Current Events > I've been revisiting Driver on PS1. It's honestly a pretty great driving game

(+) Yeah! (+)

Full disclaimer, I did Google how to do a reverse 180 on the tutorial lmao. The game actually does have a training video that walks you through the tutorial, with button prompts, so there's no excuse as an adult for not being able to clear it.

I had Driver as a kid, but outside of a handful of missions I didn't really get once I beat the tutorial, I didn't get much out of it. I loved driving around the open maps, but it was a toy to me.

A factor that contributed to this was that I started off with a PS2. I had Jak and Daxter, which ran a hundred times better than Driver did, and it was easy to pick up and play. How a 5-8 year old could have possibly gotten into Driver is beyond me - which makes sense, because it's a game aimed at adults in its setting and in its content.

The game has clearly aged, with its perfect 90 degree turns and its blocky, intangible pedestrians. There's also a ton of pop-in. It's stuff like that which made me feel like it must have been an early PS1 game - again, it was such a primitive product compared to Jak and Daxter, so I thought it must have been an old Dad thing.

But Driver came out in 1999. I was born 4 years before it came out. It predated the PlayStation 2 by a year, and despite feeling like a product like Crash Bandicoot 1 in its simplistic toyness, it came out a year after Crash 3. This has been baffling to me - because honestly, it looks and loads like shit.

Where Driver shines, however, is the driving. Because even with its dated drawbacks, Driver has an incredibly weighty, stylistic driving style. The drifts feel incredible to pull off, and while things definitely go pear-shaped more often than not, the feeling of going full pelt through a downtown district of a city with 3 cops on your tail is legitimately exhilarating.

Driver's gameplay is stylish, responsive and difficult to master. But you can become skilled at the game, and the shit you can get away with if you're good enough makes you feel like a million bucks.

Honestly, driving games on the PS1 are the best. They can be silly and lightweight like older titles, but the elements of realism that some developers were able to instill in 3D racers like vehicle weight and skidding/drifting are still immensely satisfying. I would say that the PS1 and PS2 hit the sweet spot in regards to racing realism, where it feels weighty and responsive and great, while later generation racing games feel almost fussy to play with all the systems and tweaks they utilise.

A lot of Driver 1 has aged like milk. Even the gameplay to a degree, since the police tactic to take you down is to ram you like a kamikaze pilot and it's honestly ridiculous how hardcore you can get steamrolled. But the driving in this game still feels phenomenal. Driver is an interesting game to revisit, and I honestly recommend tracking down a copy somewhere. It's common as fuck, so you should have no trouble finding it and playing it for yourself.

Also, pick up Colin McRae Rally while you're at it. It's another awesome PS1 driving game with weight and style.

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Maybe I'll give you a call when I need a ride to the grocery store.

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Shit like "it came out in 1999" makes me believe in the Mandela Effect -.-

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Only ever played driver 2 myself.

I still played that mostly for the open world bits and not for the racing itself.

Sadly it couldnt hold a candle to gta 3 as far as I was concerned back then.

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I remember hating the non interactive pedestrians

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