Previews// Driver: San Francisco Multiplayer

The Driver series is the latest in a long line of franchises that seeks to bring things ‘back to its roots.'

Let’s face it, Tanner’s really kind of needed it. Luckily, from what I’ve already seen of the upcoming Driver: San Francisco - a game that Reflections has been labouring over for around five years now - it seems that we’re in for a real treat.

SPOnG’s extensive single-player experience will be coming shortly, but at Ubisoft’s recent Summer showcase I was able to sit down and give the multiplayer side of the game a right good thrashing.

There was time to enjoy three of the eleven available modes; Sprint GP, Tag and Takedown. Online matches can have up to six players in a public lobby, and up to eight when playing in private with friends.

1970s Burnout
Sprint GP is the most straightforward of the three modes, offering five short races that have you driving around random circuits within the city of San Fran. They last no longer than a couple of minutes each and is the closest to traditional racing as you can get - you’re not allowed to use the Shift technique to swap cars. It’s almost like playing a 1970s-influenced, bite-size version of Burnout Paradise.

Takedown mode is absolutely manic, and can be described as a good ol’ fashioned Cops and Robbers game. One player is the Getaway car, and cannot Shift around the map, while everyone else assumes the role of a police car trying to smash the Getaway man to submission. A timer challenges the ‘robber’ to survive the onslaught as much as possible to win, while the ‘cops’ each have a unique score that is tied to their own performance - so it’s as much about working together as it is competing in a way.

The Tag mode was the one that I found the most playable though. It is essentially a game of ‘it’ in cars, only if you’re ‘it’ you have to avoid hitting any of the other players so that you do not lose your tag. The longer you hold onto the tag, the more points you rack up - the winner is the first to 100 points.

I really became entranced with the Tag mode simply because of how you can use the Shift move to engage in various tactics. As mentioned in my last preview, Shifting is performed by pressing the X button (on a PS3 pad), which then zooms you out into a bird’s eye viewpoint of the entire city. You can see the actions of the other players in real time, while you can zoom in and out using the right thumbstick to survey the map quicker. Pressing the X button again on an empty car will zap you right inside.

The key here is how you use Shift. If the opponent is racing down the interstate, do you Shift into a car just behind him and build up some top speed to catch him in a traditional manner? Do you Shift into a car on the same side of the road, just in front of the opposition so that you can catch him as he tries to pass you? My favourite trick was to Shift into cars on the opposite side of the road, just as the other player was about to pass, and then smash into them head-on.

You can also use alleyways to your advantage - Reflections told me that players can use these as ‘camping’ places, as you cannot Shift into cars within alleyways. You have to hop into a car on a main road and then drive into said back passage. In each mode that allows you to use Shift, you can try a whole range of different tactics to ensure your victory, and it’s loads of fun.

While there was certainly a lot of admiration for the multiplayer modes themselves, I don’t think enough has been said about just what a quantum leap in open world programming Driver: San Francisco really is. As long as you have enough energy to spend in your Shift bar, you can zap in and out of cars at lightning speed, zoom out of the map multiple times and jump right into a car on the other side of the city and continue your play without any lag or loading issues. When you consider the crisp, highly-detailed visuals and intricate layouts of the world map, that is some fantastic achievement.

I spent more time than was probably necessary getting lost in the Tag match chaos throughout the day. But Reflections has revealed that Driver: San Francisco will in fact have many more multiplayer modes to take on - a total of eleven, in fact.

Some are further inspired by the first-person shooter genre, with a King of the Hill team mode as one of the as-yet unexplored modes - but if they’re as... compelling as Tag mode, I don’t think we’ll have anything to worry about. In fact, I can’t wait to try those out too.