Driver

 

The Open World Goes 3D!

The 90's was a very interesting time. This was the decade that I discovered GTA. For several who grew up after GTA 1, it's hard to image a world without it. For many gamers, GTA is as essential as food and water. It's one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world.

At the same time, when going back to the decade that gave birth to GTA, it wasn't the biggest thing in the world. Don't get me wrong; GTA 1 and 2 were very popular games. At the same time, that was it, they were just popular games. They weren't the genre-defining titles that changed the landscape of gaming. They were just popular games.

Even within the open-world genre, GTA was about to be eclipsed by another title that would steal the spotlight, and rewrite the rules of driving without limitations. As mentioned, I feel that it's important to mention this because we need to place ourselves in the 90's mindset. We have to remember that there was a time that GTA was just another game among many, quickly eclipsed by a title, that it retrospect, every expected to take over the world. It's funny how things work out. Youtuber Guru Larry did a awesome video about the train-wreck that was Driver 3, which provides a brief history of Driver as well. I recommend watching that video. It's embedded below.

Driver was a very amazing game for several reasons. It was a 3D open world driving game for starters. It was also amazing for the fact that a game like it shouldn't have been possible on PlayStation due to hardware constraints.

In the world of consoles, the 32-bit Sony PlayStation was a massive upgrade over the 16-bit consoles of old. At the same time, this console still had recognized hardware limitations. The PlayStation was powered by a 33MHz RISC processor with GPU acceleration. If compared to a desktop PC, this would have been comparable to a very fast 486 with a simple GPU acceleration (The S3 Virge comes to mind). Strong enough to play Doom classic for sure, but don't expect GL- Quake. Limitations that were becoming more recognized as multimedia desktop PC's started to use Pentium 1 and 2 processors with the latest 3DFX Voodoo Graphics Accelerator.

The very fact that the developers at Reflection Studios pulled off a 3D open-world driving game on PlayStation hardware was impressive enough. What was even more impressive that they were still able to provide a fun, immersive game that didn't just feel like a tech demo. While pulling off the impossible tech feat alone is amazing enough, there still needs to be substance.

Doom was ported to the SNES. On one hand, the fact that Doom was able to run on a system as limited as the SNES, a console that wasn't capable of running a fps (first-person shooter) was amazing enough. However, massive sacrifices were made to get that game to run. Sacrifices that ruined the Doom experience. Low resolution with very bad pixelation made the game unplayable. Even with the sacrifices made, Doom still suffered from poor frame rates as well. As amazing as the feat was, Doom on the SNES was just a tech demo, and nothing more.

Driver is a real game. Sacrifices were made as well in order for this game to run on the PlayStation. There was a short drawing distance with simple and low-resolution textures, along with very simple models. There was no pedestrians. Even them, Driver would occasionally suffer from noticeable frame-drop. However, the core gaming experience was preserved, providing a fun and complete experience for those that played the game.
Driver was a product of its time. The 90's were a very carefree time. The Cold War ended in a manner that didn't result in nuclear annihilation. On the other side of the world, the war on terror was a distant though. Bin Laden was still a unknown thug living in the Afghan mountains at this point. After putting up with the extreme tension and paranoia of the Cold War for so long, it's now time to kick back and have some fun. 

What's  more 90's than recreating awesome car chases from the late 60's through the 70's using very colorful vehicles and cool locations! Anyone who seen Bullitt knows what I'm talking about. This is where one ask the following question: How long can you evade the cops! According to the Wikipedia article about Driver, the game was heavily influenced by the movie The Driver, released in 1978. Many of the vehicles in the game take inspiration from the Starsky and Hutch TV series. With these references and inspiration in place, that leaves one remaining question: Where's the popcorn!

Like a lot of games during this time, I'm more familiar with the PlayStation version of the game than the PC. This is where most of the screenshots came from. I recently revisited PlayStation emulation on various devices. Because of how the game uses its hardware, Driver makes a good benchmark in testing the performance of PlayStation emulators on various platforms. Most of the screenshots are from Epsxe on my main Windows PC. The machine is equipped with a Quad-Core AMD FX processor running at 3.8GHz, 16GB's of RAM, and a Nvidia GTX950 GPU Accelerator. This computer handles PlayStation emulation without issue. I was using a USB Logitech controller that was in the mold of the classic PlayStation controller. It felt like I was at home. The game ran without issue on Epsxe. A demo was included that showed off the capabilities of the game. It felt like I was watching a classic 70's car chase. The only thing needed is that popcorn!
The game is set in various cities, including Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. For a simple map, the cities are depicted very well. There is plenty of driving to do, and plenty of trouble to get into as well.
Driver was ported to the PC as well. The Windows port supported the latest incarnation of the 3DFX accelerator, the Voodoo 2. Because PC's were much more modular in nature, they weren't bound by the hardware limitations like that of the PlayStation. The Windows port of Driver was yet another excuse among many to justify purchasing the 3DFX Voodoo Accelerator for their computer. The game runs fine under VMware Player as well. The guest OS is Windows 7 32-bit installed with the nGlide wrapper and 3D acceleration enabled. Driver on VMware Player runs at a accelerated resolution of 800 by 600, which was the supported mode of the 3DFX Voodoo 2 Accelerator.

Windows 98 was the shipping version of the Microsoft OS when this game came out. Windows 98 does run under VMware Player. However, there is no 3D acceleration support for operating system prior to XP. The only emulator that might run Driver on Windows 98 with 3D acceleration is PCEM, which has support for the 3DFX Voodoo 2 Accelerator. I haven't tested it yet though. However, I will try this out in the future and let you know how things turn out.
Retrospective
Granted, the graphics do look dated compared to games now. However, this game was a technological marvel back in the day, and the game-play holds Driver up. Even now, this game is a real joy that is definitely worth playing. Driver provided a much more immersive than the early GTA titles. A title should be defined by it's game-play, and not just graphics alone. In that department, Driver definitely holds up. a 90's classic still worth playing now.



Driver
WIKIPEDIA
 WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_(video_game)

Driver: You Are the Wheelman
Fandom
 DRIVER.FANDOM.COM
https://driver.fandom.com/wiki/Driver:_You_Are_the_Wheelman



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