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I loved Driver1. Thought they were excellent. This should be a game about hollywood car chases, adrenalin pumping car chases. But instead it's a game about a handful of boring driving sequences, walking like a faulty robot, shooting like a blind man, and for some reason driving a boat from point A to B. Why they bothered with the boat bits, I really don't know. Or the walking bits for that matter. If this game was half as long, and didn't have walking or boat bits, it'd be sooo much better and get many many better reviews, I guarantee. This game is 50% driving (not very exciting driving) and 50% other crap, like walking and shooting, badly.
I don't hate this game, but I wanted to love this game. I looked forward to this game more than any other for years, and really didn't want to beleive all the bad reviews I saw a couple of days before I bought it. I wanted to like this game, and for 5 minutes of playing I thought "This ain't so bad, it'll grow on me, no where near as bad as all the reviews say it is..." But after 10 minutes, I was just plain bored and very gutted that this game that had so many expectations. It's also very frustrating, not because it's difficult, but because it's just all so badly done, from the crappy walking engine, stupid shooting implementation, invisible walls to crash into, the inability to drive through some objects like tiny bushes or small thin wood walls etc. Great physics, yeah, right. It sooo didn't live up to any of it's promises it made or any of it's hyped up expectations of excellent physics and uber realism. It didn't live up to any of them. Buy Driver (the first one) for your PC and you'll love it, even today. Driver3 just doesn't compare. Well, maybe it does actually, but onyl on the fact that it feels like nothing changed since the first game 5 years ago. God knows why this game took so long to come out - it's just not very good. Not utter crap, just not very good and certainly not worth buying. Rent it for a day, see what I'm talking abaout.
Gameplay:
The story's not bad at all, and the actors are pretty impressive for a game, but nothing new. We've had hollywood actors voicing games for ages now. It's just not special any more.
For a game called driver, there's far too much walking, and boats. The walking control and implementation is plain rubbish, the boats just boring. Try running around and shooting a bit and you'll just end up annoyed that it's soooo bad. The driving is pretty fun for a bit, and quite well done, but nothign changed since driver1 or driver2 at all. It's excactly the same - physics, crashes, everything. The main bad point about driving is that the city's aren't exciting. At all. Not many hills, lots of empty roads, no excitement. It's just too easy and not a challence. BORING after 10 minutes. Shame really, since it could have been so damn coo..
Graphics:
I've got the PS2 version. Nothing special at all. It's like a PS2 game was 3 or 4 years ago, but maybe a bit worse and blocky. The PC version had equal graphics 5 years ago. OK, maybe not quite that bad I admit, but you're left thinking what Atari and Reflections have spent all their time on, cos it sure isn't the graphics. Or the physics engine for that matter. Or the sound, or tweaking the game play. etc..
Sound:
Have I mentioned Driver1 or 2 at any point? Yes? OK, I'll do it again. Same sound effects. Again, nothing special, but I guess they work. The music just bored me, but that's just personal taste. You may love it, but for me it just didn't fit the game's supposedly movie like f