Looks cherry to me boss

It's good to see the port has gone well in the graphics department, taking full advantage of modern 3D accelerators through DirectX it really shines. Everything from specula reflections to 32Bit Rendering and real time lighting are supported in the buzzword rich envy. Drive at night and headlights plough the streets with a moody yet eerie silence and cars sparkle their red lights when coming to a stop. If it rains the road is given a slightly reflective tint which means lights dip realistically into the tarmac and you get a real feeling of life out of the whole affair.

Despite there being a lot of different locations later in the game, I found them all to be a little too similar and once you have been chased around one street, hill or bridge you tend to have seen it all. Bar the occasional monument or out of place structure here and there. To get the best you really need a card that can render in 32Bit so you can see how clear the image quality is, a TNT2 or G400 would do this game a lot of justice over the likes of a 3Dfx based card. Not to forget the gritty and well filmed cut scenes, sadly they can be a little boring.

Sounds good

Sound is also almost fault less right down to the dirty and gritty 70's music that constantly impales your ears, but not in a mad way. The quality is very high and it even supports DS3D / EAX and A3Dv2 standards so you can really hear the city and streets around you. Sadly the ambient sound seems to be seriously lacking, you don't here people scream much if at all and the city itself is actually pretty quite despite the odd echo from tunnels and other cars as they trundle by. Did I forget to mention the cities are as full of cars and pedestrians as they are in Midtown Madness? Well they are (Take that how you will).

Next to those small gripes, good music/sound and supported formats means driver is a winner, even if it does miss some of the depth it could have had so easily from better ambience.

The Verdict

One of the better Playstation ports I have seen, to be frank there are only a few good Playstation games and it's nice to see one of the good ones bite the PC bullet this time. Suffering from a lack of ambient sound in the cities and people, slightly annoying time limits, unrealistically insane cops and no Multiplayer Driver unfortunately can't win out against Midtown Madness or GTA.

Thankfully it is still fun, rarely repetitive and great to drive with realistic car sounds and physics to boot. Lots of levels and a real 70's feel (good or bad? You tell me) with HUGE Midtown Madness beating city sizes and locations. Drivers good but it's not the best thing to hit the PC in recent months, excellent if you're tired of Midtown or GTA and want something similar but different. Not good if you hate driving games with objectives and prefer to concentrate on racing.

by Mark 'KILLZAT' Jackson

Graphics - 8 Sound - 8.5 Originality - 7 Gameplay - 8

Overall - 8 (80%)

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