the camera position, angle and pan with an internal editor and thus to record one's personal chase on film.
The setting of the game in the 1970s with corresponding vehicles on the streets and the background music mainly consisting of funk and soul are further characteristics and at the same time references to the intellectual role models of the game. These include films like Bullitt , The Streets of San Francisco , Just 60 Seconds or French Connection, all of which offered spectacular car chases. The game has most of the similarities with the 1978 film Driver .
Driver 2
The second part was released in November 2000 for the PlayStation under the title Driver 2: Back on the Streets and Driver 2: The Wheelman is Back . The version for the Game Boy Advance is called Driver 2 Advance . The basic structure of the game corresponds to that of its predecessor with an "undercover mode", "free ride" and "driving games". The main character is again the cop Tanner and again four three-dimensionally modeled cities form the backdrop.
The game environment now includes the four metropolises of Chicago , Havana , Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro . Leaving and changing vehicles while playing is possible because the character can get out of a car at any time, walk through the city and get into any civilian vehicle. During the missions, the newly added option of being able to get out of the car does not play a major role. The undercover mode follows a story told by pre-rendered cutscenes that contains 37 missions, although the motel room with an answering machine no longer exists. As a result, you can no longer choose from several assignments, so the game play is more linear. The missions have a time limit, but the split has been removed. The AI of the police has been improved compared to the first part, but the frequency of patrol cars has been reduced.
The structure of the four cities follows the same principles as in the previous one. The degree of abstraction has been refined a little so that there are no purely orthogonal road grids, but also inclined connections and curved road sections.
Driv3r
The third part of the series was released in June 2004 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox and in March 2005 for Windows . Furthermore, a version for the Gameboy Advance was released again. According to publisher Atari (formerly Infogrames ), the development should have cost 30 million dollars. The basic concept of the previous parts was also retained in Driv3r , so that the game is again divided into "Undercover Mode", "Free Ride" and "Driving Games". The game world in the form of large cities and the main character Tanner have also remained the same.
The game takes place in the three cities of Miami , Nice and Istanbul . It begins in Miami, where Tanner becomes aware of a gang of car thieves working for his adversary Jericho during a police operation. He is smuggled into this gang and helps them get the cars they need and remove obstacles from the way. After the requested vehicles have been stolen, they are brought to Nice. Tanner travels there with the gang and turns to the local police. However, they plan to proceed differently than Tanner intends to do, which is why there are quarrels and poorly planned operations in which a French police officer is shot. The vehicles are then brought to Istanbul, where the gang meets with their client. Tanner manages to arrest the heads of the gang, which gives him information about the whereabouts of Jericho. Eventually there is a skirmish between the police and members of Jericho's organization, in which both Tanner and Jericho are badly wounded. Whether they will survive remains unclear.
Since the game, unlike its predecessors, was developed for the next generation of consoles, the differences can largely be found in the technology. Although there are no longer four, but three large cities in Driv3r , the level of detail of the elaboration is much higher than before. There are now side streets, winding alleys and a generally more varied topography in the game. The cars are also designed in more detail and have a more differentiated damage model than before. The "undercover mode" offers a continuous story, told by pre-rendered cutscenes and with 25 missions to be completed, most of which can no longer be completed under time pressure. The use of weapons is completely new in Driv3r . In contrast to the first two parts, Tanner can now not only get out of the car, but also use pistols, rifles and grenade launchers. Until now, the gameplay in both “undercover mode” and “free travel” mode consisted of driving, but according to the developer, the proportion of walking in the Driv3r story is almost a third. The vehicle fleet in the game has been increased and now includes 70 different vehicles, including motorcycles and boats for the first time. Furthermore, the character can now swim.
Driver: Vegas & Driver: LA Undercover
Driver: Vegas (2006) and Driver: LA Undercover (2007) are two games for mobile phones developed by Gameloft .
Driver: Vegas continues the storyline of Driv3r, revealing that both Tanner and Jericho survived. Tanner goes to Las Vegas to find Jericho to kill him.
Driver: LA Undercover takes place two years after Driver: Vegas, where Tanner works as a racing driver. He is brought back to the police force to fight the Mafia in Los Angeles .
