Yes, interaction is the key, more games should take advantage of it.

As for driving, I'd have to say I was extremely pleased with the high speeds of DPL, though I think the normal high speed of the vehicles needs to be higher than 90-100. 120 mph should be about average for all cars I think, realistic or not. 140 mph was crazy fast on the crowded streets, though sometimes when traffic died down, it was easily attainable, so we could still go faster. 170 mph minimum I think.

And as I've said before, I love the ways the cars crash in D3 the best, cars tumble and go flying, whereas DPL's crashes are really lackluster. As for which game has the best steering, it should be somewhere between D3 and DPL. I've been playing D3 the past few days, but not DPL, so I can't remember exactly how it worked in that game, I remember I liked it though.

D3 has by far the best city design and detail, also coloring, though I think it could be a bit more colorful. It also has the best choice of vehicles in the streets, meaning you'll see sports cars all the time, along with the normal (boring) cars.

Also, D3's pedestrians didn't slow you down when you hit them, very nice, but I still think they should run and be a bit of a challenge to hit.

When driving under a short object, you should be able to rip the top of your car off, this way we can pull off driving under semi's, etc. The other day I hit a staircase for the tram in Miami because the roof won't rip off. Kind of annoying.

And most importantly, the cops need to be relentless, and ruthless in their pursuit of you. This is the main thing that has been wrong with the series. Its too easy to escape, and to try to make up for that fact, cops on the street are always shooting your car, which is annoying.

You've got some nice ideas there, matt_jon!

Something I'd really like to see is that the cops are smarter than a baboon this time. They should use p.i.t.'s and that kinda' stuff, or shoot your tires out to make you slow down.

Also; I wasn't pleased with the cars' driving experience. If you count the gears, you'll notice that even the fastest cars only have 4 gears.

And something I'd love to see is customization like in Saints Row. You where even able to change the color and brightness of the chrome on your car.

Speaking of cop intelligence, whats annoying is when you have a huge lead on the cops, pull off into a well hidden area, and the cops still know where you are. Make hiding a factor. Then you could go on a rooftop and watch cops speeding through the streets looking for you.

AssaultMachine1,

Co-op for the Driver series, or even a fully open online mode where 10 or more drivers can enter a city and interact would be great, even though I'm not set up for high speed internet just yet.

Mini games like chase, races, demolition derby, survival (in car/on foot) and more would be great for this online multiplayer mode.

I forgot completely about online modes. I agree I'd like to be able to get on take a ride with a few people and have a deathmatch.

In fact, they should make an online game mode with tons of different missions chosen at random that have nothing to do with eachother (this way they can go crazy on the variety of gameplay), besides, theres no reason to make a story to online mode because you couldn't get 12 people to be on at the same time for the amount of time it takes to play through a story(though you should be able to do undercover missions online, and online missions offline, if they can make it back to one player (just make a ton of bots controlling the other cars)

Edit:
Played Driver 1 again today and realised a few things:
*We need the burnout button back, other less worthy drivers will complain, but the burnout button is helpful when used properly. Its not made for going forward, it was put in the game for sliding the back end of the car around faster while turning, and it works beautifully with practice. And when I say burnout button, I mean one that is seperate from the gas button

*Cops stay right on your ass the entire time, even through turns, theres no escaping them, it makes you use strategy, trying to turn in ways to loose the cops, but you have to be careful how you turn, because the cops are so close, they'll hit you unless you cut the corner as close as possible. Why was this ever removed? Now the cops are too easy to escape and there is no fun to be had anywhere. Keep the cops a few car lengths behind (unless they hit something)

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

I like the following ideas:

- Co-op and Multiplayer modes
- smarter intelligence for everyone in the game
- Burnout button to stay (Matt_jon made a valid point in his last post of why it should stay)
- Relentless cop chases
- Real time car damage (this should also be the case for every other vehicle in the game)
- Loads of interaction everywhere
- Intense gun fights
- Wide variety of weapons and vehicles
- Lots of detailed interiors (everything deserves to be extremely detailed, much like that of GTAIV)
- Ramps in open areas (yes, this will allow for more creativity and fun to be seen throughout the entire city)
- lots of secrets (secret vehicles, characters, missions, messages, weapons, cheats, etc.)
- innovative cheat codes (hell yeah!)

Edit: I really like your ideas, guys. In order odfr me to add more, I'll go by saying the following:

- Every location in the game is great for driving or even when trying to use on-foot abilities, meaning that there's always someplace where a lot of possibilities can occur.

- Many different random situations, both that are possible and others that are not, but do show some interest

- Vehicles that are very much like those of in real life

- Tanner returns along with Jones and even some other familiar faces like Jericho and perhaps even Vasquez and Caine. The villains from the previous games should somehow make an appearance.

