DRIV3R Preview

2003 was clearly an interesting year for us gamers. (I would strongly disagree. - 2Lions) While FPS, RPG, and RTS titles flooded the scene, we also saw some excellent additions to the racing genre. 2004 promises to bring even more top-notch racers such as Colin McRae 4, GTA 5 (working title), and, of course, DRIV3R. Although each of these franchises boasts a specific type of gameplay, their previous incarnations contributed to the evolution of racing games by delivering realistic damage and first-rate physics. You have to admit there's nothing quite as liberating as being able to bash cars around in a video game. (Ed. - Hear, hear!) All of the aforementioned games will allow you to do just that and much more.

Those of you who remember the first two Driver games, will surely respond to the name Reflections Interactive; creators of Destruction Derby, Destruction Derby 2, Driver, and Stuntman. Staying true to their traditional car-wrecking racers, the team at Reflections involved themselves in a three-year effort to bring the third installment in the Driver series to life - now colorfully referred to as DRIV3R. In the past few years both Atari and Reflections revealed precious little about the story, missions, and other aspects of the game. Recently though, a few details emerged, along with brand new media, shedding some light on the subject. The game hits stores in Spring 2004 for Xbox and PS2 platforms (with a PC version following soon after that). Apparently, the game is bigger than we were lead to believe and there's still a long way to go.

In DRIV3R you'll be following the story of an undercover cop, named Tanner, whose main objective is to infiltrate a global car smuggling ring, lead by a sexy lass named Calita. Her group is responsible for transporting cars illegally from the US, across Europe, and then all the way to Russia. Naturally, it will be your job to put a stop to this scheme. It might interest you to know that chief in-game characters will be voiced by a talented Hollywood cast, including Michael Madsen (Kill Bill, Donnie Brasco, Reservoir Dogs), Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible series, Pulp Fiction, Con Air), Mickey Rourke (Once Upon a Time in Mexico, The Thin Red Line, 9 1/2 Weeks), and Michelle Rodriguez (S.W.A.T., The Fast and the Furious, Blue Crush).

Similarly to Rockstar's top-seller GTA: Vice City, DRIV3R puts players through some intense car chases and shootouts, as they pursue gangsters, hijack cars, bully witnesses, and so on. Bear in mind, that when compared to GTA, DRIV3R involves a lot more... well, driving. Approximately 70% of the game is focused on driving, with about 30% left for walking and shooting. The segments of the game in which your character travels on foot will allow you to use firearms such as Mac-10s, Berettas, and the like. Of course, there will be a number of modes available in the game. The so-called Undercover mode immerses you deep into a gripping storyline through a series of missions performed by the game's key character, Tanner. Also, you'll be able to prove your driving skills in a mode called Take a Ride - this is sort of a free-roam mode where players may drive to any part of the city and do just about anything they like. The development team recently promised to spice things up with a few mini games, which include stuff like quick races, checkpoint races, and so on. And, last but not least, there's the Survival mode, which leaves players to tackle with four police cars.

DRIV3R consists of several wide-open urban districts for gamers to drive through. You'll witness photo-realistic recreations of Miami (Florida), Nice (France), and Istanbul (Turkey). Yep, this definitely means that we'll be visiting a smaller number of cities than in other Driver games. The good news is that each city is considerably larger than those we've witnessed in previous installments. Not to mention that the programmers and level designers worked hard to fit in over 31,000 buildings, covering 30 square miles per city (which adds up to 153.1 linear miles of road). Such meticulously designed city zones will likely occupy players for many long hours. There's also an authentic feel to it all, since the designers used genuine maps, effectively matching every street corner to those in real-life locations. Apart from ensuring a photo-realistic in game ambiance, Reflections also made a noteworthy effort to maintain a strong level of interactivity. Once you hit the streets, your vehicle will be able thrust aside just about anything that stands in its way, from trash cans, crates, chairs, tables and of course, the occasional snooty, uppity Frenchman. (Ed. - We apologize to our French readers, those responsible have been sacked.)

Roaming through various inner-city districts, you will have access to approximately 70 different drivable vehicles, scoping from ordinary cars and vans to massive trucks, swift boats, speedy motorcycles, and so forth. According to several recent reports on the game, the developers won't be licensing any exceptionally flashy automobile brands a la Need for Speed. Still, the media released thus far, displayed the Lamborghini, Jaguar, and what looks like a Citroen model. Atari also unleashed a game trailer showing off a colossal 18-wheel truck in action, riding through the streets at high speed. Such a neat variety of vehicles denotes well-balanced controls, which we hope the development team will tweak properly for both PC and console versions.

To power this humongous project, Reflections decided to rely on an enhanced version of their in-house technology formerly exploited for the console title, Stuntman. The upgrades made to this technology clearly instituted a first-rate damage engine, allowing for a praiseworthy range of effects during gameplay. The damage engine was tweaked up to the point where you can smash any car, until it looks like squished up piece of chewing gum. After too many collisions, almost every part of your vehicle will either change shape or simply fall off. Each car was thoroughly modeled with enough polys and reflections to make it look as convincing as possible. Each area is packed with a vast number of AI-controlled vehicles. Various urban settings are portrayed throughout the game with dense traffic and unique true-to-life landscapes. Let's hope and pray they optimize the engine code well enough to void unwelcome frame-rate issues. Unlike GTA: Vice City, DRIV3R seems to boast more realistic details in the backdrop as well as richer texture patterns, both on cars and building models. Furthermore, the game's snazzy-looking explosions and superb particle effects, with car parts flying all over the place after collisions, promise to create an intense atmosphere worthy of Hollywood flicks.

Well kids, that's about all the info we have for you so far. Atari and Reflections still refuse to discuss if there will be any differences between the PC and console versions in terms of content, so you'll have to wait a bit longer to know more about that. Since the game is mostly single-player oriented, we don't expect any exceptional multiplayer moments, aside from the possible split-screen mode for consoles (purely an assumption though on our part). Anyhow, judging from the impressive visuals and promising gameplay, DRIV3R will most likely develop into one of the most wanted driving games in the following year.