The late-90s saw the birth of one of the most dominant genres in video gaming history – the open-world action game. A genre that would, for a period, be called ‘GTA-clones’ by lazy gaming journalists bereft of ideas on what to call this booming style. However, it was not Grand Theft Auto that would birth the genre on PlayStation. Grand Theft Auto III was still two years away, and GTA was a strictly top-down 2D affair when Driver hit shelves in 1999.
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Driver, or Driver: You are the Wheelman in North America, was nothing short of revolutionary at the time. The game offered stunning open cities to explore in a highly cinematic experience that was drenched in film nods. However, the series has been largely forgotten save for Driv3r. And Driv3r is remembered for all the wrong reasons.
TechStomper pulls a reverse 180 and floors it back to the 90s to see if Driver still holds up. If so, why. If not, why not. We’ll also discuss who would be most likely enjoy this pioneering Reflections’ title some 25 years later.
Driven to Success
Driver was a bit of a shock to gamers in 1999, few could have imagined in 1995 that the PlayStation could deliver drivable cities inside its paltry RAM. Reflections’ solution was to stream assets straight from the disc as players travelled the maps. This was the same technique that GTA III and its followers would take to the next level from 2001 on.
The hype for Driver before release was huge as gamers yearned to cruise these revolutionary worlds. The nods to car chase cinema of the 60s and 70s, and the game’s replay editor also enticed the public.
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Driver released to positive reviews and sold extremely well, ending up as one of the 30 bestselling games for PS1. Reviewers were blown away by the size of the cities, the weighty handling models, and the atmosphere created with such limited computational power.
Tanner, the Maverick
In Driver, you play as John Tanner, a rookie cop. Tanner was previously a racing driver until an accident ended his track career. At the beginning of Driver, Tanner is sent deep undercover to infiltrate a crime syndicate by posing as a getaway driver.
Tanner is asked to turn in his badge, as he will be asked to do some spicier crimes than your average undercover cop would normally do. It’s a fittingly popcorn plot for a game that leans so heavily on its cinematic influences.
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It’s also a strong set-up for the ludicrous places that the game takes you. Notably, Tanner is a mostly boring protagonist, a perfect foil for the cast of charismatic weirdoes you meet in Driver.
Mission of Choice
Driver offers the players a choice of missions at certain junctures during the ‘Undercover’ main campaign. You pick your mission using an answering machine that you find in the various dingy motel rooms that function as the game’s campaign menu. The atmosphere within the game, and within Tanner’s various abodes is excellent.
You feel as if the game resides in the grimy crime-ridden days of 1970s neo-noir cinema. The in-engine establishing shots for each mission are also well directed. However, the pre-rendered cutscenes which carry the meat of story are poor. The FMVs are grainy and nearly inaudible at times.
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The voice acting, dialogue and direction of the pre-rendered cutscenes are dodgy at best, inexplicable at worst. But, it must be said that the simple story is still easy to follow. You’ll always know why you are following X, or dropping off Y to Z.
The Driver and Bullitt
Reviewers and the gaming public alike were impressed with the atmosphere and cinematic vibe in 1999. The cities were presented in a run-down state, echoing the grimy urban settings of many 1960/s70s cinema verité and neo-noir films. There are, however, two films in particular that serve Driver with its greatest, and most obvious, influences.
The Driver and Bullitt are cherished movies of the genre. Both feature Hollywood A-list leading men playing second billing to gorgeous cars. And, both leading men play ace drivers with the cityscapes serving as vehicular playgrounds for the directors to choreograph car chase scenes that have entered the realm of celluloid immortality. Driver nails the look of the films and TV of the 1970s. The colour grading, the saturation, and the camera angles used in-engine are all note-perfect.
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And Driver captures the groaning and growling machines of these films perfectly. They turn like oil-tankers at speed, but if you give the brakes a little tap and give the wheel a little counter-steer, you will enter a tricky but potentially rewarding drift.