- Almost, if not, every person in the game is different from one another

- The ability to get drunk

- A Storyline along with missions that have either the choice of being a bad guy (gangster or other criminal) or work in law enforcement (as a cop, detective, or some kind of agent)

- 100+ Missions (the 6th generation GTA games had as much as 73 or more while the Driver games have had only upto around 40 missions, so there need to be a lot more, especially considering the fact that the PS3 and 360 have enough power to handle this.

- Plenty of driving and on-foot side missions for whenever you get tired of the real missions.

- Awesome voice-acting and dialogue

- Great narrative

- A representation of Hollywood Chases that are done perfect and allow for both good linearity and non-linearity.

- Abilities that allow you to get almost any kind of job done whether it's for killing someone, driving, or any other possible actions.

- The biggest Film Director since the original and classic Driver game. They should be for more than 10 hours and allow for an even wider amount of options.

- A selection of either a Start Menu or even a Pause Menu (this way, people could get whichever version they want and this would occur when starting up the game, right after you first play it. The progress and kind of menu would then be saved and remain how you personalized it, but it should be possible for you to switch between them both. There were two different looking menus for WWE Smackdown Vs. RAW, so I figure that this idea would be a good one too.)

- An M rating for strong violence, strong language, nudity, Sexual content (stuff like kissing one another and other things, except them having actual sex, which would bring too much trouble, just like the Hot Coffee mod

- About 2 or more cities that have hundreds of miles each and allow you to travel between them by plane at an airport.

- Destruction for everything in the game.

- Fighting moves that are taught to the main character, so that he/she can defend oneself.

- the ability to create your own character if you don't feel like playing the main character

- modding tools support for the PC version and maybe even for the PS3 (if it made much more simple than that in the past)

- Downloadable content for missions, vehicles, side missions, unlockable characters, weapons, etc.

- Users can create their own things for the game and can be transferred to another user, where they can also be able to experience what their friends or others were able to create as a new experience for the game.

- Many humor found on billboards and other kinds of advertising. There can be other messages than just humorous ones too.

This is all that I can think of now.

Good ideas. For the real time car damage, I would propose that while your car will take lots of damage visually, it should still be able to run. Hey, its a videogame, not real life, and its also based on movies, which exercise such freedoms from reality on a normal basis.

quote:

Many different random situations, both that are possible and others that are not, but do show some interest

Could you please elaborate?

Like my idea about using objects around the player to find alternate gameplay, I looked around the room and took objects and thought about different stuff you could do with them. This way if they are reading and do add it, it'll be more like the idea I was thinking of.

This goes for all generalized ideas about the game "More cars" "more variety" we need to elaborate on that so Reflections knows what we're talking about.

Thank you, Matt_jon for the compliment. As for the real time damage that you say, I think that it's a good idea.

One thing thats difficult about the burnout button is control scheme, because I also want handbrake and drive-by's, and I'd rather have those buttons on the shoulder.

I like the analog sticks for driving. I wonder how well it would work if one stick handled the driving and another handled camera angles.

I haven't played it in a while, but I think Halo used just the left stick to control the vehicles, which was awkward, and drive-bys aren't as important to me as burnout and handbrake (which should be L1 and R1, but where does the shoot button go for easy access?)

D3 used R3 as burnout, you pushed in on the stick to burnout, and I didn't like that too much, but I like it more than having to switch between the stick and the pad with my thumb, or pressing a button with the side of my pointer finger.

Sorry for the rant, I just felt like it I guess.

I hate the burnout button. It's a waste-o-space on the controller. It's so easy to burnout in real life, just put the accelerator down all the way. That's the way it should be in the next big Driver game, realistic.

You obviously don't know how to use it then. Even so, what would you propose using the extra button for? A train horn? Opening the car window? Now THAT would be a waste of a button.

I actually like the control mappings for the driving in D:PL. In fact, it would be awesome if the next big Driver game was to have the same overall driving control mappings in D:PL (for road vehicles).


Even better, let's have customizable control mappings. Midnight Club 3 has that. So you can customize the control mappings the way you want (like if you want a burnout button, or just have burnout combined with the accelerator) so you can be a happy camper!

Good point you mention about the burnout button, Matt_jon. Lets set this straight. Despite the fact that Driver is about a lot of realism, there should be many ways to make it feel like a game too and I think that having a burnout button is one of the features that are unique to the franchise because no other driving game has stumbled upon it any earlier and I don't believe that any driving game has it for the controls either.

I hope that Reflections can get into at least the same amount of creativity that they had when they working first working on the original and classic Driver game and have them be able to apply it to the driving, city, and perhaps even for the on-foot.

