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Driver: San Francisco Demo Impressions (now up)

legbone

Member
Demo is currently on xbox live. Supposed to be coming today for psn also. Downloading right now. 752.48 megs for those that care. I will post my impressions in a bit (may be a while).
 
legbone said:
Demo is currently on xbox live. Supposed to be coming today for psn also. Downloading right now. 752.48 megs for those that care. I will post my impressions in a bit (may be a while).

Looking forward to hearing impressions. I'm pretty excited for Driver: Life on Mars.
 

legbone

Member
some quick impressions before i go back to playing. game feels great. the cars have a nice weighty feel. i really like that they feel quite substantial. as for the graphics, the environments seem pretty bland but the cars look amazing. every car in the world looks great. there seems to be some serious aliasing in the environment also. i guess the environments took a hit so they could try to lock it in at 60 fps. as for that, i'm not good at judging frame rates by eye but this does not feel like it is locked in at 60. i think it is at 60 quite often but it seemed that there were dips. could just be the weighty feel of the cars tricking by brain though (if that makes sense?). hopefully someone with a better eye/feel can give it a spin. i am still immensely hyped for this release though. probably my most anticipated game of the year now that i played the demo. it just feels great and running from the cops in escapist mode felt like classic driver gameplay. they definitely went back to their roots on that one.
 

legbone

Member
i haven't tried team colors yet but it seems all three modes in the demo are single player. prove it (or whatever it is called) seems to be a short story mission. escapist may also be a story mission as it had some narrative about running from the cops that was more than "just get away, go!". prove it was great fun. it was a really short mission that has you proving to your partner that you can shift. it had a nice variety to it and some humor. i hope the rest of the story mode keeps it up and i don't burn out (sorry). i really don't like the fact that parts of the world are blocked off by a giant red mist. if you enter the red mist you get a message that states "return to the unlocked area" and your car gets reset. pretty big negative in my opinion. what is that bullshit reflections? it was marketed as totally open world. or did i miss it when someone said "oh, that big fuckin red cloud? just some bay area fog. but don't drive into it".
 

Otacon

Member
legbone said:
i really don't like the fact that parts of the world are blocked off by a giant red mist. if you enter the red mist you get a message that states "return to the unlocked area" and your car gets reset.
I haven't played the demo myself (will do later, though) but I assume that this fog is only in the demo, not the full game - similar to the Mafia 2 demo.
You should be able to drive around freely, exploring the whole city in the final game.
 
legbone said:
i haven't tried team colors yet but it seems all three modes in the demo are single player. prove it (or whatever it is called) seems to be a short story mission. escapist may also be a story mission as it had some narrative about running from the cops that was more than "just get away, go!". prove it was great fun. it was a really short mission that has you proving to your partner that you can shift. it had a nice variety to it and some humor. i hope the rest of the story mode keeps it up and i don't burn out (sorry). i really don't like the fact that parts of the world are blocked off by a giant red mist. if you enter the red mist you get a message that states "return to the unlocked area" and your car gets reset. pretty big negative in my opinion. what is that bullshit reflections? it was marketed as totally open world. or did i miss it when someone said "oh, that big fuckin red cloud? just some bay area fog. but don't drive into it".

I'm pretty sure all open world demos do this. Crackdown and Saints Row come to mind.
 

legbone

Member
in one of the loading screens it talked about the red fog in story mode. this does not seem to be a demo only issue.

edit: i have been racking my brain but i think i remember martin edmondson saying something about unlocking areas of the map. hopefully someone can find that video or correct me if i'm wrong.
 

JambiBum

Member
Team colors is a dual race where you control a father and daughter team. You have to get them to finish 1st and 2nd. You do this by rapid shifting in between both cars. It's actually pretty interesting having to keep track of two cars in one race instead of just the usual one.
 
I loved the first Driver. I'd love to see another game like it, but unfortunately they can't seem to help themselves from getting more and more away from the best part of the game. DRIVING.


I'll probably check out this demo, just to see how it turned out.
 

plc268

Member
JambiBum said:
Team colors is a dual race where you control a father and daughter team. You have to get them to finish 1st and 2nd. You do this by rapid shifting in between both cars. It's actually pretty interesting having to keep track of two cars in one race instead of just the usual one.

Or you can shift in cars ahead and have them crash head on into your competition.


zoner said:
Lord, I do not like how the cars handle in this at all.

Took me a moment to get used to, but it feels fine (to me). Cars feel a little heavy, but the handbrake makes it fun to go around corners. Feels like the Driver I remember.
 
