This has been an interesting topic that I've been willing to bring up since I know that Ubisoft Reflections has a lot of room for improvement in its storylines. Not one storyline has actually been very impressive at all. D1's storyline was good, but it did have some flaws too, which kept it from being something special like Metal Gear Solid, or Final Fantasy, or even a less complex title like Tomb Raider.

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Originally posted by FutureVenturer2:
This has been an interesting topic that I've been willing to bring up since I know that Ubisoft Reflections has a lot of room for improvement in its storylines. Not one storyline has actually been very impressive at all. D1's storyline was good, but it did have some flaws too, which kept it from being something special like Metal Gear Solid, or Final Fantasy, or even a less complex title like Tomb Raider.

Driver is a whole different game though

so development of the story line may not be as easy for the Driver games

I think that one of Drivers best features (in general storyline) is that it can really suck you in and really makes you want to watch it more and more (I've completed the games multiple times because I enjoy the storylines way of sucking you in)

But I guess it all depends on what sort of games your into!

To say that the Driver franchise's storyline was excellent is like saying that Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace had a well done storyline. What the Driver games and this movie have in common is that the character development is unimpressive, the amount of spectacular/memorable moments is very lacking (SW Ep.1's only awesome scenes were the pod racer competition and the jedi battle that is near the end of the movie, which is when Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan's master is killed by Darth Maul), and that the cut scenes and the movie SWEp.1 are nothing more than eye-candy. Sure D1 had moments that resembled some of the car chase movies. I did think that D1's storyline was great, but it did lack certain aspects too, and by putting all of the Driver games' storylines together, it feels like a weak point for this franchise--something that needs a lot of work.

Maybe more cut scenes, meaning more missions, should be considered for the next Driver game, such that we have over 60-70 missions (at least), with at least one cut scene for each of those missions. These missions should involve a combination of on-foot and driving abilities, much like the GTA games' mission and storyline structure. If the next Driver game offers at least this number of missions, then maybe the amount of cut scenes and the amount of depth within those cut scenes and missions will make such a connection that the overall storyline will end up being just fine, or better yet, an excellent one.

This is the place to discuss anything that might force the script writers of Ubisoft Reflections to look more carefully at the next Driver game's storyline as a whole to ensure that many critics and fans will be pleased with it.

If you hate the Driver games so much then why are you on here??

I am here to give enough help that I can, such that maybe, somehow, Ubisoft Reflections will put this franchise to good use that almost everyone who has helped the next game will enjoy it. I've enjoyed D1 well, and I kind of enjoyed DPL, so I can't exactly say that I hate this franchise. It's just that I do feel that it needs a lot of improvement. I'm just trying to be as honest as possible in what flaws the Driver games have had.

What, if you love this franchise so much, do you think that there are no flaws of it at all? If so, then why are you around at all? Do you think that the storyline have had no flaws at all?

I didn't say that there is absolubtley no flaws, but I dont like to see constantly negetive people on these forums!!

Half of the decent people have left the forums because of this negetivity!!

the only person that I enjoy talking to on here now is Madness!!

Well, I think what you haven't realized is that people at the Ubi forums are here to either say something positive or to say something negative. I've said already so many positive things (ideas for the future Driver games) in the past that I am too bored of it. Not being able to take in criticism is something that people need to deal with. To understand something, you must not only give positive comments on it, but you must also give negative comments on it, which is what I've been doing throughout my time discussing the Driver franchise on this forums, and on the Atari Forums (when it was still alive).

bare in mind that the reflections staff read the forum posts and the negetive posts can really knock their confidence!!

and confidence can really make a huge difference to the end product of the game!!

Just think efore you say things!!

I don't really think so. When I was discussing Driv3r and Driver: Parallel Lines over at the Atari Forums, we had hardly made any negative comments, yet their games ended up being below the "good" rating for reviewers and their reviews. And, at the same time, these games ended up as nothing more than clones of other racing and open-world titles, so that really has made me unpleased, which is why some level of criticism must be taken into account.

People can live with criticism, or they can't and that is when they take things with too much worries or stress. We all should be able to appreciate one another for our similarities, but also for our differences, not one or the other, and so, that is also the case with positive and negative comments.

D3 and D:PL were lead by Atari so obviously the game would be buggy!!

