The Driver series has had its ups and downs over the years, wowing everyone with its fun and open gameplay when the first game dropped back in 1999. Since then it’s been mostly downhill, with subsequent games slowly losing their focus on driving, slowly sliding into the realm of the generic action game. Driv3r was the worst culprit, and its follow-up Parallel Lines wasn’t any better. Driver ’76 is a follow-up to Parallel Lines, and as such feels pretty much the same.

Back in the 70’s

Last year’s Parallel Lines tried to take the Driver franchise further into Grand Theft Auto territory with a detailed plot featuring plenty of cut scenes and voiceover work, parallel storylines splitting the game across the late 70’s and the present. ’76 is in many ways half of Parallel Lines, delivering a much more simplistic storyline that sticks entirely in the 70’s New York City. Here you’re a nobody wheelman driving thugs to and from two-bit heists and getting into the odd street race for fun. One night at a club you fall in love with some broad from across the dance floor and decide that she has to be yours.

Of course, it’s not so easy. Turns out her father is at the head of the NYC Triad and getting into her hotpants is going to take some serious doing. So, off you go on a quest to work your way up the underground ladder, hopefully earning daddy’s respect and the girl’s eye while you’re at it. Romeo & Juliet it ain’t, but the storyline has the good graces to stay out of the way much of the time, so even as you work through by completing the game’s missions you’re not being hit over the head with sappy cinemas.

Just like the various GTA III iterations Driver ’76 offers a selection of missions, but there are many fewer here than typically found there. You can do things like get into street races and steal delivery trucks, but you’ll always be doing it through the course of a given mission. A free-drive mode is available, where you can explore the (mostly to scale) NYC streets, but other than trying to find star icons hidden throughout the city to unlock useless collectibles, there’s really no reason to do so.

Stay In the Car

The downfall of the Driver series started right when game designers decided to let you get out of the car, and while you will find a good number of missions that require some on-foot antics here, thankfully the focus is still on the driving. That part at least is still quite fun. The driving engine here encourages tail-out antics as you slide around the mostly right-angle streets. Collisions tend to be handled in a generally realistic way and cars do wind up properly mangled.

However, two things make the driving and the car chases less fun than they should be: a selection of mostly boring cars and a generally incompetent police presence. You can get away with murder here (literally, running down pedestrians) and really not have to worry about flashing blue lights, whereas in earlier games it seemed running a red light was enough to get some heat on your tail. When the cops do come after you it’s with a small force that’s easily left behind, making police chases short and dull. It’s rare that they’ll set up blockades or show any real smarts.

It’s not just cops that are missing on the roads. There’s an overall shortage of everything. Very few other cars are around, considering the location, and you’re not likely to see more than a handful of people on the sidewalk at any given time. Despite this barrenness, as you cruise along the game will constantly stop and freeze as the UMD spools some more data off, halting the game as it loads up the next block of buildings and empty streets ahead of you.

Dated (Not Retro) Looks

The PSP can deliver some impressive graphics at times, yet here it struggles to keep up with some very limited visuals. Textures are blotchy, models are simple, and to top it all off the frame rates are atrocious. Even when the game isn’t stuttering while loading data from the UMD it’s chugging and bucking along like an old truck with clogged carbs. Games focused on driving should be smooth and this one is not.

The audio portion is much better, borrowing the excellent soundtrack from Parallel Lines to deliver a great selection of classic tunes to listen to as you evade the fuzz. Voiceover work is also generally well done, and the game’s overall production values are high. It’s just that graphics engine which really disappoints.

Fun but Lacking

Driver ’76 offers a number of fun missions playable through an entertaining driving engine that will make you want to set up some heavy duty police chases and go tearing through the city. Unfortunately the miniscule police presence really puts a damper on the fun, and the tired out graphics engine just can’t cope. It’s an entertaining game at times, just not a top-notch one.

Article by: Tim Stevens