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Driver:
Parallel Lines, is the latest in an already very successful
series that started back in 1999. We have Driver, the very
first with great car handling brilliant graphics and a Car Chase
Movie Editor, this game was a little limited, with the fact you
couldn’t change car mid-Level, or run people over. Then the
follow-up Driver 2 came out, doing everything the first one
did better without changing the game too much, which is very
accomplished. Then came Driv3r; a massive sequel that
either from bad marketing or, more justifiably, just bad game
design, flopped horribly in critics eyes when put on the shelves,
but, more importantly; not necessarily the consumers. But now you
can banish all thought of that title that plagued the Driver
name, as there’s now a new driver in town; he’s sleek, he’s
smooth and he’s called T.K., aka “The Kid”.
Driver:
Parallel Lines starts by introducing you to this character,
it’s 1978 and T.K.’s recently come to
New York
as an eighteen-year-old wannabe. He started driving people to a from
liquor stores to earn a quick bit of cash, but soon his driving
skills are noticed by the top cats around the area and suddenly
he’s all-in with some very unsavoury people: and the only way out
is to drive faster. Eventually the jobs get too risky for even The
Kid to pull-off without some loss to his chill and in one very
hectic moment, he loses it all - and gets taken to prison for his
crimes. Twenty-eight years  later and our man is back roaming the
streets looking for old friends, old enemies and new jobs.
Now as anyone who has even looked at this game will know that
the entire rock behind the game play in Driver is getaway
driving, so when you start the game the first thing you do is get a
bit of the background story in T.K.’s life. You then see him
pull-up beside a liquor store just as a masked-man carrying a large
amount of cash runs out, he jumps in the passenger side shouts
something about the necessity of speed as you see two cop cars swing
around the corner in behind you. So starts the very essence that
makes Driver: Parallel Lines: driving fast and using every
trick you know to lose the cops trying to make your job hard. And
there’s many tricks you’ll learn just in the process of running
away, like the speedy 180-degree turn, quick parking, doughnuts
round junctions, followed by speeding off in a random direction,
using your knowledge of the alleys to confuse them, and many, many
more.
The game’s set out as a huge Free-Roaming Map, so you can
do anything you like at any point in time, similar to the Grand
Theft Auto series, but in each area you’re in there’ll
always be at least a couple of Missions and a Garage. There’s also
Stunt Spots all around the Map which give you massive bonuses for
completing the jump and collecting the Star over it. However, these
aren’t shown on the Map and act as bonus objectives. On the Map
Screen you can see every item of importance but the bonus
objectives, these are; Safe Houses, Cops (alerted and patrolling),
Objective Vehicles, Garages, self created Waypoint Markers (these
are a godsend for plotting your way around the very confusing New
York City layout) and Mission Objectives.
The Missions are at set points around the Map, there are red
points that signify extra Missions for extra cash and yellow points
for the Story Missions. The extra Missions consist of many unique
driving and skill orientated objectives, from hunting down
debtor’s for loan sharks, winning Street or Circuit races and
“repossessing” cars for people, to shoot-outs and scare
mongering poor officials. Whereas the Story Missions require more
strategic thought and maybe a couple of attempts to complete the
task up to standard. Safe Houses give you place to go to Save your
progress, and Garages are the all-new amazing addition to the
series. Now in many other games similar to this, the Garage is the
place you go to lose your Wanted Level or repair your car, well this
game has taken it ten-steps further; it lets you customise you car.
You can perform engine modifications, brakes, suspension, ride
height, change the base and bonnet colour, add full body
customisations and add nitro, you can Save the car to your Memory
Card and it’ll be in your Garage wherever you take and leave the
car. You can do this to absolutely any car you find in the game,
giving you in time, any car you want with any number of
customisations to take out into the city. There’s also a Re-Locate
Feature taking you to any other Garage on the Map.
Though-out the game you’ll use many different skills to
help you with your illegal tasks, like leaning out of the car window
to shoot at people, hand-to-hand combat and many others, though they
do take time to obtain they make great additions to the overall
gameplay of this title. The driving controls and handling are well
done and add a large amount of realism to the title, as do the
damage effects to the cars, they will actually break down
piece-by-piece if the time and consideration is put in. When running
around the game you can see large amount of people and cars around
you, showing the work put into this title to make it seem like a
true bustling city.
The draw distance is very good for such an expansive game,
though not as impressive as some recent titles such as God Of War
and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, but
with the amount of moving objects around and the very little object
Pop-Up especially when driving at high speeds, it’s more than
adequate for this kind of game. The graphics overall are very good
looking similar to True Crime: New York City and some of the
video sequences are truly spectacular, only for the over
eighteen’s though.
This is a well-made game, although not pushing the boundaries
of genres; there are some great new additions to the gameplay to
make this a game worth looking at simply for what it is. Anyone that
likes to drive will enjoy this game, as will people looking for a
more deeply structured Grand Theft Auto or a less buggy True
Crime: New York City. It’s a kind of game that is just fun to
play, even when you’re stuck on a
Mission
, bored of everything else or even bored of games! Well done
Reflections Studios and ATARI, it’s quite a comeback.
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