| Driv3r | |
|---|---|
 European cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Reflections Interactive (now Ubisoft Reflections) |
| Publisher(s) | Atari |
| Designer(s) | Martin Edmondson |
| Series | Driver |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, Xbox, Microsoft Windows, Game Boy Advance |
| Release date | PlayStation 2 & Xbox NA June 21, 2004 EU June 25, 2004 JP October 28, 2004 (PS2 only) Microsoft Windows NA March 15, 2005 EU March 18, 2005 Game Boy Advance NA October 25, 2005 EU October 14, 2005 |
| Genre(s) | Action, Shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | CERO: Z ESRB: M, T (GBA) OFLC: R18 PEGI: 16+, 12+ (GBA) USK: 16 |
| Media | CD-ROM, DVD, Cartridge |
| System requirements | Supported OS: Windows 2000 and XP
|
Driv3r, more commonly known as Driver 3: Undercover (marketed as DRIV3R) or simply Driver 3, is the third installment in the Driver series and was developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Atari.
Driv3r brings back features from Driver 2 and adds the ability to ride motorcycles and boats, use weapons, swim, climb ladders, and enter certain buildings among other things, controlling more than one character, as well as entering and exiting cars.
Although two Driver games were published between them, 2011's Driver: San Francisco is considered the successor to Driv3r.
Plot[]
Prologue[]
In Istanbul, Turkey, a shootout is seen between a gang and the Turkish police. Jericho is seen shooting at the cops with his sawn-off shotgun, and Tanner is seen with Jones blasting some of the gang members. Jericho hides and starts to reload his gun, in which Tanner takes advantage to run to his position. Just as Jericho loads the gun behind the wall, Tanner runs after him and we see him slaming the car door, and the scene blacks out. The scene later shifts to the hospital where it shows Tanner and Jericho injured and the doctors examining one of them, and later shows one of them flatlining.
Driv3r Logo
6 months earlier, Miami[]
FBI agent Tanner (voiced by Michael Madsen), along with partner Tobias Jones (voiced by Ving Rhames), are infiltrating a crime ring known as South Beach, which specializes in stolen vehicles around Florida. A ruthless woman named Calita (voiced by Michelle Rodriguez) runs the Crime Ring, along with weapons specialist Lomaz, and Bad Hand. Tanner convinces them to give him a shot to work for them. Once he is accepted by the group, Tanner begins conducting various jobs for them, in pursuit of a total of 40 stolen high-performance vehicles.
South Beach end up having a falling out with a local crime lord named "The Gator", so Calita sends Tanner on a job to blow up The Gator's Superyacht which is docked by an island south of Miami. The feud with The Gator ends when Tanner shoots him into the sea when Calita sends him and Lomaz to kill The Gator, believing him to be dead afterwards.
Nice, France[]
South Beach then moves their operations to Nice, France, and Tanner relocates as well. However, Interpol agents Henri Vauban and Didier Dubois have their own plans to take down the crime ring and are at odds with Tanner. Tanner decides to work the job his own way, which, in several cases, leads him into direct conflict with the Interpol agents and with rivals of the South Beach. After a few tasks, the Interpol agents accidentlantly blow Tanner's cover. While Dubois is working away on a laptop belonging to Calita, Tanner is stunned by a man who is revealed to be Jericho (voiced by Mickey Rourke). Jericho reveals there was a tracker in Tanner's pistol clip, and kills Dubois with the pistol, but Tanner manages to escape and blasts his way out of Nice, along with Jones.
Istanbul[]
In Istanbul, Turkey, Tanner is now working as a rogue agent, having got into conflict with Interpol. However, Tanner and Jones are able to find a number of contacts who lead them to the crime ring and its true leader, Jericho, who betrays and killsSolomon Caine, his former boss.
Later, Vauban tells Tanner that Dubois is in a body bag and the bullets are his. Tanner then walks away and ends his cooperation with the police force, forcing him to escape to the nearest warehouse. Once it is evident that Tanner has found a way to stop the gang from selling the stolen vehicles, he is brought back onto the force and aids in stopping the sale.
Ending[]
Following a car chase between Jericho and his men and the Turkish police, Tanner faces him in a final showdown. After a long lasting chase between the two, Tanner, who gains the upper hand, single handedly takes down Jericho. However, Tanner decides Jericho isn't worth finishing off and turns away. Jericho uses this opportunity to shoot Tanner in the back with a concealed gun, but not before claiming "mistake".
The scene shifts to the hospital and shows both Tanner and Jericho unconscious on operating beds. Tanner flatlines, with the final moments showing a doctor using a defibrilator on him.