The basic game-loop still stands as excellent in 2024. The feeling of nailing a corner is intoxicating, and there is remarkable depth to the handling. The replay feature, revolutionary in 1999, is still fun to play with after a particularly tight mission. In fact, the replay feature was arguably way ahead of its time.
Imagine uploading your bespoke cinematic replay to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Imagine TikToks or YouTube Shorts of the best hubcap launches. Driver and its user-generated content would have been in its element in the 2020s.
Open-World Novelty
Driver featues four US cities around which to ‘Take a Ride’, or partake in some undercover crime. Each features its own style of architecture and infrastructure, each is peppered with world-famous landmarks. New York, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles are all recognisable within a few seconds of driving around.
While the missions that exploit each city vary in quality and appropriateness, you get a real sense of being in these fictionalised versions of each. And this was impressive in 1999, and retains some of that novelty, even in 2024.
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The maps are largely dioramas, however. There is practically nothing to interact with, much of the game’s roadside furniture and fittings are solid. Rather than sweeping through lampposts or trees, you will come to a complete stop, and probably go a long way to wrecking your car.
The draw distance is also very poor. While you get a sense of what city you are in, it can be difficult to tell where exactly you are in that particular city. At high speeds, the draw distance can cause issues seeing, and then gauging, your turns. This is somewhat negated by the fact that all streets and road are laid out in a perfect grid, and all turns are 90-degrees.
Driving San Francisco, New York, Miami and Los Angeles
The 90-degree limitation isn’t a huge issue. The game’s driving engine seems to enjoy these right-angled corners. Once mastered, you’ll find taking these turns to be graceful. You’ll quickly find the right speed at which to begin your slide, as well as the right amount of counter steer to apply and when to apply it.
This learning curve, pun unavoidable, is helped by magnificent feedback. Visual and sound effects for your car as you wrestle around the cities are impeccable. Even in 2024, the car’s lurch, lean and screech are obvious, and match the expected actions perfectly. For those coming to the game for the first time, the controls will still become second nature in short order.
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The handling is a combination of predictability and the perfect amount of responsiveness. Cars from the era had soft suspensions with tons of body roll in the turn, they tended to respond somewhat slowly to inputs, especially slight rotations of the wheel. And Driver captures this to a tee, the cars feel like the muscular and unrefined vehicles that they mimic.
The difference in city layouts offers some variety to the driving mechanics, some areas are cramped, some are open and raking. San Francisco, with its steep elevation changes, can feel like a different game as you struggle to keep four wheels on the road during the heat of the chase.
Artificial Intelligence
Part of the trick in presenting a cityscape in video games is programming other people. Be it cars or pedestrians, these artifices of life are necessary. In 1999, Driver‘s traffic and pedestrians did the job effectively. Other cars change lanes, indicate and turn off, they (sometimes) try to avoid you as you careen into view of their rear-view mirror.
In 2024, the curtain has been somewhat pulled back on Driver‘s living city representation. Other motorists simply pop into the rendered area, carry out a few procedurally generated instructions, then disappear once you move far enough away. Similarly, pedestrians simply exist for a few seconds to jump unconvincingly out of harm’s way.
It’s much harder for a gamer in 2024 to be immersed in the simple AI of Driver‘s cities. However, it has less of an effect on gameplay that you might imagine. Once you get past the artificiality of the life on show, you are rarely affected by the poor AI drivers. You feel like it’s your job to avoid the rubes, and failure to do so feels like it’s your fault.
Police Driver
The police AI is less ignorable in 2024. The cops of Driver are maniacs who will stop at nothing to ram your vehicle. They never pull you over. Instead, as soon as you have a sliver on your Wanted meter, any cop cars that see you will launch into an immediate death chase.
Like other traffic, these spawn in at the edge of the rendered area. And this sometimes gives you no time to react and avoid the law. This is particularly infuriating when you need to arrive at your goal without cops chasing you. You’ll be on a tight timer, just a block from the end of the mission only for a cop car to spawn in in front of you.
