Driver
Driver is one of the first games I ever played. I remember that I was watching TV and there was a TV Show featuring Driver.
Since that moment, I wanted it. Friend and I used to buy gaming magazines and one day, there was a Driver headline. We used to watch the images day and night. After a few days he managed to get a Driver demo. Although it just featured Getaway mini-game, we played it 24/7.
Imagine, how happy we were when we got our hands on the full version. My Play Station worked day and night while I was playing this magnificent game. At first I played Take a Ride, and later, when I developed some driving skills, I started the missions (Undercover mod).
OK, here is a short summary of the story.
You're Tanner, an undercover cop whose mission is to stop a mobster called Castaldi. In order to do this you have to prove yourself as a Wheelman.
Undercover starts in Miami, in a public garage where you have to do different driving "moves" like slalom between poles, circle around the garage, 180° turn and more. After you have proven yourself as a driver, the actual first mission starts. There you have to provide a getaway for a few bank robbers who are very annoying because they just yell  "Lose the tail Man". The rest of the missions include driving from point A to point B, clearing checkpoints, chasing other cars, and a very interesting one, braking the windows on local restaurants. You can choose different missions by selecting them from your answering machine. The missions that are important for the storyline have to be played and you can't choose to play others instead of them.
After the missions in Miami, you go to San Francisco. Missions in San Francisco are very similar to the ones in Miami.
Los Angeles comes next. All missions in LA are played at night. New York is the latest city. The last mission in the game depends more on luck than on your driving skills. Mission is like the survivor mini-game. You have to evade both FBI and NYPD units while you're trying to save he president.
Once you've finished with the undercover mode, you can have a lot of fun with the mini games and Take a Ride mod. My favorite was Take a Ride in Miami during the night. I knew (and I still know) every street and turn in that city. I could run away from cops for more than 25min without scratching my car.

Driver proves that the game doesn't have to have great graphics to be a good game. There's more than the state of the art graphics efects. I'm not saying that Driver had bad graphics. It actually had amazing graphic effects for it's time.
Most new games mostly rely on the visual effects than on other aspects of the game. A good story and original story and a great soundtrack are some of the reasons why I love this game so much.

Review by: Mario User Rating: 4/5
Reads: 218
Added on Oct, 19th 2007 04:00 PM (16:00)