Driver: San Francisco was Ubisoft’s answer to open world racing in 2011. At the time, Test Drive Unlimited 2 held the monopoly in its niche. Given Driver’s history of mostly mediocre titles, San Francisco has come out of the left field completely.
Eight years later, open world racing games aren’t doing so well. Test Drive is nowhere to be seen, The Crew has largely disappointed and Forza Horizon, while good, hasn’t changed much over the years.
We’ve been blessed with some great racing games over the years, but none are as surprising as Driver: San Francisco. One of the best open world pilots of his time, you can bet the game has aged very well.
The gearbox mechanic
The main game mechanic that helps Driver differentiate itself from its competitors is Shift. Main character John Tanner finds himself in a deep coma, right after mobster Jericho crashes him into oncoming traffic. Tanner doesn’t immediately realize he’s in a dream, but discovers a certain superpower he has acquired.
In San Francisco, you can enter any vehicle in the world to make missions easier to complete.
Are you chasing some street racers and need to take them out quickly? Jump into an oncoming semi-trailer and give them a taste of the collision with a 40-ton eighteen-wheeler.
In the middle of an epic race but just a few meters from beating that Lamborghini that precedes you? Try to deflect the traffic a bit to make your opponent’s ending less mundane.
This mechanic drives the difficulty behind missions and events as you locate suitable vehicles for different purposes. However, while funny, Shift itself may be too loud and not well balanced at all. Most missions aren’t difficult to complete because Tanner’s ability to change allows him to do almost anything. Since this world is his dream, it is no exaggeration to say that he is practically divine on the inside.
The only time I struggled with missions was when they anticipated a frustrating artificial difficulty. Bad rubber bands during races and overly aggressive police spawn rates make it seem like my actions don’t matter at times.
The rubber band always ruins any form of running as it means that only the last 10 percent of a race matters. All first is just a case to be with the pack.
As for the police, the way they ram you and ignore opponents can get irritating quickly. Other drivers whiz by in their expensive sports car as you have five police Corvettes hitting you left and right.
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