Xboxyde got invited to Stockholm to play one of the last titles on the old Xbox: Driver Parallel Lines. And even though the Xbox barely catches anyone's interest after the X360 release, Driver 4 can become a reason to pull out the old machine from your closet.
The graphics won't disappoint anyone, considering the Xbox's older components. The cars look very detailed and as heavy, "cool" and steady as all the cars do in the Driver-series. You have your own place where you can "pimp" your ride, by adding things like bulletproof glas and tyres. You can also paint the car and modify the engine among other things - nothing super spectacular, but it's a way of adding a little bit of personality to your own rides. The framerate is great, without any particular framedrops. The thing that really impressed me was all the small objects hurling around on the screen - garbage and other things, which all flew up back of the car when you ran over them. Developers producing in the same genre on Xbox 360 has really taken this a further step, but it felt like this is as far as you can go on the Xbox.
For those who hated getting out of the car in Driv3r, I can tell you something good: 90% is supposed to be based on in-car mission, while you're on foot for the rest of the 10%. The foot part seems more thought as a way to change between cars, really. You can use guns while driving the car, with the option to use a manual aim or an autoaim, where you simple choose between different targets by pushing a button. During the presentation, we were shown how you can take out a very powerful weapon, steal a fast car and just drive in 200 km/h and blow cars up - without any noticable framedrops.
The city is gigantic. As many of you probably have read, the story is based during both the 70's and the year 2006. You're walking around as a cocky 18-year-old in 1976, with a dirty style and a huge ego. The cars are up-to-date, the city is filthy and the affro is as popular as it was back then in-real-life. When you're getting out of jail 28 years later, everything's changed - New York has developed into a modern city, the clothes are changed and new cars are added. Oh, and there's no loading times what-so-ever. You can drive through the whole city without any stops.
The game consist of around 35 main missions. You can also challenge other cars on the race track whenever you want, and there are also other minigames to chose from. The choice of doing your own thing was a feature which the developers were sure to hype - you can cancel a mission whenever you want and just drive around, or retry it if you want. It's your choice, and the missions are not supposed to stop you from doing whatever you want. You can really tell that they've spent alot of time debugging the game and adjusting it, as the menus (with an interactive map) are flexible and that the city really seems to be worked out thoroughly. And they now have around two months to put together the last missing pieces.
Below you'll find three videos of the game. I couldn't get any good video camera for it, so the quality isn't the best (even though it's hard to succeed on a 4:3 SDTV). Just remember that the videos are in 15 fps. The third video is a trailer which Atari recently released.
I've always liked the Driver series. I don't know why, but it doesn't matter how flawed and buggy they are, I still enjoy them. This one might be the first Driver without framerate issues actually. Hopefully without bugs and flaws as well... And an improved Director mode. More games should have that feature.
Even though I liked how the predecessors had multiple quite different cities, having two different ages is interesting as well.
Commented on 2006-02-01 02:06:16 In reply to VibratingDonkey
Posted by VibratingDonkey I've always liked the Driver series. I don't know why, but it doesn't matter how flawed and buggy they are, I still enjoy them. This one might be the first Driver without framerate issues actually. Hopefully without bugs and flaws as well... And an improved Director mode. More games should have that feature.
Even though I liked how the predecessors had multiple quite different cities, having two different ages is interesting as well.
I agree with you on that, Driv3r was slated but I still enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for free roaming games.
I got to spend some time with this lately also and can broadly concur with Manager above. Though I've not played any of the other Driver's and not really into these sorts of games it was mostly based on driving and seemed quite fun.
Build I had was on PS/2 so couldn't comment on the graphics for an Xbox version. Looked pretty decent for a PS/2 though. Not amazingly so but decent.
City representation seems to be spot on, central park was a lot of fun to drive accross anyway :-)
Looks absolutely terrible both graphics and gameplay. Midtown Madness 3 puts this game to shame if you compare them just as free roaming driving games and MM3 came out a long time ago.
I can't help but to notice The Kid looks like a cartoon character or something. :\ And the reportedly improved AI didn't really show in the video where the cop drove around in a circle and ran over a pedestrian...and then into the woods.
"This message is in "Boulet Time" (TM), meaning reading it could result in a loss of IQ or even worse. If you still want to see it, click here." <- BTW what is this? Why you people are posting that? Please be free to explain, it doesn't give that good/mature of an image of you.
aphex187
Well TLoU looks pretty sweet through my 1080p 22" LED, looked pretty rough on my tv so im glad ive put it through that. GG btw, loving it... (4 Hours ago)
KORNdog
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Game2k
You can watch every E3 press conferences right here on Gamersyde. (1 Week ago)
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Driftwood
If you are interested in Arma 3, stick around between now and tonight. ;) (> 3 Months ago)
Game2k
You can follow the Playstation Meeting live right here [url] (> 3 Months ago)
Driftwood
Rocksmith will eventually be released in Europe on September 27 (360/PS3) and October 18 on PC. New content with the new possibility to plug in a bass guitar. (> 3 Months ago)
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After Max Payne 3, more PC videos with Project CARS. :) (> 3 Months ago)
All comments
this dosent look good at all
Anyway, I thought it looked pretty cool :)
Im only looking at the pics, loks ok imo.
Buildings look a little flat though in the fourth pic.
Even though I liked how the predecessors had multiple quite different cities, having two different ages is interesting as well.
I've always liked the Driver series. I don't know why, but it doesn't matter how flawed and buggy they are, I still enjoy them. This one might be the first Driver without framerate issues actually. Hopefully without bugs and flaws as well... And an improved Director mode. More games should have that feature.
Even though I liked how the predecessors had multiple quite different cities, having two different ages is interesting as well.
Build I had was on PS/2 so couldn't comment on the graphics for an Xbox version. Looked pretty decent for a PS/2 though. Not amazingly so but decent.
City representation seems to be spot on, central park was a lot of fun to drive accross anyway :-)
this dosent look good at all
ok nevermind i take that back i didnt realize this wasnt for xbox 360