Driver San Francisco Review (Playstation 3)

When I first fired up Driver: San Francisco and started playing I thought it was cool. Then the weirdness happened because the game puts your character in a sort of coma and then has his spirit flying around possessing other drivers to use their cars to accomplish something. Sure, that’s normal right? Then, on top of that, your character is in this strange dream world doing things like trying to convince his partner he can shift from person to person and catch the crime lord Charles Jericho.

Here’s what THQ had to say about the shifting:

As Tanner recovers from a terrible crash, he realizes he has acquired a new ability, SHIFT, enabling him to instantly change vehicles and take control. Experience unprecedented intensity, diversity and freedom; SHIFT into a faster car, deploy civilian vehicles to destroy your enemies and even take control of your opponents’ car to force their demise. SHIFT also allows for thrilling new Multi-player modes within the game.

Right, except for that whole, his body is still out doing stuff in the real world which sort of made me scratch my head. So he’s in the hospital and in the car at the same time? How’s that work?

After the initial weirdness wears off over the out of body experience that is the crux of the game, Driver San Francisco settles into a sort of standard action driving title where you are required to take on missions, chase down bad guys, jump over stuff, crash into stuff and push the story along by unlocking the Tanner missions. Yes, Tanner is back, of course, he’s the Driver.