Game review: Driver - iPhone / iPod Touch (From Your Local Guardian)

Game review: Driver - iPhone / iPod Touch

11:34am Wednesday 16th December 2009

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Driver is a successful Playstation game from 1999 which has now been squeezed on to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The results are generally impressive.

The first thing of note about the Gameloft release is its size. I’ve not seen a game on this scale on this platform before.

The four cities in the game are vast. You could drive around the virtual versions of Miami, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles for ages without going down the same street twice.

Not only that but they are proper bustling cities with traffic, pedestrians, working traffic lights and police patrols.

The second impressive thing about 70s-inspired Driver is the graphics. This is no simple port of an old PSOne game. Instead the visuals have been given an overhaul to completely freshen up the look, including enhanced texturing and revamped lighting effects.

The game’s App Store blurb describes it as the “most stunning racing game ever created for the iPhone”. I think that is taking it too far as for my money there is at least Real Racing and the 2XL off-road games which look better, but there is no denying Driver does boast impressive visuals.

Audio In the game is quite nicely done too, with three different radio stations you can listen to while driving around.

In Driver you play as a wheelman called Tanner. He is a cop who has gone undercover as a getaway driver to try and crack a crime gang.

His story plays out across 40 missions which take place in the four cities.

The game has a similar vibe to Grand Theft Auto and Car Jack Streets, although in this one you play as a good guy doing bad things instead of simply being a crook through and through.

Another distinction between Driver and other crime/action/driving games is this one has no out-of-car parts. All the action takes place behind the wheel.

Because of this the format of Driver is different from its genre partners in crime.

Here there is no hopping between multiple vehicles during missions. The car you start a task in is the car you’ll finish it in.

If you cause too much damage to your car then the mission is failed and you must go back to the last checkpoint for a redo.

In something like GTA half the fun is in causing as much carnage and chaos on the streets as possible – mowing down poor pedestrians or causing a crash and then running away before your car and others around it explode.

You can’t get away with that sort of behaviour in Driver. Here fast and safe driving is the key to success instead of reckless and dangerous.

You need to employ a skill for driving rather than a love of bloodshed.

That’s not to say Driver should be considered boring – far from it. There is still some high-speed, adrenaline-pumping driving to be done here, and some spectacular crashes to be had.

It’s just that if you want to make much progress in the game you’ll need to be careful with your car and try to avoid attracting the attention of the police.

No matter how cautious you are you will inevitably have the cops on your tail frequently – and be warned, the rozzers are brutal in this game.

There is no politely pulling you over and asking you to “step out of the car, sir”. Oh no, here the long arm of the law has an iron fist. If the fuzz get close enough they will mercilessly ram into your car, often ganging up on you with reinforcements.

On many occasions the police have veered across the road to smash into me head-on. It’s a very primitive and unforgiving form of pursuit.

It is possible to evade the police but this usually only provides brief respite.

The way the cops conduct their take-downs is one of the biggest frustrations in the game because a tangle with the cops will more often than not result in your car sustaining fatal damage sooner or later, thus failing the mission.

It’s not just the obviously criminal activities you’ll be involved in, such as racing away from a bank job or getting a ‘hot’ car across town, which will get the police after you. Many other indiscretions will lead to trouble too, such as breaking the speed limit, going through a red light or mounting the pavement.

These would be easier to avoid if the car handling was a little more robust.

Whichever of the three control methods I’ve used I’ve found the car to be too light and lively. It tends to bounce around the road quite a bit, leading to some unnecessary collisions and some tricky cornering.

Of those three available control methods, I’ve found the virtual d-pad to be by far the easiest to use.

The stick control is too fiddly while the accelerometer method is not nearly as precise or responsive as it needs to be.

As well as the control niggles I’ve also come across some graphical glitches in the game. On one occasion my car landed on its roof in the water and stayed there. Bizarrely I could still drive forwards and backwards but couldn’t get back on to land.

Driver packs in a lot of content in addition to the main story.

By my count there are nine extra modes including a selection of mini games which provide bite-sized nuggets of action, perfect for short play sessions on the go.

Among the mini games is Getaway in which you must race away from the police and Pursuit in which you must chase another car.

In spite of a few shortcomings Driver is still well worth checking out. It has exciting action, vast exploration and excellent value under its bonnet. It’s one of the biggest and boldest games yet seen on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It’s easily recommended to driving game fans whether you played the original version or not.

Verdict: 8 out of 10 – The facelift given to this game does a great job of concealing its age, though signs of wear do occasionally appear. It’s a real accomplishment for such a large-scale game to be on the iPhone/iPod platform and for it to be so enjoyable.

Watch the Driver trailer:

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