Driv3r Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

Driv3r is not a bad game for your phone. It has decent graphics, decent options and is fairly playable. However, nothing is particularly outstanding or grabs the attention.

Driv3r isn't a bad game. In fact it's probably better than average. Unfortunately, it's not great.

The graphics are ok, if a little small. The loading screen is pretty nice and the backgrounds are reasonable in game. But again, nothing to get too excited over. The sprites are a little smaller than I expected and when you get out of the car, the character really does look tiny. The overhead view makes things easy to see, except from overhead the bikes look a little weird.

The sound non existent. At least some tyre screeching would have been nice.

The controls are fairly easy to pick up, you have a choice of two driving modes, directional steering or real steering. Directional steering moves the car in the direction you press, ie you push up, it goes up. 'Real steering' moves the car as you would in real life or most other racing games. When driving from the bottom of the screen to the top, left angles your car left and right angles your car right. Up accelerates and back brakes. The zero button allows you to get in and out of cars, but to be honest, I never used this much.

The playability is passable. There are two modes, the undercover mode where you have 10 missions to complete or the driving games mode. In the undercover mode, the missions increase in length and difficulty, although the last mission is a bit of a joke. One nice touch is that every time you complete the undercover mode, you get a few codes for the console version of the game (unlock all levels / cars etc). But the undercover mode shouldn't take you that long. Plus it saves automatically after each level which is a nice touch. The slight drawback is that the mission briefs are just text at the start of the level and a pic or two would have been nice.

The problem I have with this game is that the controls are slightly jerky. The responsiveness to keyapd input is much less than other driving games and you find yourself having to make turns a split second before you think you should. Plus the roads are pretty narrow and it's very easy to get into a pile up. The other problem is that at slightly higher speeds the car can bash into obstacles pretty easily and it frequently occurs that your car blows up. The bikes are a little more manoeuverable but take damage easier.

The driving games mode is not bad, and gives you a chance to play those specific games you like (evade, kill, defend, speed demon and fugitive). Guess which one I had the most fun on!

The lastability of the game isn't particularly long as the undercover mode only takes about 45 minutes to complete and the other driving games are not taxing.

Overall an ok game but I would get the console version. There are better driving games out there.