I'm still against the burnout button. It's a waste, I'd rather have a shooting button, a lock on button and a nitrous button (or combine nitrous with acceleration by double taping since there's no more room) like in D:PL.

It's fine if you think that way. Now lets think about other things that can be changed.

As we've all said in the past, the next Driver needs a Stuntman mini game, because its becoming more apparent to me that THQ is gonna **** up the new Stuntman game, Reflections as I see is still the rightful owner and can do anything with driving much better than anyone else. Heck, I'd say make a ton of stunts for us to do, and don't sugar coat it like TQ is gonna do (make it nearly impossible like the first game). The stunts don't have to follow a story either, just make sure we get to watch the replay, or better yet, use film director.

I've said many of these before, but I wanted them all in one place

The Easiest Things to do to make Driver Much Better:
----------------------------------------------
1. Suicidal cops that stay right on your tail, even through the turns. And like Driver 1, when you loose one, another spawns ahead and tries to block you. Some cops are faster, some are slower. Also make them fly through intersections perpendicular to where you're driving

2. Film Director. Though I never used this feature much, when I did it was a bit glitchy, and didn't have the variety of camera angles/options I wanted. Make it bigger and better.

3. Make the cities like D3, you can go off the road and still have places to drive (make all fences breakable). DPl was too constricting, though it did have a few wide open areas. Make secret areas too, like the construction site in Vegas in D2.

4. Driver 3's physics, especially for crashing cars, was great, cause the cars flew into the air and spiraled more perfectly than any other game has done. I still like the car handling in Driver 1 the best though.

5. For on foot, use FPS controls like Halo. I also liked the auto lock-on feature of Halo, don't waste a button for lock-on, R1 - shoot, L1 - secondary fire (grenade?). Make a sensitivity option, or rather an option for turning quickly, this way we can still have high sensitivity for when we move the stick just a hair.

6. Real time damage. Not sure how easy this one is, but I have to put it, I'm basically required to.

So with those 6 things, I think the series would be SOOOOO much better, its really all about the chases, number 1 is the most important on the list.

As for control scheme, handbrake does work fine as the circle button, and I do also like to press R3 for burnout, but don't combine burnout and gas, that was annoying in DPL, especially on the bikes.

Nice list, Matt_jon. As for what else should be included, I'd say that there needs to be:

1) A main character with a cool personality and one who works well throughout the story of the game. (Tanner wasn't a very good character in D3, so lets not have this happen again.)

2) Story missions that are based only on driving
and that include 100+ missions.

3) Side missions that include on-foot and driving, which can be done at any time in the game.

4) Unlockable areas, cheats, vehicles, characters, weapons, new modes, etc.

5) A lot of interaction for use on objects, places, and people in the game. Your main character and everyone in the game should have as much of the same abilities and should be able to do a lot of different things. This should include climbing, rolling, jumping, hiding back to wall, crouching, swimming, holding onto a ledge, hand-to-hand combat, one or two weapons carried in hands, turning lights on/off, stealth moves and kills, opening/closing doors, turning objects on/off, shoving someone into something (a person, wall, or into a street), swearing, having a discussion, and much more.

This is all that I was able to come up with.

If it's on topic, I'd like to put down my default control mapping ideas for the next big Driver game (Playstation controls). I made them as realistic as possible. I think you will all be impressed!

Manual cars, automobiles, and other road vehicles:
Right analog stick up: Accelerate (push up all the way for burnout)
Right analog stick down: Brake
R3: uncouple from truck trailer and for other "special" features unique to a certain vehicle
X: Clutch
Square: Shift down
Circle: Shift up
Triangle: Handbrake
Left analog stick: Steering
L3: Horn
L1: Exit
R1: Shoot
R2: Look Right
Down: Thrill cam
Up: Change song
Left: Change weapon
Right: Change weapon
L2: Look left
L3: Look right (push both together for looking back)
Left analog stick up: Hydraulics (if installed) endo (on bikes)
Left analog stick down Hydraulics (if installed) wheelie (on bikes)
Double tap accelerator: Nitrous

Automatic cars, automobiles, and other road vehicles:
Right analog stick up: Accelerate (push up all the way for burnout)
Right analog stick down: Brake
R3: uncouple from truck trailer and for other "special" features unique to a certain vehicle
Triangle: Handbrake
Left analog stick: Steering
L3: Horn
L1: Exit
R1: Shoot
Down: Thrill cam
Up: Change song
Left: Change weapon
Right: Change weapon
Square: Cruise control on/off
L2: Look left
R2: Look right (push both together for looking back)
X: No action
Circle: Change direction (forward/reverse)
Left analog stick up: Hydraulics (if installed) endo (on bikes)
Left analog stick down Hydraulics (if installed) wheelie (on bikes)
Double tap accelerator: Nitrous

