Tuesday, November 5, 2024

What Happened To The Driver Series – Film & Game Updates

Remember Driver for the PS1? That game was one of the most fun driving titles for the console.

The first game of the Driver series made its debutĀ for the PlayStation in 1999. The title was later released for Game Boy Color and PC. For those who have never heard or played it, the game follows a police detective named John Tanner. The first game is the best selling of the series and gave us a preview of the future, with the freedom to explore a city and its popular locations.

Driver 2 The series got even better after the release of Driver 2, which was similar to the first one but brought an interesting feature to gamers around the world. The game brought back John Tanner and added a new detective, Tobias Jones. The game also featured new cities (Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Havana and Las Vegas). But the most important addition was the ability to get out the car at any time and explore the city. This was huge at the time as many games did not have this. Sure, the GTA series was around but the game changer, GTA 3, was released a year after Driver 2. GTA 3Ā is seen as the better game but Driver was one of the first toĀ let us walk and explore the city in a different view. The cities in the game were interesting too,Ā with beautiful locations and secret cars to discover.

The third installment was released for the PS2 and Xbox in 2004. This one added weapons and featured great locations once again (Miami, Nice and Instanbul). The title was later released for the Game Boy Advance and PC. But it received mixed reviews for its story line and glitches.

The fourth game in the series, Driver: Parallel Lines, was released two years later and focused more on driving. The story did not follow John Tanner this time and all of the game’s story takes places in New York City. Critics liked the game more than the previous release and gave it better reviews but it did not sell well.

The series then made an appearance on the PSP with Driver 76. The game set in New York City, was the first in the series to be published by Ubisoft after they acquired the studio.

Latest Driver Games

The fifth Driver game, Driver: San Francisco, was the center of many rumors.Ā But the title was finally confirmed at E3 2010 and released a year later. The game follows Tanner and removed the ability to get out of the car. Instead, a new feature called Shift was introduced. The feature gave players the option to changeĀ to any car at any time.Ā Driver: San Francisco received good reviews and sold well.

Two other games have been released sinceĀ Driver: San Francisco, Driver: Renegade 3D and Driver: Speedboat Paradise. Driver: Renegade 3D is an exclusive for the Nintendo 3DS and Driver: Speedboat Paradise is a smartphone game available for iOS and Android.

A new game for the console has not been confirmed but fans of the series are waiting. The latest consoles have brought games with beautiful graphics, so a new Driver title would stand out if it featured new or even past locations.

Film

There have been talks of a film since 2002 but it wasn’t until 2007 when Driver and its budget of $48 million almost got started on a movie. The studio was almost ready to start working on the film whenĀ a waterfront revitalization project made the studio move. The studio decided to put the film on hold and nothing has been said about it since.

Have you played any of the Driver games? What is your favorite game of the series? Are you waiting for a new Driver game? Let us know in the comments.

Sean Farlow
Sean Farlow
University graduate with a bachelor's degree in business administration. Big fan of sports teams from South FL.
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11 COMMENTS

  1. Driver san francisco is an amazing game love it. I would love a sequel to driver san francisco everything about it is great. The shift feature is so much fun. I play online daily mostly spint gp and takedown. If you haven’t played the game I would highly recommend it best driving game ever made I should know I’ve played almost every driving game but nothing compares to driver San Francisco. 10/10

    • They should build on the same formula as Driver SF. Shifting and the licenced cars were awsome. No need for getting out of the car and shooting guns, just pure driving is what Driver should be about. Its been 5 years since last release but stil hopefull there will be a new Driver.

  2. I hope they will make another proper Driver game. They kept it going for so long, even though people seemed displeased with Driver 2 and Driv3r, and Parallel Lines was sorely overlooked. They surprised us with an innovative and solid game in 2011 and the sales/reviews surpassed expectations. You would think that would be reason enough to make the next installment, but the issue I guess is that Driver: SF mostly got noticed as a standalone game and probably didn’t reflect the popularity of the series as a whole

    If they made another game like the originals where you move between multiple cities and they feel very real, I would be so happy!

  3. I really enjoy this title a lot. Can’t remember which title is was playing when Mel Gibson’s Payback movie came out, but it was such a nice complement to the game. Or at least in my head anyway.

  4. My favourite game in the series has to be Driver 2. Sure it doesn’t have graphics as good as San Francisco, and it probably looks very outdated, but for a 8 year old kid on a PS1, I had the time of my life with that game. Second favourite… I gotta go with Parallel Lines. If San Francisco had better controls and the non-Story missions weren’t mandatory, that would get the second spot, but alas, that’s not the case.

  5. I haven’t played any PS1 Driver games so I won’t be commenting on them, but I believe (like one of the commentators said) that those games were amazing especially for a kid and are still these days for the same players. However, I ‘ve played John Tanner based games, Driv3r and Driver San Francisco. Both games were great, yes Driv3r was a little bit glitchy with bad graphics but game.s story and cinematics, characters (Hollywood actors) and locations were great. If game’s story and atmosphere is great then bad and glichy gameplay doesn’t matter, at leaat for me. San Francisco continued great story of a Driv3r and kept me excited through whole game, especially the end was interesting while revealing the whole story. Shifiting was great ability and it made sense. I really hope that this game series continue with Tanner and that they make something close to Driv3r on new consoles. It is really shame that many big and old game series has “freezed” after game industry has got even bigger and challenging. For example it has been now almost 5 years last Bond game was released.

  6. and I don’t want it to be rated mature because there’s no point on making a game with cussing and sexual things in it it is just bad when they do that.

  7. I want a Driver game more like the previous games. I liked SF visually characters too wise but not the unrealistic plot. I liked the licensed cars too but to me for it to be a Driver game it needs an open world, realism and grittiness oh well and hidden cars to find. 2 and 3 added that, it made them some what different from anything else and fun.

    SF was an unrealstic reboot plot wise on 3’s plot. IF anyone played 3 you’d know what I mean.

    I’d like another game but with SF good parts and the previous games’ good parts. Not another SF entirely x_x because after a while the ghost stuff got boring.

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