Neuromancer said:
Thanks. What the fuck though.
Ubisoft tweeted that wheel support wouldn't work well with "their handling". Which is kinda bizarre a driving game that doesn't work well with a steering wheel. Here is the tweet :-

Drivergame said:
@JACAREDEPAREDE No steering wheel support this time, as it didn't fit very well with the Shift gameplay and our specific handling.

http://twitter.com/#!/DriverGame/statuses/95753634020724736

Disappointed there is not PC demo, I guess Ubisoft really is going out of their way to convince me not to buy their products (the DRM is already off putting enough as it is).
 

satriales

Member
I never see it mentioned but does the full game have a replay editor?

That alone is what decides whether I buy the game or not.
 
CharmingCharlie said:
Ubisoft tweeted that wheel support wouldn't work well with "their handling". Which is kinda bizarre a driving game that doesn't work well with a steering wheel. Here is the tweet :-



http://twitter.com/#!/DriverGame/statuses/95753634020724736

Disappointed there is not PC demo, I guess Ubisoft really is going out of their way to convince me not to buy their products (the DRM is already off putting enough as it is).
Bizarre.
 

plc268

Member
iNvidious01 said:
I still don't understand how the ability to jump into other cars from above fits in with the story

I don't either, but I've kinda given up caring about that since the game is pretty fun from what I've played.

It's a shame the PC version is being neutered with that awful Ubi-drm though because I'd rather get that version.
 
The handling is a bit heavy, but it definitely brings back memories of tapping the handbrake and powersliding around corners just right with the cops after you from the first Driver. I've seen some really funny pileups during the Escapist mission. The Team Colors missions where you have to get both 1st AND 2nd place is a really cool idea. I've played that one straight up, and another time as dirty as possible shifting into civilian cars to help me win, and it was fun both times.

Disappointed that there is no "Limited Freeride" or multiplayer portion to the demo just so I could mess with the shifting ability and get a better sense of the handling, but in any case I enjoyed it.

And yeah, shifting to other cars may seem kinda dumb in terms of storyline, but it REALLY works as a GAME mechanic, and the online portion shows it off to its full potential.
 

legbone

Member
Good news. Apparently Ubisoft has another demo in store for us. Next week there will be a multiplayer demo. I'm loving this so far. Of course I was already super hyped for this game so I'm just glad the demo didn't let me down. feels like driver. handles great.

one thing though, and hopefully someone can help out with this. so tanner "shifts" into other peoples' bodies. ok, that's a little weird but it's a video game so i can live with it. if this is the case, what the hell happens to his body when he shifts? so he's driving along with jones, shifts into another person's body and just leaves his body behind. does the car veer of the road into the ditch? does jones have to grab the wheel and take over? what the fuck is happening? zombie tanner keeps driving? LOL. anyway i'm all for suspension of disbelief in a game but the idea of tanner's body just going limp behind the wheel while going 60 miles an hour down the road makes me feel for jones. i bet he's going to get tired of that shit real quick. his hair should get progressively more gray as the game goes on.

edit: beaten
 

legbone

Member
oh, definitely. while i was playing the demo i kept thinking how much fun tag will be in this game. unfortunately the multiplayer does not run in 60 fps. i think i remember an interview where they said it would be locked at 30. still it will be a metric shit ton of fun.
 

HolyTaco

Member
I'm pretty dubious of the shift mechanic, looks like it really breaks up the flow of the game. Will try out the demo soon
 

Lazlo

Member
Neuromancer said:
Thanks. What the fuck though.

It'd be pretty hard to control the shift out mechanic with a wheel. It requires the analog sticks, plus you do it so frequently.
 
Lazlo said:
It'd be pretty hard to control the shift out mechanic with a wheel. It requires the analog sticks, plus you do it so frequently.
Yeah I know. But as a wheel/racing chair owner its disappointing all the same.
 
Ooccoo said:
There's like 0 hype around this game.

BOMBA before even hitting shelves

i just don't see how they intend to sell with all those weird and bad ( IMO ) decision surronding this game as a whole .
 

derFeef

Member
R_thanatos said:
i just don't see how they intend to sell with all those weird and bad ( IMO ) decision surronding this game as a whole .
I just know one and that is a non-issue for me personally (DRM) - what are the others?
 

Dr. Ecco

Neo Member
This is one of the most useful demos I have ever played. The demo took me from "not paying attention to the game" to "will surely buy". The game runs VERY smooth, cars drive fine and missions have good pacing. It felt a little bit too forgiving -maybe I remember the first Driver to be way harder than it actually was- but I don't really care.

BTW, I found the comments from the guy you carry around in the third mission very funny:

YOU: <after colliding with another car at 300 KMH> Apologies!
DUDE: Not interested.

Although I find the whole "hey man, I can, like, dive into other people's minds!" stupid, shifting is fun and may allow for a diversity of situations during the game. Things like "I'm gonna make that asshole crash into a police car", but more elaborate. It sure has potential.

A very pleaseant surprise, indeed.

Edit: PS3 version here.
 
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