Driver: San Francisco

Thought it had been a while since I'd reviewed a racing game, and the release of Driver San Francisco has given me the perfect opportunity; especially since shooter season 2011 is sprinting towards us, ironsights at the ready. Have to say, though, Driver SF was surprisingly engaging, even when you remove the solid core racing. I'll get to that though. Lets start our engines and review this sweet ride.

STORY
Driver San Francisco is set six months after Driv3r, but if you haven't played that title before, don't worry. I haven't picked up a Driver game since the original, and I kept up with the story pretty well.

In summary, Driver: SF begins with Detective John Tanner and his Partner, Tobias Jones as they pursue a criminal named Jericho, who has hijacked the prisoner transport vehicle he was being held in.
During the pursuit, however, Tanner and Jones are hit head on by a truck. Afterwards Tanner finds himself with the ability to possess anyone behind the wheel of a car, which he uses to track down and catch Jericho.

The story, despite its outlandish events, is surprisingly well written. Jones and Tanner are genuinely likeable characters, and while the "shifting" premise may sound crazy, it's been worked into the story in such a way that it almost makes sense. At the end of the day, D:SF feels like Starsky and Hutch, but with some superpowers from Quantum Leap thrown in for good measure. The game has a fun story, and it's woven into the game mechanics more finely than many other games developed lately.

PRESENTATION
Driver: SF is an interesting game in terms of presentation. Visually, it's a mixed bag, with some pretty stunning CG cinematics and fantastic in-game car models; but the in-game human models aren't as stunning.
The visuals are somewhat varied, with city, dirt/offroad and seaside tracks available to speed across; and the colours are all rather vibrant and fresh.

The soundtrack is fairly mediocre, however, with some real gems amongst the bland tracks. Tracks by the Black Keys, the Prodigy and Queens of the Stoneage are only some of the artists who turn the soundtrack from virtual whitenoise, to actually not so bad.
The voice acting is pretty good, and the dialogue sticks within the fun confines of a buddy cop tv show. There's a lot of humour and wit in the script, and instead of coming off sounding like the writers were trying too hard, they lines are really quite funny.

GAMEPLAY
While the high quality story and voice acting tend to set Driver: San Francisco apart from the rest of the grid, it's gameplay maintains the high quality of arcade racing gameplay that we've come to expect from current gen racing titles, while innovating within the genre with one fantastic gimmick.

I was saying before that Driver: SF weaves story and gameplay together like few other games, and part of that is due to the Shift mechanic. After his accident, Tanner gains the ability to leave his body in auto pilot while he takes control of another driver on the road for whatever purpose he so chooses.

This leads to some fantastic side missions, such as helping some asian teens win some street races so they can afford to go to college, or taking control of a learner driver to make his asshole instructor wet himself just for the hell of it.

While providing great reasons to have side missions, the Shift mechanic also allows for new tactics while racing or pursuing criminals. Coming in last? Possess someone in the oncoming lane and drive them into your competition. Need to take down a criminal? Possess a truck with a ramp trailer and park it in the middle of the road, forcing them to go flying off and increasing the likeliness of them crashing.

Take away the shift mechanic, and you still have solid racing mechanics. The cars are fast, and drifting around corners is fun. Smashing into your opponents will always have an amazing cathartic potential, but this is somewhat balanced out by the stress caused by excessive rubber banding. I found that, quite often, my progress in a race wouldn't actually matter until the last few checkpoints. That being said, I've seen much worse cases of this (NFS: Hot Pursuit, I'm looking at you), and it's never really been a deal breaker in my books before.

REPLAYABILITY
This game honestly has enough side races, dares and pursuits to keep any driving game enthusiast entertained for a fairly long time. Alongside that are a buttload of unlockable cars and extra challenges to buy, as well as a fairly good, solid multiplayer functionality.
Funny thing is, though, I'd play Driver: San Francisco all over again simply because the story was lots of fun, and had a few really awesome moments that I'd love to play through again.

OVERVIEW
If you're in the mood for a solid racing game, you could do a lot worse than Driver San Francisco. It's got solid driving mechanics, and amazing range of cars and a fresh new twist on gameplay to help it stand out.
If you want a good story, then Driver San Francisco may just hit the right buttons for you. It's certainly a lot more light hearted than everything else out lately, but is that really a bad thing? The fun tone fit's perfectly with the gameplay and I think it'll be up there in my top 5 for this year.

Hope that helps you decide whether or not to get Driver: San Francisco. I'll be back next Sunday, with either a RAGE or ICO Collection review.
See you next time!!!