I remember playing the original Driver and having a ball – I was an undercover cop named Tanner, I tore around city streets, and I never got out of my car. It was great. The subsequent Driver games? Not so great – they added the ability to run around, changed characters, and the gameplay suffered.
Driver 5 is a return to the simple days of the franchise… except that the main character is in a coma and all of this is happening in his head and you can spiritually leap into other bodies.
This game opens up a few months from where Driver 3 left off. If you need a refresher, that game ended with Tanner's archnemesis Jericho shooting him. When Driver 5 picks up, Tanner's in a coma, and that's where this game is going to take place – you're going to need to complete a ton of missions to help Tanner wake up and save the day.
I only got a brief taste of the gameplay in Driver 5, but you're going to be in cars the whole time, and it seems like it's going for the classic feel. Set in San Francisco, Driver 5 has you rushing through streets, smashing through bus stops, and zooming past California landmarks. Although there are San Francisco hallmarks such as the Bay Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid are there, this isn't going to be a building for building recreation. Look for the trademark hills, but don't try to find the IGN office.
While the city might not be uber-real, the cars are. Driver 5 is going to have more than 100 real rides in the game – like the Dodge Challenger -- for you to jump in and out of.
Whoa, whoa, whoa – I know I said this whole game takes place in-car, so you might be wondering how you're able to get into other rides. See, one of Tanner's coma powers is "shifting," the ability to instantaneously leap into other rides. During my demo, Tanner was speeding down the street and wanted to go in the opposite direction. Rather than jerk the e-brake and spin into the other lane, Tanner just chose an oncoming ride and his consciousness leapt into it.
If you want an actual mission in someone else's body, you can hop into the world map and zoom all the way out. This'll give you a great aerial view of San Francisco, but then faces are going to start popping up similar to Professor X's mutant machine in the X-Men movies. These talking heads represent missions for you to take. While I was watching, Tanner jumped into the life of a cop pursuing a suspect. The player needed to slam into the bad guy and drive him off the road. When the player spun out and lost control, he just jumped to another cop in pursuit rather than trying to turn around and catch up. Shifting is also going to be part of Driver 5's eight-player multiplayer.
You can play Driver 5 in first-person or third-person perspective, the car you're pursuing leaves a trail via its taillights, and just like the classic games, you can't run down pedestrians. This heady racer is set for a fall release, and Ubisoft says that there's going to be a clear goal as to why all of this in-coma stuff matters. Until then, we'll just have to dream about what it all means.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/109/1096973p1.html
