The New Driver

[Driver_King]

I found that Ubisoft is expecting to release the new iteration of Driver no later than March of next year.

Key notes:

Given its weakness in the casual market in 2009, Ubisoft said that it plans to more heavily emphasize development for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 during its coming fiscal year.

"With a view to further reducing our exposure to the DS, we intend to continue to refocus our development resources on our major franchises and on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the two consoles which are expected to see sales growth in games for gamers in 2010," CEO Yves Guillemot said in a statement. "The 2010-11 lineup--which is stronger in franchises for Xbox 360 and PS3--reflects our refocusing efforts and should enable us to both win market share and enhance our profitability."

Ubisoft also offered a cursory look at said 2010-11 lineup, one that revealed a few previously unannounced projects. Having stated its weakness in the racing market in November, Ubisoft said that it will at last make use of the Driver license it purchased from Atari in 2006. The publisher also expects to release Raving Rabbids 4, as well as a new Assassin's Creed episode that will introduce online multiplayer to the franchise.

[CaptainYoda]

I enjoyed the old Driver games. I have the first three. Would definitely be interested in a new one.

[DavePS3]

The original Driver on PC was so cool.

[Blu-Ron]

Loved the first two Drivers. I named my son after the main character, Tanner.

[Dave_6]

I loved the first one but never played any of the other ones.

[RAZGRIZ-1]

I loved the Driver series but Driv3r (besides having the worst video game title EVER.) was so full of glitches and had terrible graphics that it really killed the series. I hope the new Driver will return to its roots and not try to be a GTA wannabe. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

[PEDXING]

The first Driver was probably my favorite PS1 game. If they can stick to those roots that would be best. I think you should have to stay in the car like the first one, if you can get out and walk around and shoot and stuff everyone will just cry GTA rip off, and we already have enough GTA's/GTA clones anyway

[Driver_King]

The Driver series was never a rip-off of GTA. In fact, Driver beat the GTA series to an open-world game where you could steal cars in 3D.

[PEDXING]

I know, I'm not saying I would call it a GTA rip off, but a lot of people would. But personally I liked the series when it was Just driving anyways.

[BStecke]

Hopefully they bring this series back with some glory. Driv3r sucked pretty bad. I've wanted a Transporter type driving game for awhile, so hopefully this will fill that void.

[paul_66]

They need to focus on the driving mechanics and make 'em as realistic as possible. I don't care if you can hop out and steal another car. If it's like Driver 2, where that's the purpose of getting out of the car instead of pulling out a gun and killing people, then that's certainly not a bad direction. But most of all, I think they need to create an immersive story involving crime and driving classic cars in the '70s or something and make the gameplay as realistic as possible (making it more an experience than just something to do or worse), while still making it playable, and not make it get boring. Look at it as bringing the experience you get from watching The French Connection and bring it to the gamer's fingertips. That's what I'm talking about.

[hardcorefrokid]

Driver takes me way back. I'm down for a new one.

[Driver_King]

Originally Posted by paul_66

They need to focus on the driving mechanics and make 'em as realistic as possible. I don't care if you can hop out and steal another car. If it's like Driver 2, where that's the purpose of getting out of the car instead of pulling out a gun and killing people, then that's certainly not a bad direction. But most of all, I think they need to create an immersive story involving crime and driving classic cars in the '70s or something and make the gameplay as realistic as possible (making it more an experience than just something to do or worse), while still making it playable, and not make it get boring. Look at it as bringing the experience you get from watching The French Connection and bring it to the gamer's fingertips. That's what I'm talking about.

Driver 2 was the best for me, even over Driver. I loved the cities they used and the feeling of freedom. I would love to have a game similar to Driver 2 with real cars and real cities (as usual) along with realistic damage modeling and physics. That would be awesome. I can't really guess which era it will be in but I know that Tanner is supposed to be making a return so the possibility of returning to the original roots is certainly not out of the question.

