Any Driver fans here?

[Korteck]

I'm a huge Driver fan, even though the franchise hasn't made a decent game since Driver 2. And the latest one, Driver: Parallel Lines turned out to be a total GTA clone of a disappointment.
The original Driver was so much fun that it still has a few adoring fans like me, who are hoping that Reflections will create another great Driver game someday.
Now that ubisoft has bought Driver from Atari, there's renewed hope for the series.
I just wanted to know if there were any other Driver fanboys here.
Later

[Mat^]

I didn't enjoy playing driver.

I found it very very very boring.

Wasn't enough KILLING THINGS in it, really.

[Beef Magic]

I didn't mind it, it was fairly hard though.

[Splush]

I really liked the first one, the driving felt really good somehow and it was very satisfying tricking the police with fancy driving. I wasn't really interested in walking around outside the car, though.

I remember when the first screenshots of Driver came out it was mindblowing, one of those things that made you think games were really getting close to photorealism. I bet it looks like crap now :)

edit: wish I hadn't looked now:

http://www.vulomedia.com/images/96772197162_20040915_screen002.jpg

[Korteck]

Are you guys talking about the original Driver 1?
I know the following Driver games have been total crap, but D1 is highly acclaimed. It's considered one of the greatest games of all times by most gamming magazines.

EDIT: You're absolutely right Splush

[Splush]

I was talking about Driver 1, but I made it confusing by mentioning getting out the car. I meant to say that getting out of the car didn't appeal to me so I never bothered with the later games, but the first one rocked.

[Korteck]

Yeah, I knew what you meant. You and I were posting at the exact same time, so I edited my post for you.
I also had no interest in getting out of the car back then either, because I don't think that had ever been done in a vehicle based game before. Driver was the first game to allow free roaming in or out of a car. (I think)

[doctor_fruitbat]

Driver 2 was great, but it stretched the PS1 to breaking point; it was only once in a blue moon when it would actually, briefly, run at full speed. Plus, it was one of the most horribly unfinished games ever, as much as Sonic Adventure; pretty much any back alley would have polygons you could walk through, the floor would mysteriously vanish and kill you, dropping from a great height made the car fall under the road... Unlike a lot of people, I actually enjoyed Driver 3 though. The physics were just marvellous.

[Korteck]

I actually enjoyed Driver 3 though. The physics were just marvellous.I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm a closet D3 fan too. I just don't dare say it in public for fear of the inevitable flame war. I've spent more hours playing D3 than any other game I've owned...even with it's many, many flaws.
Talk about an unfinished game. DRIV3R was the worst of that bunch. Half of the film director's options were dead and it seldom replayed properly. But when it did replay correctly, man...you could make some sweet little clips!

[Mercury126]

I remember those early ps2 games, like 007:Agent under fire, I thought the graphics looked absolutly amazing. I actually remember comparing them to real life. Looking back now they are just shit.

[stalefish]

Just imagine: someday, we'll look back on today's games and think "God, they look rubbish."

[the last sheika]

I quite liked Driver 3. That's the only one I had. When I first played it in a demo booth, I thought it was amazing, but then I played the proper story mode. Better to just drive around and kill people...

I lie. I did have Driver 2, but I didn't like it, and ended up losing it two days after getting it anyway.

[allfalldown]

I had Driver 1 and played it for quite a while, but never got any of the other games. I kept hearing bad things, mainly.

[Youlikeyams?]

Driv3r was slightly good...until you walked out the car. Tanner walked like a constipated crab with arthritis. Ew.

[Mr.L.Xp]

Always wondered how a Tanner could afford a house like that on a cop's income.

A swimming pool. In his back garden. And frigging boats; 3 of them! (Well sometimes 3. It depended on if the boats felt like showing up at the time)

I cant count how many times i drove into a wall, and then plummeted under the ground -- lucky to be alive when i land on the invisible floor.

I shouldn't like this game, but i do. I've never played a game with so many bugs, but thats what makes it fun.