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If you are lucky, you won’t have any more cops spawn in right in front of you, and you might have time to get back to the goal. If you aren’t so lucky, you will be starting that mission again through no real fault of your own.
Driver‘s difficulty is high in places with the very best of luck in how cops spawn in. The random feel of the police car spawns, coupled with how often it derails your progress, can wear on the player. There are plenty of moments where a player in 2024 will feel robbed, and consider playing something else.
Mission Eventually Accomplished
The missions of Driver do a great job of teasing challenge and fun from the excellent driving engine. There are missions that, thanks to the insane cop AI, are far more challenging than fun. But, mostly, the game presents easy to understand, hard to achieve, goals that bring you across the cities, showing off landmarks and drivable features as you go.
In 1999, the selection and variety of objectives was somewhat fresh when combined with the open nature of the maps. In 2024, the fact that you can’t get out of your car keeps an obvious straitjacket on what kinds of missions you are offered.
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However, there is still enough variety and creativity around objectives that Driver encourages long play sessions. You’ll find yourself in a groove at times, faultlessly finishing mission after mission, enjoying the ride. Driver often has a hypnotic quality, which is a testament to how the controls can be absorbed by the player until they are automatic.
Not a Tutorial
It’s impossible to talk about Driver without mentioning its first mission, which is not the tutorial. This non-tutorial first mission, which isn’t the tutorial, sees Tanner proving his skills by performing a list of manoeuvres in a tight underground car park against an even tighter time limit.
This opening level, which is not the tutorial, is a heavy-handed homage to a famous scene in The Driver, where Ryan O’Neal’s character doesn’t do a tutorial. Instead, he proves he is a hotshot wheelman to a group of criminals in need of a getaway driver.
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The difficulty of this first mission, which we should mention is not the tutorial, is infamous. Millions have confessed to never seeing the second mission, spending their time in ‘Take a Ride’ free roam mode instead. It was a very brave decision to place the underground car park mission at the very beginning, but it’s so perfectly thematic.
Tanner is supposed to be a former professional racing driver. He should have the skills to finish this test with his eyes closed, and the game is absolute in maintaining this plot point.
There is, however, one localisation problem that undermines the opening level, which is not the tutorial. The use of the term ‘slalom’ is not common outside of Europe. Many Americans, Canadians and Australians who bought Driver were effectively penalised for not being into skiing, or not having Eurosport on their tellies.
At the Other End
The final mission is all of the worst aspects of Driver‘s AI distilled into one punishing slog. You have to drive the president of the USA across New York with what feels like hundreds of cop cars hurling themselves at the presidential limousine. There is no trick to it. There is no advanced skill required to pass. It’s pure luck whether you will see the ending of Driver.
It’s a disappointing end to the game. Especially in a game that so often feels so rewarding when its difficulty has been bested. Passing this one final hurdle on luck alone robs the player of that sense of accomplishment.
Side Show
Driver‘s main mode is bolstered by its Take a Ride mode and a few other extras. There is also a tutorial video, which is the tutorial. Amongst these extras are some driving skill mini-courses where you must navigate a winding track whilst keeping your bum away from rows of cones.
There is also a masochist’s dream mode, where you try to survive on a given map with your wanted level filled. Having been terrorised by the cops in the main campaign, we did not play this mode much back in 1999. We dreaded trying again in 2024, and rightly so.
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The Take a Ride mode offers only two cities to begin with, Miami and San Francisco. These are the two first cities you visit during the Undercover mode, the others unlock as you progress through that mode.
While it’s genuinely relaxing to drive the city without timers or immediate wanted levels, it’s undermined by the fact that you cannot turn off damage or police, nor can you change vehicles.
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You will be crashed into, or take a ding as you corner too wide, and your car will die from the cumulative damage. Or, you will break the speed limit, and then the police will pummel you back to the menu screen. You never really get to spend as long driving in Take a Ride free roam as you would imagine before its game over.
