Next Driver | Forums

[Assassin_Hun73r]

Here we go with the name game again, the weakest argument against on foot...

They definately didn't advertise the game, quite a shame after all the time and money they spent buying the franchise and polishing this game. And they apparently said they wanted this game to be as big as Assassins Creed. HA! Good luck, maybe its not too late for a second ad campaign push, though the game has already been marked down to $30 I believe. Wish I waited

As for licensed cars, Driver never had them before and it was just fine, the last two games we could blow up cars. DSF just feels like a mini game, theres no depth to it

Yes Driver never had licensed vehicles, BUT with them it's alot better. As I said, Driver should keep licensed vehicles so that it would offer something unique to GTA. Keep the explosions and havoc to GTA, but add on foot to driver (if possible) and keep licensed cars and awesome chases and car interiors to driver.

In my view, licensed cars go well with Driver's aim and they should stay.

[J_Frumpleberg]

Yes, Driver 3 was the best in terms of its scope, boats, cars, bikes, semi-trucks, car flipping and crashing was at its peak in the entire series, you could get out of the car and shoot stuff, blow stuff up, roads were not set up like a racetrack with rounded corners, there were some narrow roads, some were a bit too wide, but the alleyways were nice and tight, and it had the best looking unlicensed cars. It even had the best graphics of the entire series, back on PS2!!! Too bad it wasn't finished. If it just had the sense of speed and traffic of DPL or DSF, it would have been near perfect!

But, as I said, I'm convinced its now pointless hoping they'll make another game like Driv3r. Its over

[brok2]

For those who came in late- catch up on all the juicy guns/no guns debate here: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/486174-Beautiful-Choclate-Cake-Without-The-Choclate

I'm sure there were others as well, but that's all I could find at short notice. I think overall licensed cars have been a mistake too. Many have wanted it for a long time, but unlike most driving games, a strength of Driver was it's ability to attract non-motorheads to it's exciting-to-all movie chase gameplay. Everyone loves being in a good movie chase, and not everyone cares at all what car they're using.

It was a nice addition in D:SF, and the cars do look gorgeous, but the compromise seems too high- limiting what kind of cars you can use, limiting the damage they can sustain, and limiting the kind of gameplay that can happen around them, i.e. explosions. A hidden strength of the older games was that since cars were approximations of multiple types of cars, people could just imagine they were driving whichever car they preferred to be driving. That's not possible with licensed cars. I would much prefer the gameplay dictate the look of the cars, rather than the look of the cars dictating what gameplay we can have.

By the way, saying Driver needs licensed cars to be unique is just silly- racing games quite often have licensed cars, so Driver doesn't really gain anything unique from that. Just Cause and Saints Row are already leaving GTA behind with their 'unique' brands of mayhem and action. That could have been Driver if they had branched out while keeping the fantastic driver handling. Instead they're banking on Shift to make the game unique, which worked, but -again- at the cost of limiting the gameplay possibilities. To be fair, they really made the best use they could of shift in D:SF, but it won't float a second shift game.

[J_Frumpleberg]

brok2:

Being able to explore on foot, as well as the use of guns, has always been the natural progression of the series, only each time it's tried it comes off unpolished and Reflections chose to scrap all their work instead of just tweaking it and getting it right.

I really don't see why people fight this so much. Is the OPTION of using a gun in Driver really going to ruin the game that much?

Its just like in the GTA forums, I said I hope they add a first person on foot camera and Halo-style fps controls, and people jumped on my case like it was a horrible idea. No, GTA's current on foot state is a horrible idea, from its stumbling protagonist to its clunky controls, especially in tight areas and indoors. Just a bunch of idiots everywhere I guess

[Assassin_Hun73r]

For those who came in late- catch up on all the juicy guns/no guns debate here: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/486174-Beautiful-Choclate-Cake-Without-The-Choclate

I'm sure there were others as well, but that's all I could find at short notice. I think overall licensed cars have been a mistake too. Many have wanted it for a long time, but unlike most driving games, a strength of Driver was it's ability to attract non-motorheads to it's exciting-to-all movie chase gameplay. Everyone loves being in a good movie chase, and not everyone cares at all what car they're using.

It was a nice addition in D:SF, and the cars do look gorgeous, but the compromise seems too high- limiting what kind of cars you can use, limiting the damage they can sustain, and limiting the kind of gameplay that can happen around them, i.e. explosions. A hidden strength of the older games was that since cars were approximations of multiple types of cars, people could just imagine they were driving whichever car they preferred to be driving. That's not possible with licensed cars. I would much prefer the gameplay dictate the look of the cars, rather than the look of the cars dictating what gameplay we can have.

By the way, saying Driver needs licensed cars to be unique is just silly- racing games quite often have licensed cars, so Driver doesn't really gain anything unique from that. Just Cause and Saints Row are already leaving GTA behind with their 'unique' brands of mayhem and action. That could have been Driver if they had branched out while keeping the fantastic driver handling. Instead they're banking on Shift to make the game unique, which worked, but -again- at the cost of limiting the gameplay possibilities. To be fair, they really made the best use they could of shift in D:SF, but it won't float a second shift game.