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Maybe more cut scenes, meaning more missions, should be considered for the next Driver game, such that we have over 60-70 missions (at least), with at least one cut scene for each of those missions. These missions should involve a combination of on-foot and driving abilities, much like the GTA games' mission and storyline structure. If the next Driver game offers at least this number of missions, then maybe the amount of cut scenes and the amount of depth within those cut scenes and missions will make such a connection that the overall storyline will end up being just fine, or better yet, an...

When I play GTA it feels like the story, goes on and on and on and on x5. The story gets pushed around everywhere like the bold and the beautiful where each man has had an affair with every women in the show (and vice versa). Ok, maybe not that bad. But it's annoying how the story goes everywhere and it doesn't really grab and pull you in. It sends you flying in all sorts of directions.

I do agree driver should have more missions giving you many more things to do, but I think the storyline isn't the greatest way of achieving this (unless it was one storyline and went into a lot of detail). Perhaps they should have gone to Russia in driv3r and finish the story with a happy ending.

I've recently stumbled upon an article at Gamasutra that spoke of the problems with cut scenes and it was pretty helpful for me. It states that cut scenes are very common in third-person games and not very common at all in first-person games (FPSs particularly). The editor made a really good point for when cut scenes can be used, pointing out that a quick timer event (QTE)--the kinds of cut scene that was introduced in Shenmue--where a button appears on-screen for you to press, and if you press it, a cut scene is activated to have you perform an action--is one of the problems of cut scenes. When you're making a cut scene, it's supposed to be about the storyline/narrative side of a video game, not for immersion. Immersion within a game can be done all by actually playing the game and by looking at a game's own gameplay (with QTEs not included). A game can have so many different features, as open-world/free-roam games have pointed out, so QTEs really aren't that necessary at all because if a developer gave its game more time, I think that it would be able to come up with a certain move that you could expect sooner from a QTE, and while it would come later, it would all happen in real-time, not cutting to a cut scene at all, so it would immerse you even more within a game. Another problem with cut scenes is when a game tells you what obstacles are up ahead, or what goals to accomplish. Through a conversation, like in the GTA games, (before a mission starts) this type of cut scene is fine, but a cut scene that pops up and reveals a way of completing a mission only takes away the challenge of a game, and it doesn't push the narrative/storyline any further. I do know that the previous Driver games have, at some point, used cut scenes to help players get through missions more easily by revealing goals, and this should be removed simply because it only is one of the many problems that cut scenes cause. Its like a spoiler, if you think more about it.

Max Payne 2 is one of the best games to employ cut scenes because it does so to reveal more about the story, about the characters and the situations, but not of anything that will give away too much for the player to complete an objective. I've seen videos of this game, so I know what the game is capable of, and to be honest with you guys, I think that its protagonist has been the best cop in any video game thus far. I certainly hope that Ubisoft Reflections can make such a noir-styled setting and a dark gritty underworld for crime as part of its storyline/narrative for its upcoming Driver game. So far no detective/cop game has been able to stand up Remedy Entertainment's Max Payne franchise, even with the franchise now over, and with only 2 games--two spectacular games.

Ubisoft Reflections, if you ignore those problems of cut scenes that I've mentioned and if you follow a storyline and setting that is as dark as Max Payne's, I do think that you'll be able to make the best Driver game yet.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FutureVenturer2,

A great storyline in Driver 4 would be welcome. With Ubisoft's help, it may be possible.

Should Tanner return? Is his personality strong enough to welcome another attempt? He's mean and takes no bull----. Tanner is a cool name though, so I welcome the name to return. But I do think either give him a great story to work with, or slick up his appearance a little, maybe give him a loose, black leather jacket, some longer, greased hair that blows in the wind, maybe some black cut off racing gloves.

Michael Madsen did a solid job as the voice of Tanner, but the look of Tanner himself maybe is what's lacking, besides the limited storyline that really needs to expand upon his previous racing career, and why exactly he continues his undercover work to this day.

There is one post that recently caught my interest in further discussing the Driver franchise. And the quote is this:

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Originally posted by driver_madness:
I achually haven't played or seen anything more than the first trailer of GTAIV.

But I'd agree, GTA feels much more like a cartoon. Obviously the graphics have changed but I still belieave the game works pretty similar to previous titles where you just play random missions and the storyline dosen't really go in a linear fashion.

I like it in driver how it's more linear.
the story is put togeather and it makes a lot of sense.

I have played all the gta titles except GTAIV. I don't remember the storyline of any of them. Even though I was even a little bit of a GTAVC fan. The only things I can remember is Claud, Tommy and CJ as the main character and something about someone killing CJ's mother and chasing a firetruck.