Driver: Parallel Lines
In March 2006, the fourth part of the series was released, initially for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox with driver: Parallel Lines . The Windows and Wii versions appeared in June 2007. The title Parallel Lines refers not only to the storyline set in two different epochs, but also to the double line as a typical road marking. Furthermore, the title is an allusion to the 1978 album Parallel Lines by Blondie .
Driver: Parallel Lines has the biggest differences or innovations compared to the parts published up to then. The previous main character of the game series, the undercover cop John Tanner, no longer exists. Instead, the player slips into the role of an 18-year-old petty criminal who is known by everyone as TK (The Kid). Furthermore, the game environment is still located in a large city, but in contrast to its predecessors, the game world no longer extends over several cities, but consists of New York from 1978 and 2006.
For the first time the structure of the game is structured differently. Instead of selecting the various game modes in the main menu as before, attempts were made with Parallel Lines to introduce open-world game principles . So you can either start a "new game" or load a saved game. Then you start at the corresponding point in the New York game world and find the individual game variants at different locations on the map. Due to the change of action, there is no "Undercover mode" more, the main plot consisting of 32 missions, however, as in the past in the form of pre-rendered cutscenes told that tell a continuous story. The previous "driving games" have been converted into "side missions" which, like the missions of the main storyline, are distributed across the game world and can be approached and completed at any time. The various tasks of the side missions have been adapted to the changed framework and include the stealing and delivery of vehicles, races on their own racetracks and illegal street races, car chases, towing services or the collection of protection money.
In accordance with the open world principle, a daily routine was also integrated into the game, so that for the first time in the game series day and night merge, but weather effects have been omitted. Also new are workshops in which vehicles can be repaired, tuned or deleted from the wanted level. For this purpose, a money system was introduced, according to which the player receives money after completing missions, which he can invest in the workshop or to buy ammunition.
The level of difficulty of the predecessor has been reduced a bit. Difficult missions do not have to be repeated completely, as they are divided into several stages. If a mission fails, only the current stage and not the entire mission has to be repeated. The search system also differs from the previous parts of the series. For the first time there is a crime indicator based on vehicles and people. This means that offenses committed with a car are related to the respective controlled vehicle and that you as a player are viewed neutrally by the police again if you can leave the car unnoticed. Conversely, crimes committed on foot relate to the character, but you can immerse yourself in vehicles for a limited time. One of the biggest innovations is the removal of the film director mode, which has been typical of a series. Replays cannot be recorded, saved or edited.
Driver: Parallel Lines uses a modified version of the Driv3r graphics engine . Compared to its predecessor, annoying pop-ups have been removed and the traffic density increased.
The game contains more than seventy licensed songs that play while driving. Numerous well-known artists have been hired to match the respective epoch. Some of the songs are from the 1970s, u. a. Pieces by Iggy Pop , War , David Bowie , and Blondie . The 2006 soundtrack includes songs from Public Enemy , The Secret Machines , Kaiser Chiefs , and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs .
Driver 76
| Driver 76 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio |
 Sumo digital
|
||
| Publisher |
 Ubisoft
|
||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
May 2007 | ||
| platform | PlayStation Portable | ||
| genre | Action game and racing game | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Gamepad , etc. a. | ||
| medium | UMD | ||
| language | German | ||
| Age rating |
|
||
In May 2007, Driver 76 was released for the PlayStation Portable. The PSP offshoot of the fourth part, however, in contrast to its big "console brother", only focuses on the first game epoch. The game tells the story of the two characters Ray and Slink, well-known from Parallel Lines, and is set in 1976. In search of Ray's dream woman, the two get into huge trouble, because Ray's chosen one is the daughter of the city's greatest triad boss.
Miscellaneous
- The PSP offshoot is not just a simple port of the console version. Instead, the player receives 27 completely redesigned missions.
- The city of New York, which is similar to its console model, serves as the setting.
- There are different vehicles that can all be collected in a garage and modified there. A new feature is the ability to download new special paints via an online connection.
- Driver 76 includes an online multiplayer mode. Various mini-games can now also be played against human players.
COP The Recruit
At the end of 2009 an offshoot for the Nintendo DS was released , the design of the title is based on Driver: Parallel Lines , but offers a completely independent plot. The 3D graphics are very remarkable for the handheld.