Having licensed cars to be different is not silly at all. It is a strong argument. I mean, Driver with licensed cars and interior views offers something unique to games like saints row and GTA where their focus is anything but the cars.

I already agreed that on foot needs a return so do motorcycles and 2 types of boats at least. BUT DO NOT GET RID OF LICENSED CARS as it offers something unique to games like saints row and gta. Oh and I now that racing games do have licensed cars, but racing games do not let you free drive in a city full of people and life and do chases with the cops. So it is unique. Being able to drive off a real car with real interiors in cockpit view is an amazing thing and is something different to other free roam games like gta. So why remove it? Add to it, and build the game more, but not remove it.

[J_Frumpleberg]

The foundation of Driver and what makes it unique is the car chases, handling, and film director. As long as those stay in the series, the skies the limit on what else they can add.

These key features were in DSF, and the car chases are really fun, but theres not much to the game otherwise, which wouldn't be as much a problem if the city weren't so bland. Its too clean, no grittiness. GTA4's Liberty City is probably the best example yet of a videogame city. Driv3r's cities had a bit of grittiness to them as well. DSF's city streets largely are wide open corridors with blank walls, a few pedestrians and cars to dodge, with plenty of room to get around them.

Before adding on foot they should address some more minor setbacks, for instance:
*City layout - Intersections are too few and far between. Streets should typically be no more than 4 lanes total. Street corners shouldn't be overly rounded for greater ease
*Crashes - Car crashes were extremely underwhelming, making bigger vehicles even more boring to drive. There was little flipping and rolling to be done, unless it was an AI car in a cop chase, which flipped in an almost scripted manner
*Invisible Walls - Everywhere you go in the city, you are stuck on a road, be it dirt or asphalt. You cannot even go into parking lots or fields. Even if a gap is big enough to fit a car, you can't get through. Whats worse is theres no possibility of flying off the side of a cliff or highway overpass, in an ACTION DRIVING GAME!!!

[PeaceMaker_101]

Driver seems like it doesn't have many more places to turn to. It should take as many ideas from other driving games and possibly open world titles (even ones like No More Heroes) and try to mix things up. Simply keeping it only about police pursuits in an ordinary city is not enough.

Idea 1: Follow up with the humor found in DSF, or, rather, make it more outrageous where the player faces missions that involve humans and monsters, plus all kinds of M-rated content to make the humor and action totally hardcore. Go with the driving careers, or just simply having the main character be someone who loves driving and who cannot make up his mind about what driving job he wants for himself and have him face all kinds of obstacles. Throw in moments where the player is able to use awesome car upgrades, like weapons or things which improve the car's overall performance, and you've got plenty of things refreshing about the gameplay. Maybe it could feel more like an anime comedy with dark humor that's about driving and destruction.

Idea 2: Forget tradition. If we stay too close to it, we'll see nothing but endless driving games that feel like nothing more but sports titles (Madden NFL '09, '10, '11, etc.) with minor changes each year or every few years. Toss away the 20th and 21st centuries, in exchange for a futuristic world filled with driving. Then, we could see many new possibilities open up. One: vertical driving, or, in other words, driving that not only is horizontal, but that most of the time also requires/allows you to travel at higher altitudes, making chases very fresh and unpredictable. The setting can then be very dark and gritty, with the story and characters also being well fleshed out. Maybe some on-foot action to throw in to make it a totally open world experience.

[J_Frumpleberg]

Another minor adjustment that would've made a huge difference is the color:

^Look at how grey and washed out San Fran looks. It seems to have been one of the biggest complaints about the game. Maybe they were going for the old 70's deteriorating movie look, but at least give us an option to make the colors deep and poppy, like Burnout Paradise:


Also, drop the fps to 30, give us day, night, rain and snow, and at least motorcycles

[brok2]

To be fair, that being a movie challenge section, the colour is different from the rest of the game. What really gets me is that the game manages all these different hues and the atmosphere that goes with them, and still it doesn't do different weather. There were times where I could have sworn it was going overcast. It was almost like the game was taunting me- 'see? we can do it, but... we're not going to.'

Actually, this is the guns/no guns discussion I had been looking for.

And if we ever saw a Driver game with monsters, I think that'd be my cue to stop playing. Not just Driver games, but ALL videogames.

[J_Frumpleberg]

I suppose thats true, I wasn't paying attention to that, more looking for smaller images that won't distort the forums, most of which barely show any cityscapes

Anyway, what say we make this the new wishlist thread? It basically is already anyway

Driver 1, 2, and 3 "bundled" with the game
* Ability to play games the original way
* Games maximized to run on current hardware
* Smooth, fast framerate
* Huge draw distance
* Traffic Option - from zero to clogged streets
* Speed Option - all cars max out at ~88mph / or cars have different top speeds, some exceeding 100
* Cheat Codes still intact
* Driv3r - fix the range of view on foot so we can look all the way up or down, 90 degrees
* Leave the graphic textures alone, but run games in HD
* All cars available in all cities
* Leave the music alone also
* Add Online for mini games AND free roam, possibly missions