I played through Vice City stories and I only remember trashing other gangs places and I've completed the story only 5 months ago.

I haven't completly played through driv3r for over a year and a bit and I remember the storyline chrystal clear and it makes a lot of sense.

That's one thing I liked about the story in driver titles, it's a really grabbing story you'll always remember!

The reason why I chose to display it here is because it relates to this topic, and because I have a response to it. The reason why the GTA games' storylines are so hard to remember for you is because they're pretty complex. Driver 1's, 2's, 3's, and PL's storylines have all been rather simple. D1 was the least simplest of them all, but it still was pretty easy for a player to be able to remember what it was about. The funny thing is that while you, driver_madness, may not remember what the GTA games were about, I remember a great deal of information. I remember most of the characters in GTA III and GTA VC, whereas I didn't play through GTA:SA very far at all, so I don't know that game too well, but other than that, I'm able to memorize complex forms of information very well. If that wasn't the case, then I would never be able to memorize most of the storylines that came from MGS1, MGS2, MGS3, and MGS4, and they're all very complex, more complex than almost every game that has ever been released in our time.

Why are these games complex and not the Driver games? It's because the cast of voice-overs for the characters is not short and they tend to talk a lot throughout the game. It may not be possible for someone to remember every single mission in GTA III, GTA: VC, GTA:SA, or GTA IV, but an experienced GTA player may be able to remember the main points surrounding the whole storyline of a GTA game. GTA III is a story about a man named Claude, who gets betrayed by his girlfriend after a bank robbery in Liberty City, and he is arrested, but later freed, vowing to get revenge on her. GTA: VC is about Tommy Vercetti--a man who is from Liberty City and who came to Vice City on a vacation--he later goes with Ken Rosenburg and two other men that are with Sonny Forelli, and they make a deal with Lance Vance's brother, who is working for Ricardo Diaz. After the deal goes wrong, Sonny Forelli wants Tommy to get that money of his back, and that's when Tommy begins to go looking for contacts to complete this objective which has been appointed to him by Forelli. GTA:SA is about C.J. going back to San Andreas after a trip to Liberty City, and this is when his mother is killed. He then gets together with the Grove Street gang, which includes his brother and sister, along with Ryder and others. CJ also has to be careful and deal with Officer Tenpenny.

The Driver games have storylines with little to no dialogue in the cut scenes, and they have a lot of linearity (even more than the GTA games' missions). Another important thing about a storyline is giving us as much detail about the characters as possible, something which the GTA games and MG franchise does extremely well. Driver never gave us enough information about Tanner as to why he joined the NYPD, the time of his street racing career (like InsaneDriver06 pointed out), and we didn't get to know the secondary characters that much either. Why did D3 need to kill off Caine? What are Jericho's intentions, what are his beliefs about society? It's this kind of an insight that would really have the game speak to us as players and to help us feel very connected and immersed within the world of the Driver franchise. Also, a lot of times throughout the Driver games' missions, a cut scene gives away hits to help you complete the game better, which takes away exploration or surprise from the game. This is a big problem in D3. The AI is so terrible, slow, and stiff that it breaks the missions apart, bringing no entertainment at all. The biggest problem leading to such repetitive cut scenes is that Ubisoft Reflections' staff cares more about how much detail shows up within a cut scene as opposed to what the people in it are saying and what happens within them. D2's and D3's cut scenes that are highly detailed are merely nothing but eye-candy, and the staff had even less work spent on the cut scenes that have in-game graphics, which would usually point to where you need to get to, or by giving away the objective within a mission. Unless Ubisoft Reflections gets these flaws of its Driver games in its staff's minds, there won't likely be a solid storyline coming our way in the next Driver game.

@Future


In the Driver Series we need a much more Gripping, Action packed, full throttle story than that of GTA

GTA is much more comedy based (like the Simpsons)

Driver is much more Action based (Like bullit or the transpoter ect)

You both have very valid points.

The driver series does have a lot less dialouge but does involve a lot more action. Sometimes it's better not to know much about some of the characters. But I must admit it sounds like a good idea.

At the end of the day, I think it would be good to see to an extended more detailed story, with in-game cutscenes. But I'm very happy with driv3r and driver: parallel lines and I really feel that there is no need to suddanly change.

Prehaps, they could give it a test run to see how well it goes with the next driver title possible.

I'm assuming it's a little late for changes like this at this stage if they haven't all ready been implemented.

