Preview: Driver: San Francisco - Single Player Demo

It looks like the Driver series is getting that much needed reboot and Ubisoft believe that they can bring it back to its former glory.

Recently a demo for the new game Driver San Francisco was released on PSN and XBLA so I decided to once again get back in the driving seat and take this franchise for another spin.

Right so the demo allows you to play through three single player missions, Prove it, Team Colours and Escapist and each test your driving skills in different ways. In terms of the actual driving, the game seems to be able to do this pretty fluidly depending on the car you’re using so getting around corners may not be as easy as you think.

Mission Prove it
So the 1st mission requires you to convince your partner, Jones that you have this kind of special power which allows you to jump into the body of any person you want. What’s good about this is that you get to test out this power against a driver known as “Jackass”, a rude person who just happens to speed past you.

I believe I can fly!!

The mission ends with you convincing your partner through a series of mini tasks such as making Jackass jump off a car transporter or hooking up his car to a tow truck.



This mission in particular is relatively easy as shifting between cars is just at the press of a button. The game changes into a slow mode where you can use the reticule to pick what car you would like to shift to and the best part is that it doesn’t matter how far away that actual vehicle is.

For a beginning mission, it’s a good taster into how the shifting mechanic can be used to your advantage during gameplay or to just totally mess around with all the other cars out there.

Team Colours
In this mission, your goal is to get both grey cars across the finish line in 1st and 2nd place by shifting between the two at the right moments. I thought the shift mechanic was used perfectly here and saw clearly how it could be used more heavily in aiding you during a more critical time such using another car to catch the attention of the pursuing cops.

There's no "I" in team.

I could see how this could be used later on at a higher difficulty such as switching between a mission on either side of the city but what they mustn’t do is be repetitive with it and drag out the experience.



Escapist
Jericho has once again slipped through Tanner’s grasp and now Tanner’s last hope of finding him is to infiltrate his organisation by using the shift ability to take control of a wannabe driver called Ordell and use him to climb up the ranks.

This mission is pretty standard when it comes to what you have to do, but the cops this time around won’t let you off so easily. The point of the mission is to head for the place where Ordell is waiting, pick up his passenger and drop him off at the designated place while having 6 cop cars on your tail. A very thrilling chase indeed and I was glad to see that the difficulty is also high so don’t expect to get away by simply boosting off, you’re going to have to use every turn/reversals you can think off but once you escape, it’s a pretty good feeling.

This angle makes the action look even cooler!

Driver: San Francisco looks to be a game worth purchasing, the gameplay seems engaging and the dialogue and characters seem full of energy making it a pretty entertaining piece. Ok so far the Single Player looks pretty solid and with a Multiplayer demo coming out soon; we’ll just have to see if that end can be kept up as well.