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Driver: San Francisco Review (X360)

About.com Rating 4.5 Star Rating
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Driver: San Francisco Review (X360) Ubisoft
The Driver franchise has had a pretty rocky run marred by awful sequels and a severe case of identity crisis. Even the original game, as fondly as it is remembered, wasn't exactly a winner due to it's soul crushing difficulty. More than ten years and several mediocre-to-bad games later, however, the fifth time is finally the charm for Driver. Driver: San Francisco absolutely knocks it out of the park. Great presentation, amazing gameplay, a mountain of content, and a distinct feel and identity make Driver: San Francisco not only the best Driver, but also one of the best driving games on the Xbox 360 period.
Game Details

  • Publisher: Ubisoft
  • Developer: Reflections
  • ESRB Rating: “T" for Teen
  • Genre: Driving
  • Pros: Great presentation; awesome physics; mission variety; tons of vehicles; multiplayer; shift
  • Cons: Incredibly dumb story concept

The weakest part of Driver: San Francisco is definitely the story. We have sort of a love / hate relationship with it. We love the way the concept opens the gameplay, but hate it for being so incredibly stupid. The main gimmick in Driver: San Francisco is that the main character, officer John Tanner, can jump into the body of any other driver on the road to take control of their car. Except, oh wait, he actually can't really do it because he is in a coma and is imagining it all. And even though it isn't real, shouldn't John feel bad for taking over so many people's bodies just to plow them head-on into oncoming traffic, likely killing them? Or why can he jump into any car on the road except the criminals he chases after? If you think about it at all, it is hard to suspend your disbelief. The actual story taking place outside of Tanner's head is a direct sequel to Driv3r (which I remember nothing of even though I reviewed it years ago), and has some interesting elements, but is just as easy to ignore and focus on the good parts of the game.

Gameplay

Ubisoft
And boy are the good parts worth it. Driver: San Francisco is a pure driving game. No walking around on foot or shooting stuff. There are 140 different vehicles ranging from buses and garbage trucks and tractor trailers on up to SUVs, mini vans, luxury cars, sports cars, exotics, tuners, and more. Better yet, they are all officially licensed so you're driving around in Audis, Lamborghinis, Nissans, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, RUF, and many more from many different eras all the way from classic muscle cars to current models.

Each car has a distinct feel to it as well, which makes every mission and every car you jump into feel fresh. The handling model is sort of a mix of arcade and realism, with some Hollywood car chase physics thrown in. You slide around corners and fishtail just like you see in classic car flicks, which takes some getting used to, but after a couple of missions you wouldn't want it any other way. You are always just on the edge of losing control, but somehow never actually feel like you are fighting the handling. Each car feels like it should. Muscle cars are heavy. Imports and exotics are lighter. A garbage truck feels like a garbage truck. And a McLaren F1 feels like a McLaren F1. In my mind, the handling and overall feel of the game is pretty well perfect.

During gameplay, you have the ability to zoom far out above the city to select whichever car you want to jump into or to select the next mission you want to do. It really is great because it lets you jump to any car or any mission without having to drive around or fiddle with a menu.

Missions

The missions are surprisingly varied. There are races which include time trials, checkpoint races, open street races where you find your own path, and even rally races on dirt roads. You'll also find police missions that have you chasing criminals, stopping street races. Some missions play out like the movie "Speed" where you have to stay above a certain speed. You also have to drive underneath semi trucks like in "The Fast and the Furious" to disarm bombs. There are also some bonus missions that let you re-create famous scenes from classic car chase flicks like "Bullit" (complete with a green Volkswagen on every corner), which are very cool. There are hundreds of missions and events to take on in the 15 or so hour long single-player campaign (it will be shorter if you only do the minimum required story missions, but what is the fun in that?) so there is a ton to do here. And even though you are just driving, the mission objectives are different enough, and the cars you have to use feel different enough, that it doesn't ever really feel repetitive. The also isn't much of a huge difficulty spike, either, at least, not until the very last mission or so, so you don't really get too frustrated. The mission requirements are usually pretty fair, and many don't even have time limits. You might have to hit the traffic just right for some missions to be easier, but it never feels unfair.

Ubisoft
Multiplayer

There is also splitscreen and online multiplayer as well. There are several different event types, from races to cat-and-mouse games, and the ability to shift into any car on the road (though there are limits to the shift ability in multiplayer) really makes these tried-and-true game types feel fresh and new. Multiplayer is well worth playing.

Graphics

Visually, Driver: San Francisco is a great looking game. The cars are very detailed and smash up quite nicely. The city also looks great. Even with dozens of cars onscreen and pedestrians (which have a knack for jumping out of your way and never getting hit) the framerate in single-player never drops. There are some graphical hiccups when you drive faster cars since you can actually drive faster than the game can load the textures on the cars (so you see blocky cars suddenly snap into focus in front of you), but overall the game looks fantastic. The human character models in cutscenes and facial animations are also very nice.

Sound

The sound is great as well. Solid voice acting. Decent "cop show" music. And absolutely incredible car sounds.

Bottom Line

Driver: San Francisco is an amazing game. The gameplay is near-perfect, the presentation is great, and there is enough content here to keep you busy for quite a while. We highly recommend it for a purchase if you are a fan of driving games or classic car chase movies. This is one of the best driving games on Xbox 360.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.

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