Driver: San Francisco

Cos it's a liddle bit good that's why.

Shortest review ever.

ONLY KIDDING.

You're back as John Tanner, THE BEST DAMN DRIVING COP THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN, continuing on the story from the previous game; Tanner has finally arrested Jericho and is accompanying the prison van to its destination. As luck would have it, Jericho escapes, steals the van, and drives it straight into you putting you into a coma.

That's how the game explains the most ridiculous game mechanic ever; Whilst you're in this coma, the world continues on inside your head, just as if the crash never happened. After a while, you're zooming in and out of cars, taking over the body of whoever is driving the car at the time.

But once you're used to it, or just ignore it, the game really takes off. The city of San Francisco has never looked better (we assume this, because we've never been), and flinging your car around smashing the place up is tons'o'fun. Even the cutscenes don't tend to break things up too much, mainly due to the banter shared between you and your partner, Jones, as both he and Tanner gel really well together.

Obviously, all the missions are driving ones, but thanks to the shifting ability, it breathes new life into an otherwise tired idea. For some of the story missions especially, there are some definite "Woah!" moments, such as driving Tanner's car when you're behind it driving another car... don't worry it'll make sense when it happens. Kind of.

In order to progress the story, you need to complete city missions, which can be anything from retrieving stolen cars, to destroying counterfeit drugs, a simple street race to outrunning the police. All of the city missions see you taking over another persons body, in a very Quantum Leap style fashion, to ensure that whatever the current task is, it ends in the way Tanner see's fit.

By far the most annoying aspect of the game for us was trying to expand the mini-map only to have it closed every few seconds because the game felt it needed to remind us about aspects of the current mission we already knew. Other than that, when being pursued by the MUTHA FUKKIN PO-LEECE they can often make things impossible, completely trashing your car and continuously knocking you off course... but then we guess that's the point.

Unfortunately, the single player campaign is rather short, and you'll be done with it in a matter of hours. Two good things to come from that:

1. As you progress in the story, in addition to the city missions, you unlock challenges. You can complete these whenever you like, as the game turns into total open world exploration mode after finishing the final mission.
2. The multiplayer!

There are a variety of different modes on offer in multiplayer, such as Tag, much like the playground game, Takedown, which is a classic battle between a getaway driver and the cops, various types of team racing, from capture the flag to relays. All must be unlocked through play, which means you must start off with what you're given!

Overall, we enjoyed Driver: San Francisco much more than we thought we would. If you're out for an arcadey racer that focuses on the driving and doesn't faff around with anything else, check it out!