[doctor_fruitbat]

I loved Director Mode; I did a fantastic run in Driver 3 on the mission that involves you tearing through the mall with cops in pursuit; it had near misses, cartwheels (with perfect landings), well timed handbrake turns through plate glass windows, everything. I was proud of it.

The best bit of Driver 3 was definitely the hidden bonus in the first city (sorry, I can't remember any names, it's been that long since I played it), where you were chased down by super-powered eighteen wheelers. It was a little rushed out, and could have been the epitomy of brilliance if they'd just elaborated on it a little more, but screeching down the freeway with the backwards view enabled with a lorry ploughing towards you was great fun. Their accel and decel was just... impossible.

I also remember loving a mission that involved evading various spawning goons in cars as you tried to get to the end point, without scratching the car on the way. It was like Metal Gear in automobiles; I got through the whole thing without being chased after, by skipping neatly through narrow passages and through all the parks and stuff. Magical.

[allfalldown]

I just remembered a classic moment I had in Driver 1 while playing Survivor in San Francisco. I was driving up a hill with a crossroads right at the top, when two cop cars came towards me from opposite sides of the crossroads. They both turned to come down the hill, and they jumped it at the same time time and collided in mid-air :D

It was extremely amusing.

[Youlikeyams?]

There was a classic glitch in Driver where if a car hit your underside you'd fly into the air for ages. I remember hitting a mound of sand on the Miami freeway and a copcar hitting my underside and I shot off into the air :D

[Nuclear Spoon]

Driver 1 is brilliant, and I still play it occasionally.
That bridge in Miami + Invincibility + 3 cop cars=MFW
There was also a glitch in Driver where, if you got rammed hard enough into a wall at the right angle, you'd go through it and end up in what I called "glitchworld".
At that point you had to restart the game :(

[Youlikeyams?]

Anyone drown in Driver 2?
Rather than some kind of animation where Tanner drowned, you simply stood in the glitchworld with the message "You Drowned." on screen.

:D

[Star Wars Guy]

Driver - a revolutionary title that spawned the 3d driving game and still stands as one of my favourite games of all time.

Driver 2 - a catastrophic failure that pushed the PS1 way beyond its capabilities resulting in one of the slowest games I've ever played. That and Tanner's aesthetics were an absolute atrocity.

Driv3r - my least favourite title for a game (I literally instinctively pronounce it as it is stated) but still an improvement over Driver 2. Great driving physics but still questionable on foot sections hampered it somewhat, not to mention the barrage of glitches.

Driver Parallel Lines - shameless GTA clone detracting from the series, ditching Tanner and removing arguably its best feature, the director mode. Still, it was certainly less glitchy and a bit more playable but it still lost much of the merit retained from previous installments.

[Dingbat]

When anyone played Driver 2, did you ever see the bug where the cop cars just go NUTS?! I remember standing and watching in Havana as a police car repeatedly rammed into walls for no apparent reason.

AWESOME.

[doctor_fruitbat]

The best I came across was probably when I pointed a gun at someone in Driver 3, and his shout of 'oh god!' faded as he rocketed into the sky, never to be seen again... That, or the rain of cars in Driver 2, punctuated with the shadows of cars travelling across the roads, and periodically doing frontflips. I have some experience of code; how the hell can you do that by accident?

[Dingbat]

The best I came across was probably when I pointed a gun at someone in Driver 3, and his shout of 'oh god!' faded as he rocketed into the sky, never to be seen again... That, or the rain of cars in Driver 2, punctuated with the shadows of cars travelling across the roads, and periodically doing frontflips. I have some experience of code; how the hell can you do that by accident?
You get drunk Geordies to make your game and rush it out faaaar too quickly.

[allfalldown]

The best I came across was probably when I pointed a gun at someone in Driver 3, and his shout of 'oh god!' faded as he rocketed into the sky, never to be seen again...The mental image of that (accompanied by a kind of firework sound effect) makes me giggle :D