Reviews// Driver: San Francisco

In the two-part preview (here and here) of Driver: San Francisco, I pronounced the game to be genius. Now that I have finished the game, little has transpired to change that opinion. But while I spent some time anticipating true greatness, a weaker than expected ending to the main story left me a little disappointed. But when I say a little, I do mean a little. A smidgen. An iota.

Driver: San Francisco remains my game of the year so far, by a long stretch.

The preview code we were sent comprised the first half of the game in its entirety, and I'd advise you to read that first, since I do not intend to repeat myself here. Instead, I'm going to expand on that piece with details of what the second half of the game contains, touch on some aspects of the multi-player options which I did not cover in my preview (but which Svend did here) and give my final opinion, and explain why I felt that teeny tiny bit disappointed by Driver: San Francisco.

Not that that disappointment stopped me from continuing to frolic in the extensive and compelling open world environment, or try (repeatedly) the few remaining challenges. There are still a couple of vehicles I do not own, and many challenges offer you the chance to compare your personal best against a leaderboard online, which adds to the continued playability of the game.

Driver's biggest USP is the way that the game dispenses with one of the biggest problems with open world driving games… namely, the sparcity of and distance between missions when you come close to completion.

Driver deals with this by including the innovative - revolutionary, even - Shift Mode. Shift mode combines a term with which we are all familiar, with an experience with which most of us are not. Not unless we've had access to some pretty amazing mind altering drugs, that is. The experience to which I refer is the one of floating out of your head, and getting a bird's eye view of the city below you. Then being able to zoom into the consciousness of almost any of its inhabitants. Very possibly exactly the set of circumstances for which the term "Pretty trippy, man!" was invented.

Driver is pretty amazing. But nothing is perfect (except, of course, for the love of God - if we ignore pestilence and famine and corporate greed) and such is the way with Driver: San Francisco. But its failings are few and far between.