Driver
This is roughly what Grand Theft Auto would look like if it changed perspective and didn't allow you to change cars. It's the same kind of hysterical driving, the main difference is that this isn't as much fun. Especially not in the single player "undercover" campaign where you undertake different missions in four different cities.
The campaign starts off with a big annoyance: before you get to start taking any missions, you have to prove yourself to your "employers" by doing a series of manouvers inside cramped garage and within one of those nice time limits (see below). Not a dream start by any means, I can tell you that ...
The missions are generally quite creative and don't feel too repetitive even though there really are only two sorts; drive from A to B (maybe to C and D as well) or follow/stop another vehicle. It's fine with me, anything that gives an excuse to enjoy the nice car-chase-perfect physics. You can't save during missions, but that's not normally a problem since missions usually are pretty short. Note the word normally. Sometimes several missions follow without interrupts, or one longer mission is split into parts. I don't see an excuse for doing this, when you've made it through a mission once you really don't feel a need to replay it again if you should happen to get stuck on the next one and have to quit without reaching a save chance. I can live with this, but it sure annoys me. The other problem I have is the often used time limit. They're too tight! There's absolutely no fun at all in having one sharp corner or randomly appearing police car ruin the mission, again. Combine the time limits with missions where you're not allowed to reach your destination with cops on your tail and there's no limit to the amount of fun you can have ...
Driver is a Playstation port, which means a bad start point for the graphics before you've even seen them. Repetitive textures and generally featureless enviroments won't blow anyone away, and car details and damage is just plain boring after you've played Carmageddon for more than a few minutes. Still, Driver manages to take a pretty heavy toll on your hardware, I'm not allowed to play in high resolution (1280*960) with both rear view mirror and acceptable speed at the same time. Quake 3 in 1280*1024 on Q3tourney5 with 7 bots runs slower, but not by much ... Not even in 320*240 (nice to be able to choose that mode anyway!) is the game playable with 4*4 antialiasing. Also, the game seems to get speed kicks at times.
Apart from the campaign, there are a bunch of "driving games" which can be a nice diversion. These have different goals, like destroying a car trying to get away or get as far on a trail as possible in a set time. The one I play the most is Survival, where your goal is simply to keep your car in one piece for as long as possible with a horde of cops hot on your tracks. I'd like to get a bit more of a head start though, no fun taking a beating before you get around the first corner ...
Nah, give me more GTA instead!
