The latest instalment sees Tanner working undercover to infiltrate a Miami-based car theft ring that is attempting to steal 40 cars and then ship them out of the country to an unknown buyer. The main bulk of the missions are centred on finding out who is stealing the cars and also where they are headed to next. You will start out in the city of Miami where the great chase for the thieves will begin before you are whisked away to Nice in France for some frantic car chases through the quaint streets and then on to Istanbul to finally track down the leader of the ring. In between the missions, the storyline will keep you going and carry you through by the use of pre-rendered cut scenes. These movie clips are amazing and stunning to the eye, giving you the realistic feel of being sucked into the game and working hard to stop the deal from going down. All in all, along with the music and action of these scenes, they are the best parts of DRIV3R.

Even though there are three largely detailed cities that you chase around in, the game still follows a very structured and linear mode; sending you on mission after mission to get to the bottom of the story. All of the missions are very straightforward and you are given clear objectives to complete, like escorting people to certain destinations, moving cars from one place to another or sitting in the back of a van and blowing up every car that follows you. Always at the end of each mission there is the option to save your game and then move on to continue with the mad chase. In many ways the missions are exciting at the time but as you get further into the game, they slightly vary in the different cities and it still seems to lack the same lust for shoot outs and blood as other games of its type do. As far as the game play goes, there is only a short time throughout the game that you actually drive compared to the amount of missions where you travel on foot from one place or another to complete certain tasks. The disappointing side to this is that the game lacks a lot of action when you are on foot and even though the added use of guns has been added it still does not give you a frantic buzz when all hell brakes lose. The controls of movement of very stiff and the way Tanner walks look as though he is in constant pain rather than full of killing spree joy. As in many games, the controls are simple and the left stick strafes whilst the right steers. Along with being able to jump only a little way off of the ground and roll around in an action man like way, you also have the ability to shoot from a varied range of guns, from handguns to machine guns and shotguns to grenade launchers. Even though Tanner seems to be the serious and stiff type, the controls are near enough exactly that, where his movements and aiming is very stuttered and jolted. When you actually do get the chance to let some bullets fly and pump some lead into your enemies, it is not too exciting and it merely consists of running up to the bad guys and pulling the trigger first. Throughout the game, if you search well enough, there is a generous supply of health around the cities to use if you are a little down but more than likely you will not need to use them too often.

There is less of in car action but it is more exciting than when on foot. A map of the city if placed within the bottom right corner and it is very clear and easy to use, with different coloured markers to show you where you are and where you need to be heading next. With most mission, they are usually time limited or you need to be quick on your feet to complete them so there is not much opportunity to take at tour of any of the cities or stop at a quiet French café for a spot of tea and a baguette if you are tired. Playing on the very soul of the game, which has been present since the very first Driver, the car chases are very much exaggerated with cars flying past you at insane speed and cop cars swerving this way and that to cut you off at every street corner. Similar stunts from being smashed into the side of a building and flying high up into the air or driving full speed round a tight corner to hear your tyres screech. Although perhaps in Driver 2 when driving the car was very much the main aim of the game and you could perform impressive manoeuvres to out run cars---or catch up to them---DRIV3R lacks that excitement. With the controls ‘having a mind of its own’ you can sometimes drive along at a fast pace with ease or clip the corner of a building and barrel roll to the other side of town before you stop and can carry on with the mission, which is if you haven’t failed by crashing. Also, when speeding down the streets at a fast pace, there are some things that can you drive through with ease and not even take a moments thought at, whilst others, usually small and completely obscure obstacles, will send your car rolling once again and force you to get back onto the road and continue with the mission. The most amusing of crashes is when your car decides to become stuck in a wall or impaled by a tree or a lamppost leaving you at a complete stop and unable to continue with the game.What seems to be another big problem is the game’s AI, which is more or less an insult to the intelligence of the gamer. Not only are the cops very slow when they are chasing you by foot and will only shoot at you if you more or less stand next to them, but they are not any smarter when driving. If you were to just stand on the other side of a guardrail, two or three cars would continue to try and ram through it, even though it is impossible to do. Along with the main story mode, which would take the average gamer around 12 hours to complete, there are also some additional modes to the game but do not add much. There is the peaceful ‘take a ride’ mode where you can travel around any one of the three cities at a pleasurable pace. There are also other modes such as mini missions like chasing cars in the quickest time or seeing how long you can last against the crash happy police. Like in the first and second too, you can do replays of your mad driving stunts from different views, editing bits and pieces and so on.

The downside to DRIV3R as a whole is the poor coding of the game, which results in many bugs and glitches that either freeze the game entirely, slow it down or where you end up being permanently attached to a wall. Many of the graphics are very jaggy, such as the cars and even the model of Tanner himself. Another of the games problems, which in some cases is amusing depending on your mentality, is pop-up. In some cases the distance at which they appear can vary depending on the object. Lampposts and trees will pop-up quickly upon the horizon whilst cars will all of a sudden be seen coming into view as they drive down the road towards you. Of course this is not as exaggerated as it sounds but they appear at around the equivalent of 60 feet or so. When you are driving along at a high speed, there are some times some close calls but the reaction time is just enough for you to move out of the way before ploughing into the back or front of an oncoming vehicle. In very rare cases as car will pop-up out of nowhere, causing you to hit into them and be thrown off of your course and sometimes cost you the mission. This does not just occur with cars either but other objects such as ramps and barriers too. Not only does it hinder you greatly when you need to see objects in time to complete a mission in terms of graphics but it also starts to dampen the game play too and cause you to become very frustrated.

If you thought that they were the only problems in terms of graphics then think again. Not only do the textures of certain objects look rough and brake apart at some points but also the frame rate of the game itself is also very jumpy. Also when in motion, the graphics also seem to glitch and things such as lighting begins to be effected. Putting that aside and looking at the actual models of the game, the cars are pretty much in good shape and likeness to their actual models, seeming realistic when driving and stationary. The most fun part that comes with cars, are the explosions and these seem to be done well too. In comparison to other games though, there needs to be a lot of fine tuning done to this game before it can match up to any others in terms of graphics.

An area of games that is sometimes overlooked is the sound. DRIV3R offers a good quality of sound with pumping gunshots, booming explosions and the power roar of the engines as you push them past the speed limit. In some respects there are faults, such as the more realistic sounds of cars that are near to shorting out, in the game they merely stop, without any sort of spluttering sound of defeat. The gunfire, although quite good, does not carry much of an impact when amongst a gun battle, which also hinders the on foot experience to a certain point. The voices of the characters themselves, whilst good, especially Michael Madsen who voices Tanner, with his gruff voice that suits the under cover cop well, are of good quality but the voice acting itself is very stiff and not fluent. Also in terms of the characters, Michelle Rodriguez is also a little wooden as Calita. Other voices in the game include Mickey Rourke, Iggy pop and Ving Rhames, who plays your partner in the game and narrates most of the scenes. The music throughout the stunning cut scenes fit in well and enhance the action like story line that it follows, giving it a very cinematic feel.

DRIV3R should not have been released in such poor condition in terms of graphics and game play and has no chance of standing up against the quality of the games market today. The game itself being exciting only at very rare moments and being a dulled down most of the time when in car or on foot, it is a wonder how the game has actually been released in such a condition and why companies such as Sony have allowed it to do so. In simple terms, the game has many problems that should have been sorted before its release and coupled together with its slow action, it makes a game that is not worth the credit it is given. TR