Reviews// Driver: Renegade

My time with Driver Renegade 3D started so well. I was impressed that it was trying to be something different to the recently released and highly rated Driver San Francisco, I was delighted with the look of the menu system and how well it showed off the 3D capabilities of the device and I really enjoyed the opening cut scene to the story mode. It was stylish and showed how 3D could add to a tired storytelling system with great effect. Then I found myself in the game world, and the wheels started to fall off.

Potty Mouth

Driver Renegade 3D is an open world arcade driving game set between Driver 1 and 2. You take control of John Tanner, who has gone a bit off the rails since the first game. Some might call him a renegade. I'd call him an unlovable, potty-mouthed character who has no redeeming qualities at all.

It doesn't help that he's so poorly acted. He's not alone with this trait. Everyone in this game seems to have the voice of an actor who has better things to do that day. What's more, they blurt out lines that have no direction or narrative progression. It's lazy writing that's made even more embarrassing with the amount of swearing involved. I'm not against bad language but it has to either be natural or have impact. It's neither in this case and does nothing more than make you hate the character even more.

Tanner won't shut up either. During in-game driving he constantly bumbles lines from his dirty gob that add nothing but an annoying distraction. If anything, it just adds embarrassment and unintentional humour.

Popping Visuals

Your first glimpse at the game world is quite a shocking one. I've played games set in cities without pedestrians before, but they've never felt as lifeless as this. Street furniture barely exists, buildings repeat and other traffic is pretty much non-existent. It feels like you're in some sort of ghost town, chasing a driver that has nowhere to run other than down another generic soulless street. That is if it loads in time.

The pop-up in this game is some of the worst I've experienced in a while. Scenery randomly appears whenever the hell it wants, as does the traffic. I've had moments where I've failed a mission because I was driving the wrong side of the road and while a truck appeared just a few feet in front of me. It's frustrating and needless. We've seen that the 3DS can handle long draw distances in the likes of Pilotwings 3D, so there is no excuse for these sorts of amateur mistakes.

The only things that look any good in this game are the cutscenes. Presented as a swish graphic novel story board, you tend to look forward to watching them. Even if it is to view something that isn't within the dull game world.