PSP Review: Driver ‘76

When we heard that Ubisoft had picked up the rights to the Driver franchise from struggling publisher Atari, we were naturally excited that the franchise had been granted a new lease on life, but we also felt some trepidation about where the new developers might take the series. The first title to appear under this new stewardship is Driver ‘76, a portable prequel to the somewhat disappointing console game, Parallel Lines. Driver ‘76 retains the setting, main character and soundtrack from the console title, but remixes the experience with a new story and set of side-missions. This game is inherently hard to review on its own since it invites comparison to the successful GTA series, featuring both open-ended vehicular gameplay and a gritty criminal setting. Many a “GTA clone” has failed to differentiate itself and offer a compelling new experience; we are happy to report, however, that this new Driver game takes some steps in the right direction in terms of gameplay, and offers a coherent and entertaining package on the PSP. Continue reading to find out what sets this game apart from its peers, and why we think that despite its flaws, it can hold its own in a post-GTA world.

There is no denying that the Grand Theft Auto games have set the bar in terms of open-ended driving on the PSP. While Driver may have introduced the world to open-ended mayhem back of the PsOne, long before anyone even imagined creating a fully persistent 3D crime simulator, Grand Theft Auto 3 came along and perfected it. Since then the Driver series has borrowed many of the conventions that have made the GTA series so popular, with varying degrees of success. Upon booting up Driver 76, for example, fans of GTA will find themselves immediately at home. The circular mini-map is located in the bottom right corner, exactly where it should be, and a heart icon at the top of the screen displays your character’s health status. You can also jump in and out of cars at will in this game, and pressing triangle will execute the theft of a parked vehicle.

There are 27 main storyline missions in Driver ‘76, spread across a number of “chapters”. These are usually introduced with a small in-game cinematic, and often plunk you right in the driver’s seat at the start of the job. Rather than walk from point to point, missions are selected in Driver ‘76 with the help of a map of the city, which displays all available story and side missions as little icons. This menu system works well, but it does detract somewhat from the feeling of being in a living, breathing city, since players are returned to the map immediately after completing or failing a mission. There is a free-roam option in the game, but it does not allow players to do much other than drive around and collect 125 — you guessed it — hidden packages scattered around the massive city. These bonus stars are mostly accessible in your vehicle, and usually involve taking some kind of spectacular jump, a nice combination of the GTA conventions of easter-egg collecting and insane stunt bonuses. Collecting them unlocks various “items” such as clothing and key chains, which serve no purpose in the game but can be viewed in a kind of trophy room. Completion of the main story missions might take 10 hours for veterans of this style of game, while the additional content in side missions adds another 10 hours or so of content for completists.

There are a few basic types of missions that crop up frequently over the course of the game. Some of them have you tailing marks, ramming other cars into submission, or fighting off other cars intent on ramming you. The most fun we had with Driver 76 was when it put us head to head against the cops, in a kind of Metal-Gear-on-wheels game of stealthily making it from point A to point B. The minimap usefully shows the range of view of police cars and their locations, so players can chart a path through the patrolling fuzz, and get an idea of how close they are to losing them during a chase. Police AI is competent, if a little bit predictable. Police cruisers will employ the same few tactics over and over again in their efforts to arrest you, but they generally carry these maneuvers out intelligently.

One of the places where Driver actually meets or exceeds the standard set by the Grand Theft Auto series on the PSP is in its graphics. Cars in Driver ‘76 are modeled smoothly and convey damage well. Car surfaces reflect light in a neat little effect that adds realism to the setting. The draw distance in the game is astonishing for a portable title, and we witnessed very few cases of pop-up during our testing. While textures on cars and characters are crisp, the surrounding buildings and streets can appear a little bit bland. The washed-out palette of the game recalls the 1970s atmosphere nicely, but it lacks a certain amount of detail and polish.

Another strong point of the game is its audio track. The developers have made good use of the UMD format here, supplying the game with a solid 1970s funk/soul soundtrack, as well as fully-voiced cutscenes. The dialogue during cutscenes and levels is mostly well-acted and entertaining, although certain characters are rendered in racial stereotypes that can become tiresome.

If there is any major criticism to be made here, it is that the story is somewhat short and small in scope, even for a portable title. Given the high production values in the game and the sheer size of the city, the premise of the game feels a little bit thin. Pleasing a triad boss so that we can score with his daughter works fine for a few missions, but there is not quite enough story material here to carry an entire game, especially one that had much more epic potential.

In some ways, the game also does itself a disservice by attempting to mimic so many of the aspects of the GTA series. The game is at its best when it is truest to its roots as a cops vs. robbers driving game. It tends to fall flat when it complicates this formula with unnecessary gunplay and GTA-style missions. In the end, however, Driver ‘76 excels at what it sets out to do, which is to help us play out our action-movie fantasies as the wheelman for a criminal syndicate. As long as we stay in the car and play by the rules, everything is copasetic.

Things we liked:

● Great graphics and audio presentation worthy of a console title
● Some genuinely fun moments being chased by the cops
● A solid amount of material here, despite a relatively thin storyline

Things we didn’t like:

● Somewhat repetitive GTA-style missions
● Not a lot to do in the open world, other than collect stars
● City locations are a little bit bland and could use more life

Final Score: 8 / 10