We were surprised to find that Tanner has a pretty decent arsenal when he’s on the ground. Starting with a regular pistol, Tanner can acquire some Uzis, a machine gun, a grenade launcher and a shotgun. Instead of utilizing a full-fledged auto target system the game opts for a dual analog setup that’s found in most shooters. This gives the gamer more control over his vantage point as he’s not at the mercy of some inadequate auto targeting system that can’t keep up with the action. DRIV3R
does have a variant of the auto-targeting feature although it’s the
Rainbow Six kind where the cursor locks on when you get close to an enemy. In some minor attempts to add some depth to this aspect, Tanner is able to crouch, jump and perform forward summersaults for no apparent reason (the number 1 item on top of the Action Movie checklist). These functions are nice in theory but they serve no real practical function in the game because they’re so poorly implemented. You can crouch behind crates and such but you can rarely hit your enemies from behind them. There’s cover to be found in the missions but you can rarely use them as fortified posts. Essentially the combat sequences boil down to you running through with the guns blazing, setting fire on anything that moves. Again this seems to be pretty archaic for this day and age, and while it is, it’s the exact same type of mission structure that made GTA the darling of the gaming industry. Besides, it's fun to engage in a mindless shooter every now and then.
If you suffer from third person shooter-sitis you’ll be happy to know that the game allows you to switch to first person viewing on the fly. As we tried and tried to adjust the sensitivity settings we were never able to find one that was as tight and intuitive as we would have liked. Our crosshair was always so loose that we had difficulties hitting enemies that were literally five feet in front of us. We also had some problems with the way that the missions were structured. Far too often we’d run into instances where an enemy would be waiting for us in a doorway. Even when we knew he was there we were unable to put him down without losing some health. What the game needed was more measures for the gamer to take down the enemies. Not necessarily a
kill.switch style of blindfire, but a lean function would have really helped to even things out. Still though, with all of these problems, the shooter aspects in DRIV3R are far more advanced than what you would find in a GTA game. You can even do advanced things like, you know, aim and stuff. Crazy isn’t it?
Another aspect where the game fails is in its heavily structured nature, right down to the missions. Each mission is designed to play a certain way and no amount of player interference can prevent that. What makes this annoying is that it’s truly impossible to gauge where a chase or an action sequence is going on the first try. On the Miami level the finale is a chase sequence that begins with a car chase, proceeds to a shootout, follows with a boat chase and then ends with a shootout. The whole time in the beginning I was shooting my enemy in vain, hoping that I’d be able to stop him in his tracks. In normal games I’d be able to take matters into my own hands but DRIV3R is designed in such a way that you simply have to conform to the structure. Only after you reach a certain trigger point (generally designated by an in-game cutscene) can you proceed on to the next area. Essentially what this does is it makes it impossible for you to actually be successful on the first run through of any mission in the game. It’s impractical to assume that the gamer would know that the chase scene would continue long after you’ve put 500 bullets into your target. After you figure out what the game is trying to make you do you can finally proceed onto the next sequence.
Page 2 of 4