Driver®: Parallel Lines

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3.7/5

( 82 Reviews )

3.7

82 Reviews

English & 2 more

Overall most helpful review

Posted on: January 15, 2010

komoto

Games: 6 Reviews: 4

Perhaps my hopes for this were to high?

I thoroughly enjoyed Driver 1 and 2 on the Playstation. They had open environments, challenging and cinematic cop chases, all set in an immersive environment which brought back fond memories of early films like "Bullit" with fun, Hollywood-esk chase scenes. Driver 4 (Parallel Lines) and Driver 3 were not enjoyable for me. They added they ability to use firearms, ride motorcycles and wonder around on foot. Unfortunately it feels alot like the developers aimed for a GTA-like game and didn't have the resources to pull it off. The graphics look strangely warped, the vehicle physics feel wrong and the story line has very little pull. I think, had they focused their efforts (and I'm assuming limited resources) purely on further refining their original formula of cars, cops and robbers, they could have produced something really great. But they did not.

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Posted on: January 23, 2010

JMScion

Games: 114 Reviews: 6

Not the best Driver, but still a car chase junkie's dream.

Driver: Parallel Lines has been accepted as the black sheep of the Driver series. While that's not necessarily a bad name, it does mean many fans of previous Driver games were put off by the new gameplay mechanics and lost features D:PL brought to the table. But the core mechanics are here: Parallel Lines offers the best car chases you will find in any driving game at a difficulty reserved for the hardest of the hardcore. AI cars pursue you ferociously at suicidal speeds in the middle of cluttered New York traffic, and making the perfect escape will require pulling some impressive maneuvers that are both fun to execute and just look really cool. Sweetening the deal to the cinematic car chases is a little feature that lets you switch the camera view to a slo-mo cinematic shot of your car in motion at the press of a button, so you can see that narrow miss or epic crash as though you were watching a true 70's action flick. As great as the chases are, however, the game falls short on its new additions to the Driver formula. The city, though impressive in scale and destructible items, just wasn't made to be seen at less than 60 MPH. Pedestrians are lifeless when not dodging traffic and there are no little behavioral gimmicks to make you feel as though you're walking through a real city. Gun combat has been converted from Driv3r's FPS control to a clumsy targeting system, which leaves series fans scratching their heads since Driv3r's shooting worked just fine. The biggest loss is the removal of the Moviemaker mode. Previous Driver games would quite literally let you make small movies out of your adventures with cinematic techniques such as slo-mo, motion blur, camera tracking and even tripod cams that could be placed anywhere. The feature is completely gone in Parallel Lines, which is a true shame since there are some amazing moments in the course of a chase that you may want to watch from different angles, not to mention the moviemaker mode gave previous games loads of replay value to movie buffs. Parallel Lines may not be the best entry in the Driver series. But it's still a Driver game, and as long as it's the only one that GOG has, it should not be missed by anybody with a penchant for white-knuckle car chases and 70's aesthetics.

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Posted on: January 21, 2010

gl3nnium

Verified owner

Games: 90 Reviews: 15

A good alternative to the GTA and Saints Row series

Before there was GTA 3 there was 'Driver'. Driver 1 and 2 started the whole 3d sand-box driving genre. They were classics that GTA 3 borrowed heavily from, and yes, GTA 3 did do it better. I have a love / hate relationship with the driver series. I never played 1 or 2 but i started with Driv3r (Driver 3). On first play it was a startling game. Fantastic graphics and ultra realistic handling. It looked beautiful and had a revolutionary replay mode that let you make your own movies from gameplay. I thought 'wow this is going to change games' and for a while i was hooked. Much like the GTA series most of the fun was cruising the streets and having gunfights with cops before stealing a car and trying to escape. But then the cracks started to show. Bugs and glitches and halfway through the game it got insanely hard and unfair on the player. To be honest it frustrated me so much i snapped the disc so that the game wouldnt be able to frustrate some poor guy just like me. Trouble was the game was great until halfway through and it got impossible. Any little obstacle no matter how small would make you crash and automatically lose. It was after this that 'Driver Parralles Lines' was released. Everything was different from the previous Driv3r. It turns out that i wasnt the only one the was frustrated by the previous game. Sure this version of Driver was less frustrating, but im not sure it was an improvement. As flawed as Driv3r was, its core gameplay was amazing. Driver-Parrallel lines now plays exactly like the GTA 3 series and felt dumbed down in comparason. All of the on-foot gunplay now used a lock-on auto target like GTA 3 and you could tell that the game engine was totally different. That being said, the game is actually very good. the story is engaging and the driving control is done well. The Cars handle fine and the environments all look good ( of a Saints Row / GTA standard) The 1970's setting is a big draw here and the sound-track is fantastic. This game is going to suffer from comparisons with the GTA series. It's a GTA clone, but a good one. It's worth the $9 price tag and then some. Yes the GTA series is better but there is something about this game that is addictive. Compared to a game like GTA Vice City etc this game would rate maybe a three out of Five stars but i think that would be unfair. Without comparing it to the GTA series, Driver-Parrallel lines deserves a 4 out of 5 stars. Sure you'd probably find me in the GTA / Saints Row universe before going to Driver, but then why do i really want to play this game again?....it's worth more than 9 bucks you cheap bastard so give it a shot and decide for yourself.

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Posted on: March 24, 2020

Curtex

Verified owner

Games: 71 Reviews: 1

A proper way to set a break to Driver

So. It's 2006, Ubisoft pulls out Driver: PL in the PS2, and inmediately, people starts with the negative reviews, as expected. It really is hard to get a series back on it's feet after a notable failure, which the critics considered Driv3r to be, but yet, somehow, they managed to pull out a game that, although not top-of-the-line for the year, was pretty great and gave the series a good timeout. Set in just one city, but 2 eras, the game impressively makes the feeling of the era change between the 70's and 2006. Seriously, I'm actually impressed by how a game with this visuals manages to make the feel pretty different, and everything's helping. The HUD, the lighting, the vehicles, the whole city... This is not a game you buy to casually play. Trust me, you won't like it if that's what you're looking for. This is a game you gotta get into, to feel the heart put into it, and what really shines in it. The vehicle handling's pretty arcade, although physics on the other hand are pretty great for a game like this, developed in such era. You will quickly feel that car speeding down the road, flying through the traffic as if you was nothing but air. The detail put into the vehicles in this game is pretty impressive. The story focuses mainly on vehicles, and interacts with them almost everytime. You won't feel the missions being repetitive unlike in other games, which will also leave you wanting more once you're done with it. The gunplay is... Pretty bad, but you won't go through a lot of gunfights. You're here for speeding, chases are great, and the AI is actually pretty impressive when it comes to chasing, they'll generally avoid traffic successfully, and will be a threat against any balanced vehicle. If you're willing to drive hard while the sirens of the police get over the funk blasting out of your 70's speakers, this is your game. It won't be visually stunning, but that's not what you, at least 14 years after the game's release, are here for... Are you?

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Posted on: January 31, 2010

spragers

Verified owner

Games: 22 Reviews: 1

Buggy, short, and frustrating

I lost track of how often this game crashed in Windows 7 (not to mention the fact that I first had to download an old version of DirectX just to get it to run at all). The on-foot combat system is horrid, and the view joystick when on foot has the two axes turn in different directions - yikes! Plus, I normally suck at most games, but I finished the main story line (which wasn't all that bad) in half a weekend. Maybe if this game were half-price it would be a good value... I think the original Driver games is still better than this one. Sure does look, pretty, though.

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