Driver: San Francisco
The fifth part of the series was released on September 1, 2011 for PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , Wii , Windows and Mac OS . It is the first driver game that was developed from scratch under the publisher Ubisoft by Reflections, and the first offshoot of the series in the console generation of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Driver: San Francisco is set in San Francisco and follows the story of the undercover cop John Tanner and starts immediately after the events of Driv3r . So you learn that the arch villain Charles Jericho from Driver 2 and Driv3r as well as Tanner survived. Jericho is then arrested and is to be sentenced at the beginning of the new part. However, he escapes with the prison van with the help of a guard and an accomplice who takes off the escort. Due to an accident while chasing Jericho, Tanner falls into a coma and experiences much of the action only in his mind, which explains SHIFT .
The basic concept approximates the original from 1999 by placing the focus on the driving element and for the first time since the first part it is a pure racing game. The game world remained the same in the form of a big city, as did the main character of the first three parts, John Tanner . The player can therefore no longer leave the vehicle and explore the city on foot, which is why the use of weapons is no longer available. In the same way, pedestrians can no longer be run over, but take themselves to safety with jumps and the like.
A new gameplay element baptized SHIFT was introduced , which enables the player to switch between different vehicles in the game environment and to take control of them. Depending on the progress in the game, the selection frame for this becomes larger and larger. A novelty in the game series is also the implementation of licensed vehicles. More than 120 different cars from real manufacturers have been integrated into Driver: San Francisco . Furthermore, a multiplayer mode was introduced for the first time since Driver 2 . Both offline in the form of split screen and online it is possible to compete against each other in different modes, with the SHIFT feature also playing an important role here .
Driver: Speedboat Paradise
The free-to-play smartphone game was published in December 2014 for iOS and Android , but is currently not available in the German version of the Apple Appstore (as of December 1, 2019). Driver: Speedboat Paradise is a racing game in which you try to become the best speedboat driver in various races . Initially, the player only has one boat to choose from, but there are many options for customizing the boats. If you win races, you get money with which you can buy new boats; a total of over 20 different speedboats are included in the game.
Driver: Renegade
Driver: Renegade (also Driver: Renegade 3D ) is the first title in the series for the Nintendo 3DS console . The developer is Ubisoft and the release took place on September 1, 2011. The action takes place in New York City , the main character is John Tanner.
useful information
- Up to 2007 around 14 million pieces of all games had been sold. The first part sold five million times, the second seven million times. The third game, Driv3r, sold two million units.
- Martin Edmondson is chief developer at Reflections Interactive and was instrumental in the development of the series.
- The main character Tanner of the first three parts as well as the staging of the chase scenes are influenced by the films Driver , Bullitt and French Connection . Other sources of inspiration are Die Blechpiraten (Gone in 60 Seconds, 1974) and Starsky & Hutch .
- The train chase featured in Part One is a nod to the French Connection movie . A train chase has been present in almost every part of the series since then.
- Driv3r was only released in 2004, although the "return of Tanner and Jones" was announced for 2002 in the credits of Driver 2.
- A malicious allusion to the Driver series can be found in the game Grand Theft Auto III , where there is a mission called V-Mann Tanner . In this one you have to murder an undercover cop named Tanner who is "nothing without his car". Here people make fun of the fact that Tanner cannot get out of the car in the first part.
- In return, Driv3r also made an allusion to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City . In some places in the game you can find a man who wears water wings and whose name is reminiscent of the protagonist from GTA Vice City . Atari made fun of the fact that you couldn't swim in GTA until now, ironically you couldn't swim in the successor Driver: Parallel Lines either.
- In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas , the developer Rockstar Driv3r targets . One sequence shows a security guard playing a video game. To this he says with a laugh: “This sucks. I mean, how could Refractions mess up so bad? Tanner, you suck ass! "(Eng." Unbelievable. How could Refractions screw this up like that? Tanner, you are so shit! ").
Web links
- Official Driver - San Francisco Homepage
- Driver series at MobyGames (English)
- Driver Speedboat Paradise at Ubisoft
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heise.de Ubisoft takes over Atari's "Driver"
- ↑ Driver: Vegas Review from IGN ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Driver: LA Undercove Review from IGN ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Uptodown Technologies SL: Driver Speedboat Paradise 1.5.0 for Android - download in German. Accessed December 1, 2019 (German).
- ↑ develop-online.net: IP profile: Driver ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c GEE magazine The Driv3r
