Games are coming, games are going, but some of them don't want to die. Instead they grow creating new offspring of the same lame quality. Who buys these products? The fans of course. In the beginning Driver was not such a game. In 1999 when the game was first released for the PlayStation console, it created an evolution of the freedom concept in a virtual city. It was the first game to give the ability to explore the city inside a car in a 3D environment. Nevertheless the game was a success and a financial hit. The quality of the first game gained lot of fans who were eager to buy new games based on the Driver franchise. But what came out afterwards from the Reflections Studios, were just failures. So although the third part of the series was critically buried, the true fans still bought it. So instead of a financial collapse resulted from such a poor quality product, Reflections Interactive found the necessary strength to create a new one. Still published by Atari, the game appeared on XBOX and PlayStation 2 last year. Recently the franchise was bought by Ubisoft, so the whole Reflections studio was transferred in their court. As a result they have re-released the last Driver game for PC and Wii this year in June.

Intro

So the story and action of Parallel Lines take place in New York, a city rotten by crimes, drugs, robberies, sex and people willing to make fortune out of nothing. T.K (The Kid) is a wheelman at the beginning of his career who will be hired pretty fast by some mobs to do different dirty jobs. These jobs are most of the time resumed by deliveries, illegal races, and theft cars. With some exceptions when you are forced to resolve the situation on foot with a gun in your hand, all the other main missions are about driving. Money in the game don't play an important role. You need them just in one main mission when you must gather $1500. Otherwise all the other main missions don't need money to be completed. The only source of money is the secondary missions. But what need to complete these ones when you can spend money only on tuning vehicles? Now if you still want to play the game in general you will resume to the main story based missions ornate with some good cinematics. If I'm not mistaken myself, these cinematics and the story are the only reason to play the game. Both create a Holywood action movie experience similar to what Mafia had to offer back in 2002. But some of the missions are just there to link the cinematic experience and to bring new characters into it. The few of them which are pumpin adrenaline are the one based on driving. The developers chose extreme routes for these missions to put you dexterity at test and to make use of the slow motion effect while you are jumping from one building to another.

Vehicles

Vehicles are the reason why this game and the whole franchise exists. But as always you will not find licensed cars, but a bunch of copies from the real ones. To add some diversity, you can tune your cars by buying different parts from the market such as: bodywork, three level engine, nitro system, springs, shocks, brakes, bulletproof glass and wheels, etc..

But don't imagine multiple ways of tuning it. Driver Parallel Lines has the most realistic handling from all the GTA clones on the market. It has inherited the American style of driving from the first Driver based on lots of drifting. That doesn't mean that the handling is a simulated one. But it has enough physics to make the driving experience a fun one. As a bonus the cars do have damage, and it looks quite spectacular especially when you totaled the car.

Let's not forget the bikes, three models for every era. The bikes are really fast but pay attention because T.K. is not invulnerable inside the vehicles. Every hit or crash will decrease T.K.'s health and a fall from the bike at high speeds can cause sudden death. Police always had an important place in Driver series, so they are back this time based on a new felony system. There are two felony types, one for the in-car activities and one for out-of-the-car activities. If you can escape the police and drive in a safe area the wanted level will disappear but will reappear if you spend too much time in sight of the police. The same goes when you are on-foot and use your weapon. If you don't use it you can easily lose the wanted level by holster it (in case your already used it which implies automatically to run away from that spot and hide).