My Thoughts on Driver: San Francisco [PC Version]

 

Driver San Francisco is a superhero game on wheels. 

That’s the most apt description I can think of. At first glance it looks like a normal driving game in which you chase criminals and bust them with your car, but after the prologue the game turns into something else, something bigger. Mild spoilers follow, but it’s something the game itself reveals quite early on, and it would be quite pointless talking about Driver: San Francisco without revealing this harmless piece of information. It would be like talking about Spider Man without mentioning his web slinging abilities. Got what I was saying about this being a superhero game?

In Driver: San Francisco we play a cop named John Tanner who possesses extraordinary driving skills and has played an instrumental role in the capture of Charles Jericho, a dangerous gangster. Jericho is able to break out of prison, however, and Tanner takes this personally. He makes a desperate attempt to catch Jericho again but fails, and meets with a fatal accident in the process.

Instead of injuring Tanner, this accident gives him a superpower – he can now switch bodies with other drivers in the city at will. And this is what the game is all about. Tanner puts his mind to work and hatches out a plan to get to Jericho and put him behind bars again.

Too Much on the Side

Of course, being a driving game, Driver: SF has everything you can do with cars - races, stunts, crash courses – too many, perhaps. 65% of the game’s missions are these side missions where you have to race, or break objects, or perform stunts like drifting for 125 meters or performing a 60 meter jump. The whole map is overflowing with these little activities that award you WP – will power, the in-game currency which can be used to buy cars or upgrades. Only 35% is actual story, and when I finished it in roughly 7-8 hours, I was shocked to see that the story was already over. Now all I had to do was complete the side missions.

And I would, if only they were interesting! But they are just repetitive tasks done in different locations, and if this was not discouraging enough, they have little to offer in return. There’s just no motivation for the player to complete the side missions, because the game isn't any more difficult otherwise. The story missions are a breeze, and the more skillful drivers won’t even bat an eyelid completing them. I had to complete a few side missions out of a need to upgrade my ability bar, and was planning to attempt more later on when I felt the need, but before I knew it the story was over! My map was still littered with little blue icons indicating at least a hundred side activities still waiting to be done.

Driver: SF doesn’t make any effort to create the need for the player to attempt the side missions. The most one can do with the Willpower is buy a new garage which in turn unlocks more cars and upgrades, but why bother? The main missions don’t even let you choose your car, so buying new cars and their upgrades is a requirement only if you’re planning to complete all the side missions and 100% the game. Now I have turned completionist for a few games – Far Cry 4 and Batman: Arkham Knight, to name a couple – and spent hours playing even after finishing the main story, because their quests were interesting or offered something worthy in return. Driver: SF does neither, so the completionist within me refuses to wake up to do the same stunts and race opponents over and over again just to get a glance at new car models in the game.

Too Good, Too Little

The premise of the story is interesting and innovative and switching bodies makes for some unique moments. Like there’s a mission where you are watching yourself drive, but through someone else’s body. You also get to drop in on some interesting conversations and this is where the game is at its best. The dialogues are written with just the right touch of humor and wit and though the cutscenes are crammed with them, I never once felt that there was a forced conversation in there.

Although the story is engrossing and colorful, I can’t help but feel that it’s too short. That could be working in its favor, though, as some things are better ended early than extended to outlive their popularity (Either die a hero or...Game of Thrones, anyone?). Switching bodies is cool and all, but the game quickly runs out of things to do with such a mighty power. The missions start feeling a little bit repetitive towards the end, though the fast-paced story keeps us occupied. It seems as though the developers realized that they won’t be able to offer anything more and decided to end the story right there, stuffing whatever activities they’d come up with – racing, stunts, chases - into numerous side missions.

The driving mechanics are good, but could be better. My car sometimes seemed to refuse to back away from some other vehicle I had collided with, as if bound by some magnetic energy. The AI, too, has its fair share of weird behavior and sometimes the patrol cars chasing a criminal with me would try to ram me instead of the bad guy.

Put the 'Car' in 'Carnage'

By this point it must be quite obvious that I didn’t click any screenshots. That is because I didn’t get the opportunity. Driver: SF is a fast game, and you cannot stop even for a split second, unless you are in free roam where I didn’t spend much time. I was too eager to advance the story, and I quite enjoyed it. There’s not much detail to how the city’s designed but hey, this is no Grand Theft Auto, and most of the times your eyes would be on the road instead of the buildings around. Inside the city, walking on the sidewalks and crossing the roads we have pedestrians with an unmatched sixth sense and the quickest reaction time. You cannot kill a pedestrian in this game, no matter what. They always get out of the way. Apart from that you can cause quite a mayhem, smashing bus shelters and benches and streetlamps and anything that comes in your way. You can “put the ‘car’ in ‘carnage’”, to steal a dialogue from the many witty ones in the game. Oh, and while you’re at it, why not catch some thieves and put Charles Jericho behind bars again?