And, coupled with the lack of interactivity on the maps, Take a Ride doesn’t have the same charm to it in 2024 after a million open-world cities.
Never a Looker
The scale of Driver‘s cities and the technical achievement of streaming them as you drove won wide acclaim in 1999. The game’s other visual qualities, however, were never praised. The pixelated textures, the repetitive scenery, and the aforementioned draw distance have been discussed since day one. At the time, they were seen as necessary compromises to bring something of its kind to PlayStation.
There are times when the draw distance can affect gameplay beyond missing a turn. On occasion, you will have a follow mission. The object of these mission types is to tail your target without getting too close and being noticed.
However, once they reach the limit of the tiny draw distance, your target will de-spawn. Even if you could still see their vehicle were it not for the draw distance, this is an instant fail.
Every so often the Driver will surprise you with some neat effect or visual flair, however. The rain effects, how your hubcaps fly off in the heat of the chase, or the environment mapping on the vehicles. There are tons of little visual effects that add much to the presentation.
Similarly, the damage modelling is quite robust for the era. It’s still quite cool to watch debris stream from a crash in a replay and seeing the subsequent damage on your car afterwards. There are also boxes, barrels and traffic cones to obliterate, mirroring the car chase scenes it so devotedly references throughout.
Sounds of the Seventies
The sound of Driver is another aspect of the game’s presentation that adds to the overall atmosphere and vibe. The growling muscle cars, the endless screeching of tyres, and the film funk soundtrack offer a convincing soundscape as you chew up the tarmac.
When you open the throttle and the V8 gives a throaty roar of approval, all seems right with the world. And, the scratchy, almost percussive, guitar wah-wahing over a soft mellotron-like keyboard fits so well with the action.
The short motifs and frequent musical stings that accompany chases or checkpoints slot into the game’s audio perfectly. Driver is near flawless in the audio department while in play.
It’s unfortunate that the sound during the FMV cutscenes is so poor. Both from a technical standpoint, seeing as they are often inaudible, and from a creative standpoint, seeing as the dialogue is often weak.
Slide Show
The frame rate was also an issue remarked upon by reviewers at the time of release. Driver runs at around 20 frames per second in our PAL region, and frequently dips well below that figure. And, unfortunately, it’s when in the middle of the stickiest situations that the poor performance truly affects the game.
When you are being tailed by four cop cars while trying to execute a 180 between several civilian vehicles, the loss of frames disallows the level of precision and predictability needed for the task. The final mission, a straight run through a hail of bloodthirsty cop cars, can descend into a slideshow, making an already ridiculous mission even more chaotic.
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For 2024 gamers who baulk at the idea of playing games at less than 60 frames per second, the choppy performance of Driver will take some getting used to. And even after getting used to it, the drops in frame rate when the action hots up will be unwelcome at best. At worst, it may put you off continuing.
Vintage Motor
In spite of its many deficiencies, some of which have been amplified by the passage of time, Driver still has a lot to offer in 2024. You may never finish the main campaign but there is hours of fun and challenge to be had. The driving mechanics have aged but it’s still immensely satisfying to whip the tail around and have your tyres bite the road at the perfect moment.
There are few games that can offer such an intrinsic reward for the most basic actions. The simple act of turning in Driver, when absolutely nailed, feels incredible. When you string a few corners together while weaving in and out of traffic, the dopamine really flows.
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Newer players may have a hard time coming to terms with the pixelated graphics and short draw distance, but by the time they’ve perfectly executed a corner, or burned out a 180 to lose a cop car, many will forget. The driving is so good that regardless of what is going on around you, you still want the nail that next corner.
The first and last missions will still frustrate, but they rest are mostly worth the bother. The cops, as frustrating as they can be, give the missions a chaotic dynamism that amplifies the feeling that the odds are constantly stacked against you. And when you succeed against those relentlessly unkind odds, you feel like Bullitt, you feel like the Driver.
Reviewed on original PlayStation hardware, images captured via emulation for better quality