Tanks:
Right analog stick: Turret
R3: Fire
X: Accelerate
Square: Brake/reverse
Left Analog Stick: Steering
Triangle: Handbrake
Left: No action
Right: No action
Down: Thrill cam
Up: Change song
Double tap accelerator: Nitrous
L3: Horn
L1: Exit

Steam Locomotives:
X: Throttle up
X & Up: Put reverser in positive position (toward forward)
Square & Down: Put reverser in negative position (toward reverse)
Square: Throttle down
Triangle: Locomotive Brake (apply)
Circle: Train Brake (apply)
Circle & Up: Train Brake (release)
Triangle & Up: Locomotive Brake (release)
R3: Cylinder Cocks on/off
Left analog stick up: Activate whistle
Left analog stick down: Activate bell
L3: Sound whistle or bell based on what you switched before
Right: Change weapon
Left: Change weapon
Down: Thrill cam
Up: Change song
R1: Shoot
L1: Exit
L2: Look Left
R2: Look Right
Right analog stick up: Sand on/off

Diesel Locomotives:
X: Throttle up (notched 1-8)
Square: Throttle down (notched 1-8)
Triangle: Locomotive Brake (apply)
Circle: Train Brake (apply)
Circle & Up: Train Brake (release)
Triangle & Up: Locomotive Brake (release)
Right analog stick up: Sand on/off
Right: Change weapon
Left: Change weapon
Down: Thrill cam
Up: Change song
R1: Shoot
L1: Exit
L2: Look Left
R2: Look Right
Left analog stick up: Activate horn
Left analog stick down: Activate bell
L3: Sound horn or bell based on what you switched before
X & Up: Put reverser in positive position (toward forward)
Square & Down: Put reverser in negative position (toward reverse)
R3: Change to dynamic brakes (throttle controls will be the same to either increase dynamic brake strength or decrease it, must have throttle power off)

Electric Locomotives (including subways, trams and other 3rd rail or pantograph trains)
R3: Pantograph or 3rd rail up/down
X: Throttle up
Square: Throttle down
Triangle: Locomotive Brake (apply)
Circle: Train Brake (apply)
Circle & Up: Train Brake (release)
Triangle & Up: Locomotive Brake (release)
Right analog stick up: Sand on/off
Right: Change weapon
Left: Change weapon
Down: Thrill cam
Up: Change song
R1: Shoot
L1: Exit
L2: Look Left
R2: Look Right
Left analog stick up: Activate horn
Left analog stick down: Activate bell
L3: Sound horn or bell based on what you switched before
X & Up: Put reverser in positive position (toward forward)
Square & Down: Put reverser in negative position (toward reverse)

Planes:
X: Throttle up (will stay at that position you had it in when you let it stay)
Square: Throttle down (will stay at that position you had it in when you let it stay)
Tirangle: Reverse
L2: Left ruder
R2: Right ruder
R3: Raise/lower landing gear
Left: Change weapon
Up: Change song
Down:Thrill cam
Right: Change weapon
R1: Fire weapon or gun on the plane
L1: Exit
Left analog stick: Yolk

Helicopters:
X: Accend
Square: Decend
Left analog stick up: Move forward
Left analog stick down: Straighten up
L2: Left ruder
R2: Right ruder
Left: Change weapon
Up: Change song
Down:Thrill cam
Right: Change weapon

Cranes:
X: Move forward
Square: Move backward
Left analog stick: Move position of crane
Circle: Drop the load
Right analog stick up: Move winch up
Right analog stick down: Move winch down
Left: Change weapon
Up: Change song
Down:Thrill cam
Right: Change weapon
L1: Exit
R1: Shoot
L2: Look left
R2: Look right

Boats:
X: Throttle up (will stay at that position you had it in when you let it stay)
Square: Throttle down (will stay at that position you had it in when you let it stay)
Left analog stick: Steering
Triangle: Reverse
L3: Horn
L1: Exit
R1: Fire weapon
Left: Change weapon
Up: Change song
Down:Thrill cam
Right: Change weapon

So what do you all think? I think this would be a positve reform for the series.

quote:

Many different random situations, both that are possible and others that are not, but do show some interest

Could you please elaborate?
I'm sorry for not being able to answer this sooner. What I mean is that there will be random things going on, which will both be ones that are possible in real life (e.x. ambulance driving by) and anything that isn't possible in real life (person walking in the air). This would really make things more interesting and experimenting would be a lot of fun to see what can possibly occur throughout the game. That is what was great in the GTA games.

Great job on the controls, Driverman2006.