[Driver_King]

Here's a new video and here's an interview with gameplay for Driver: San Francisco. At first, I was disappointed to hear you wouldn't be able to leave your vehicle and you had powers to swap bodies, as I thought that was departing from the series altogether. The new Swap feature, after watching the video interview and gameplay, seems promising actually and is definitely creative and unique. It does go along with Driv3r's ending as far as a sequel goes and seems to be the beginning of more to come for Ubisoft. At this rate though, Gran Turismo 5 will likely have me all tied up by the year's end. There are also countless other titles worthy of a look, like the new Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit and maybe even Test Drive Unlimited 2. Crysis 2 and Medal of Honor also seem to be promising titles for around the same time frame, albeit in a different genre. This year, everything seems to be making a long awaited return. Now where's Duke Nukem?

[Trace17]

Is this the most recent thread for this game? June 2010? Well, a lot of info has been out, game is out in a month, and the Demo is now out in the store. Going to give it a try. I'm definitely interested in the game, but skeptical.

[Snake_XRS]

Anyone else play the demo on this? I thought the idea of "shifting" was odd (but unique), and the smoke effects during burnouts was done really well. The gameplay though, is pretty rough IMO. While burnouts have always been a staple to the Driver series, I never remembered basically losing all control during them. Also, the actual burnout continues for well over half a mile, making the car fishtail nonstop all the time. I really liked some of the licensed cars (especially the Cadillacs), but I don't think this game can compete well with games like NFS or GT5.

Also, I thought the cops were WAY too aggressive in the demo, and trying to outrun them was a pain. Wondering what others thought....

[owa]

I didn't really know much about it but I gave the demo a shot anyway. I didn't like it but I may play it again at some point just to make sure. Could have been my mood at the time or that it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

[tommyboy81]

don't know about the shifting part. Makes it feel like they're trying to make you like a superhero driver.

As far as the driving, very stiff, hard to turn. <-that sounded weird.

[Trace17]

Originally Posted by Snake_XRS

Anyone else play the demo on this? I thought the idea of "shifting" was odd (but unique), and the smoke effects during burnouts was done really well. The gameplay though, is pretty rough IMO. While burnouts have always been a staple to the Driver series, I never remembered basically losing all control during them. Also, the actual burnout continues for well over half a mile, making the car fishtail nonstop all the time. I really liked some of the licensed cars (especially the Cadillacs), but I don't think this game can compete well with games like NFS or GT5.

Also, I thought the cops were WAY too aggressive in the demo, and trying to outrun them was a pain. Wondering what others thought....

Yeah, I still cannot understand the shifting thing. I know, it's a racing game, but you can't just have this ridiculous thing that's not even grounded in realism and expect me to disregard it for the sake of gameplay. What happens to his body if his mind shifts to another body? Is it lifeless? It just doesn't make sense, not even a little.

Pros:

-Licensed cars
-Good looking faces for a racing games
-Shifting opens up ability for new gameplay, like racing two cars at once
-Dialogue can be quite humorous

Cons:

-Bad handling, even for an arcade game. Even handbrake arcade turning doesn't feel right.
-Shift mechanic makes a horrendous story.
-Cops all seem like they all have Bruce Willis behind the wheel or something.
-Bad AI in Team Colors. They drive like blind handicapped people. How do they drive so slow? They shouldn't even be racing.

Anyway, I'm interested, but not at $60. It's Ubisoft and incredibly underhyped, it should be 30 bucks by November.

I don't expect the game to do too well. Ubisoft killed all PC interest when they gave it a month delay (Ubisoft PC game delayed? What? No way!) and they also are going to have always online DRM for PC, so you can't play single player offline, you have the connected to DRM servers. And with the consoles, not many know of the game or are deeply interested, so I just don't see it doing too well.

But, apparently we're getting a multiplayer demo next week. If it's good enough, it might turn some heads.

[Trace17]

The multiplayer demo is on the PSN, go grab it. A LOT more fun than SP, I had a blast playing it.