Characters[]
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Tanner is an Undercover cop a.k.a "The Driver." Obsessive risk taker, with brutal methods, accustomed to highly dangerous undercover work. Frequent tendency to ignore and override authority. |
|
Tobias Jones is a police detective and Tanner's partner. Cool, calm and confident, accustomed to working with Tanner, admiring and repelled by his methods in equal measure. Jones is more restrained, but no less dedicated. |
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Jericho is a former lieutenant of Solomon Caine and a gangster with an empire stretching from Chicago to Vegas. Unpredictable and unflappable, his ruthelessness is matched only by Tanner, the man who's trying to stop him. |
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Calita is the head of "South Beach" and a notorious Miami-based car theft outfit. She is cold, efficient and ambitious. They say she once killed her own crew members in a hostage standoff - no one has crossed her since. |
Locations[]
Miami, Florida[]
The starting point of the game, and Tanner's home town, Miami is a beautiful environment that allows peaceful relaxation at it's gorgeous beaches and calm town. This is the base of operations during the first part of the game, and is where the beginning of Driv3r starts off. All characters encountered, and Tanner himself, speak with American-style English dialects in this location.
Nice, France[]
The second of the three areas in Driv3r, Tanner goes to this French city after all of the missions in Miami have been completed. A different variety of vehicles are available, and all NPCs encountered that are not relative to the story or that are enemies all speak a French dialect.
Istanbul, Turkey[]
The final city that Tanner visits, this is the first and last city seen at the beginning and the end of the game, respectively. It is part of the opening credits and is the locale of the hospital at the end of the game. Every NPC that is either an enemy or a bystander speaks with a Turkish dialect in this location. There are a unique set of vehicles in this area as well, as with Nice and Miami.
Game modes[]
There are 2 game modes in DRIV3R, Undercover and Take A Ride.
Undercover Mode[]
Undercover is basically "mission mode" and consists of different missions and tasks, mostly involved with assassinations of rivals, police chases and driving around to places, taking place in 3 cities, Miami, Florida, Nice, France and Istanbul, Turkey. The user starts off in Miami at the players seaside house and has to drive to the police station and do target practice in the station.
Take A Ride Mode[]
Take A Ride mode is a simple free roam with no tasks or missions to complete. The player first chooses a car, boat, motorcycle, bus or truck. They then pick the time of day, the weather, and whether the police will be patrolling or not. They then pick a start point out of the ones available. They are then all on their own to explore the cities and other things.
Gameplay[]
The vehicles are modeled after real life vehicles and are designated to behave as such. For example, bullet holes appear when a car is shot, vehicles only take significant damage when the engine is hit, rims of blown tires screech against the curb, and individual pieces of the car can be shot out or can fall out after taking damage. If the engine is shot once it is overheated, the smoke turns black, the engine catches fire, and eventually explodes.
The weapons in the game are fictious. Each weapons' firing range and rate vary depending on their type. When the game starts in Take A Ride mode, Tanner is only equipped with one weapon. Other weapons can be claimed by seizing them from police and armed civilians who have been killed, or from hideouts or safehouses. Pedestrians will flee if they see a gun or hear a gunshot and even runs out of the way if they almost been run over by vehicles. Weapons vary from pistols to grenade launchers.
The PC version of the game has an extra mission called "The Hit". The Xbox version allows for custom soundtracks within the game, although the player cannot change the song track.
Reception[]
| Reviewer | Score |
|---|---|
| 1UP.com | C [1] |
| GameSpot | 5.4 / 10 |
| GameSpy | 5.2 / 10 |
| IGN | 5.4 / 10 |
| Game Informer | 6 / 10 |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | 59 / 100 |
After an extensive and intensive promotional campaign, Driv3r was met with mixed to poor critical reaction, with the vast majority of magazines and websites giving the game mediocre scores; IGN and GameSpot both gave the game 5.4 out of 10.[2][3]
Driv3r was criticized for Tanner's lack of hand-to-hand combat skills and melee weapons. There were also criticisms for the poor implementation of the 'on foot' missions. This was also a criticism leveled at Driver 2.
The game won the MegaGames.com award for Worst Game of 2005.[4]
Police AI vehicles were criticized for the use of "doublespeed", a way of cheating in which a pursuing cop would suddenly double its speed making it hard (if not impossible) for the player to escape. The AI can easily stem from the series' long use of rubberband AI. No matter what vehicles players can pick (either fast or slow or even a police car), the police AI seems to always catch up and stay with the player. There are some ways to escape the police, such as forcing them on to a sidewalk and crashing into a post, trees, or even vehicles.
