Ballistics Report

Performance:
As we said, Driver ran a bit slow at our preferred 1024x768x32 resolution on our testbed Celeron 400/64/16meg TNT2. Since it wasn't fully up to snuff, we'd reccomend playing it at a lower resolution to get a smoother game. This hurts, though, since the game is so dependant on looking cool.

Graphics / Sound:
Driver is all about neat-looking chase scenes, and being in the middle of the fray. The cars generally look swell, and have enough visual goodies to keep your eyes rooted on them - which is a good thing, because the environments look like crap, and seldom resemble the cities they're supposed to represent. The sound was terrible; even some voice-overs explaining missions well would've been nice, but alas, no such luck.

Innovation:
Driver took a semi-interesting storyline, then copped out on the criminal aspect, calling you an "undercover cop" instead of the originally planned "criminal." They did a half-assed job with mission design, and a no-assed job with city design. The PC version didn't even include the brief story-strengthening cut scenes found on the Playstation version, for some reason.

Learning Curve:
The game itself is a no brainer - slam on the gas and go! What seriously knocks down Driver's score in this regard is the totally unnecessary and irritating "training stage," which provides little aid in mastering gameplay, but consumes a solid chunk of time to master, and is required before one plays the actual game.

Game Play:
Driver is poorly designed. All of the gameplay is dependant on not exceeding your totally arbitrary "damage meter," which only really becomes difficult because the traffic patterns, environment, and cops are all designed to get in your way, often at the expense of any realism.

Multiplayer: N/A
We really would've liked to have seen this; some brainless multi-player carnage might've hit the spot for this game. It looks, though, like you'll have to stick to Destruction Derby for that.