I would hate to see taneer talking unless he has something cool to say

because Tanner always had that Cool Cop feel to his personality

I just hope that they remember this with the next Driver

I liked TK.. but he just seemed too much of a p*ssy compared to Tanner

I never got the impression TK was a wimp when he hunted down and wiped out the organized crime that put him behind bars.

A complex story or a simple one? Or a simple one with a big twist (that's usually predictable)?

Complex details (Mass Effect) make many people think "It's a great story". But scrape off all the technical jargon and what's left? I prefer simple storylines with a major goal to achieve by story's end.

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Complex details (Mass Effect) make many people think "It's a great story". But s

The only problem with the storyline with Driver: Parallel Lines is that the twist was reviled on the cover of the game and all the press releases and trailers.

If they kept it secret prehaps it may have not been so pridictable. But it's something fairly hard to keep secret. Cause everyone will see screenshots of both past and present.

But maybe if they kept him getting put in jail a secret.

------

It was good seeing TK get his revenge.
But yeah, I guess it was predictable that he'd kill everyone of them. What would it be like if he died when trying to kill Bishop.

But I still found the story exciting, grabbing and action packed.

If the next Driver game is not complex enough, then I don't think I'll end up liking it at all, nor do I think that critics will like it either. In my opinion, when a story is there, it needs to be well thought of, such that players can get to know most of the characters, to feel emotional at some very heart-breaking moments, and to have the story excell other stories in certain aspects. When a story is very simple, that is like saying that you want a Mario or Sonic game. Those games are far too simple. In my opinion, simple means going the very easy path, much like what arcades were all about rather than moving on and improving everything within a game such that it remains as one of the top games of a genre. To me, Driver is not one of the best action-adventure games ever--at least not the games after the original Driver. My love for this franchise lies in the first Driver. That is why I still come here--to make the Driver franchise take back some really helpful techniques that made the first game so great to play. Just about every other Driver game after Driver one began to look at the GTA games and to try to take their features, leaving very little for this franchise to innovate on. That is what happened when you were able to go about and explore the world of Driver 2 on your very feet, doing things besides what is relevant to the story. Maybe the thing that has been truly bothering me, and maybe even most of us about Driver taking in GTA's gameplay is that the freedom that is present within it (and I'm also talking about freedom in games like Elder Scrolls III & IV, Fable, and Mercenaries) because that level of freedom affects the character and the world around the player, but it does not go into affecting the storyline at all. One of my hopes of being in the video game industry is to make the level of freedom present in games grow much wider--not only for the sake of the player's main character and evironment to be affected, but also for the story to be greatly impacted by the choices made.

I think that very few games, if not any games at all, have had freedom in such a way that would affect absolutely everything in the game. It might be because of those many toy games that have been released in the past (Sims games, Tycoon games, economy-building games, etc.) have heavily influenced game developers to only care about the freedom affecting the environment and the player, forgetting all about the storyline. When a story is at the core of a game's concept, I think that this element also deserves a lot of attention, so freedom should also be used to affect the storyline. How many times have you seen in GTA:SA where you'd dress up really nicely or really badly, and then suddenly, you go to a mission, where someone says something about your appearance? Never. My point with this is that even the smallest bit of changes (changing only a shirt or your pants to represent that of another gang's color, for instance) should affect what the characters in the game think of you, of the situation, and how they will react to the player's decision(s). I can now say that unless GTA V has freedom also go into affecting the storyline--things like simulation elements, adventure elements, anything, should be implemented for the game--I will really enjoy the level of freedom in just about every way. But without it, it'll just be another game that failed to take freedom to its highest level. Freedom should also be used to change up the situation(s) in a storyline, which is almost like the player is working on his/her own mission/objective to lead the main character through the whole point of what the story is about.

If the Driver games can not only focus greatly on having freedom affect what the main character feels/acts like and what the world thinks of him, while also affecting the story of the game, then I think it is fair enough to say that the Driver games wouldn't be bad taking in certain elements of the GTA franchise.

Don't think that the GTA franchise is better. Sure it offers a lot of freedom, but it doesn't make that affect the outcome of the story in any way, so with Ubisoft Reflections working heavily on its next Driver game, I think that these principles (freedom stands for the player, the world, and the story) will really help turn around what many critics/people have thought of this developer to be like. And if this doesn't happen, I guess that there will be other developers who will eventually find a way to use freedom for all three areas, or I'll just have to do that for my video games after I've begun working on any. Either way, I really feel that freedom in games needs to focus on affecting the player, the world, and the story.