Driv3rgate controversy[]
The Driv3rGate Scandal- The Full Story (DriverGate) - Fact Hunt Special
Despite generally negative critical reception, the game did receive some positive feedback, as two magazines published by Future Publishing (PSM2 and Xbox World) gave it 9/10.[5] Having played the game and seen the overall media response, readers of both magazines began to question the integrity of the scores, and a long discussion on Future Publishing's GamesRadar forum saw the mini-scandal dubbed "Driv3rGate".[6] The affair gained a fairly large amount of coverage in the games press and on Internet forums[7][8] and was still being discussed as late as 2008.[9] Another Future publication, Official PlayStation 2 Magazine (UK), gave the game 6/10.
Although a number of forums maintained that the magazines had come to a deal regarding publicity with Atari, no proof either way was ever cited and the scandal eventually simply died down.
Cast[]
- Michael Madsen as Tanner
- Ving Rhames as Jones
- Jake Canuso as Dubois
- Mickey Rourke as Jericho
- Michelle Rodriguez as Calita
- Demetri Goritsas as Bad Hand
- Iggy Pop as Baccus
- Eluid Porras as Lomaz
- Sirine Saba as Fabienne
- Stephan Cornicard as Vauban
- Quarie Marshall as Gator
Trivia[]
- Miami, Florida is also a playable area in Driver: You Are The Wheelman, albeit with a slightly reduced area and with only a few locations being shared between it and the Driv3r counterpart. The "blocky" lining of the Driver: YATW map is due to the limitations of the first PlayStation consoles. It is also where the player starts in the mobile version of the first Driver game, including the demo.
- In the top-left corner of Miami, there is a small area known as "Little Havana" that has the appearance of an unfinished part of the city. Answering a fan-submitted question, Reflections stated that Little Havana "...was an area designed purely as background detail...and not somewhere that Tanner was meant to get himself into".[10]
- The game does not state a certain year, but it cannot be traced to a certain time period either. The vehicles suggest the 1980's or the early 1990's, but in a cutscene a laptop is seen, and other modern technology that did not exist in either time period is present as well. Possibly the game takes place in 2005 because some cars from Nice were built from the 90's to the 2000's, like the Citroen ZX.
- Versions for the Nintendo GameCube and the N-Gage were proposed, but were scrapped.
- It is heavily implied that Tanner was the one that flatlined in the ending cutscene, however it was most likely to be Jericho. Tanner was still wearing his black shirt on the operating bed, whereas Jericho's shirt had been removed. The doctors used defibrillators, which don't work through clothes, this suggests that Jericho flatlined and not Tanner.
References[]
External links[]
| Games | Driver · Driver 2 · Driv3r · Parallel Lines · San Francisco · 76 · Renegade 3D · Speedboat Paradise · Vegas · L.A. Undercover |
|---|---|
| Characters | Bishop · Jericho · Tanner · Pink Lenny · Solomon Caine · The Kid · Tobias Jones |
| Other Media | Driver: Nemesis novel |
| Characters | John Tanner |
|---|---|
| Locations | Los Angeles · Miami · New York City · San Francisco |
| Vehicles | Ford Mustang GT |
| Characters | Alvaro Vasquez · Charles Jericho · John Tanner · Pink Lenny · Solomon Caine · Tobias Jones |
|---|---|
| Locations | Chicago · Havana · Las Vegas · Rio de Janeiro |
| Missions | . |
| Characters | Calita · Charles Jericho · John Tanner · Tobias Jones |
|---|---|
| Characters | Bishop · Candy · Corrigan · Maria · Ray Davies · Slink · The Mexican · The Kid · Roost |
|---|
- ↑ 1UP.com reviews
- ↑ Perry, Douglass C. (2004-06-21). DRIV3R Review. IGN. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.
- ↑ Gerstmann, Jeff (2004-06-23). DRIV3R for PlayStation 2 Review. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.
- ↑ The Worst Game of 2005 - MegaGames pc
- ↑ Driver 3, incompetence and corruption: one, two or three things
- ↑ Driv3r and corruption, continued
- ↑ Driv3rgate - rllmukforum.com
- ↑ Rob Fahey: A Question of Trust
- ↑ GamesRadar Forum: "Why was the Driv3rgate thread removed?"
- ↑ Error on call to template:cite web: Parameters url and title must be specified. Driver Madness (2012-11-23). Retrieved on 2012-11-23.