Driver: San Francisco Revisted Mini Review

Developer: Ubisoft Reflections Genre: Racing/Adventure Released: 01/09/2011

There's been a good amount of Driver games, and oddly enough, the only one I've played is Driver 76, a spin-off title for the PSP. Everything I'd seen about Driver: San Francisco was positive, but for one reason or another, I never took to the wheel back in the day. Eventually, I picked up a copy last year, but it wasn't until June that I decided to boot the game up and finally take it for a spin.

Now that I've played through the main story and experienced nearly all of the game's open world, I can say without reservation that Driver: San Francisco is a great game, and one I wish I hadn't slept on for so long.

Driver: San Francisco puts you back in the shoes of John Tanner, as he and his partner work together to stop escaped convict Jericho and his accomplices. Early on, Tanner is involved in an accident, placing him in a coma, with the game playing out in his head. The story remains continually interesting, and the gameplay mechanics enabled by the coma world evolve, elevating the gameplay the more you play.

The game imbues John with a shift ability which sees him able to boost or charge-shunt in any vehicle, but he's also able to leave his body, take a bird's eye view of the world and transport himself into any other vehicle. It's a great gameplay mechanic, and one that never gets old. You're constantly pushed to keep shifting to get the upper hand, whether that be taking cars in opposing lanes and crashing headfirst into opponents, or manipulating buses to turn, blocking off large portions of the road.

The story is solid, and the variety of missions, side activities and dares (Mini challenges) in the open world is a great deal of fun to tackle. So much so, I often found myself getting constantly distracted by the new missions popping up on the map and unlocking more and more new cars in my garage.

---

---

Driver: San Francisco is a fantastic driving game. It took a few hours to adjust to the car handling, but once I got to grips with it and settled into the core gameplay loop, I was hooked. I'd highly recommend it for any driving fan who has or hasn't experienced it before, and I'm fairly certain I'll still be playing it until I've hit 100%.

8.5/10

Shifting Makes Me Feel Good