Poor. Very poor.
This game is simply too short. You've got a total of approx. 20 missions, where some missions or parts of missions repeat parts of other missions or their jobs are just rip offs of other games or movies.
if you've played GTA - for example 2 of the last big 3 titles - you will have a déjà vu on some driver missions.
this part of driver is also very stupid because the cop AI is more than dumb compared to the prequels. be careful, this time it uses the "texas "- or "cowboy"-system: first shoot, then ask questions. the cops will follow you by two cars, three cars, four cars - if you shoot'em, they'll call SWAT. what is SWAT in this case? its a one-van-team, mostly sticking in the traffic jams. the only weapon that really can stop you is the police helicopter. they will shoot at you until your car is down. and then until you are down - if you've left your car just in time.
The felony system is very impressive. its a two part system. if you don't leave your car while being chased, the cops will just look for that car. but if you leave the car while chased the car felony will drop to your character felony. if you leave the car after shaking the cops, it won't drop the felony and you're clean. if you have now felony on your character and you hijack a new clean car, passing cops will scan your car - if you pass fast enough, they won't care, but if you're too long in their sight, they will recognize you. i like that system.
But there are too many bugs on this game. The physics of the obstacles and the cars is very good, but if you car flips over, its possible that it could stand on the headlights oder the trunk - just like a candle.
- You can't jump in this game. of course you can. with cars or motorcycles over ramps... but not with the character. - You can't swim - okay you won't die if you go fishing' but it's not swimming at all. - You can't fly helicopters or planes. - The motorcycles are a mess to drive and if you drive successfully you will not know why because you need a big amount of luck. - There are no boats
The presentation of this part of the franchise is not good either. You've got to do about 20 main missions, but you have to do 3 or 4 (depends on how many yellow spots are on your radar/map) missions, to see another cut-scene. the good thing is: the missions have introductions where you partly can see how to do the job. sometimes you don't have to figure it out. AND you can preview the mission intros before you drive to a yellow spot to start a mission. just point on the pause-screen map and press the right button. sometimes you have to, because they want you to be there on a bike or a sports car. thats a big plus.
over all its fun to drive around, messing with the cops. but the missions weren't fun at all. if you're on the point of the game, were it turns to present time (2006) you can imagine what the goal of the game is.
there's another little thing that annoys me. if you have another person in your car, it will try to communicate with you. always when you're in a slow or disabled car, have to shake the cops and this bastard repeats all of the 3 sentences he knows. yeah i think every of this guys just know 3 sentences and repeats them on and on. in GTA VC or SAN AN this would never happen. - okay on the girlfriends side-missions in SA perhaps, but these are side missions in a very complex game - the annoyers in Driver are in main missions in a not so complex and very straight game.
you can't compare driver to one of the big GTAs but you can compare it to GTA:Liberty City Stories and LCS will win, with a big lead.
i think the virtual New York City is 2 times as big as San Andreas (the whole map) - and you sometimes really have to drive 20 minutes to get to the next mission - if you want to safe in one of the garages between the missions.
