“FRAG!” exclaims Tanner as he, almost inadvertently, collides with another car, causing it to explode in a ball of pixelated flames. Of course, this only occurs if the car is crucial to the mission, if it’s one of five other cars currently cruising New York then you’ll just bounce off it, normally ending up frustratingly facing a fence, unable to turn unless you invoke the painstakingly slow reverse gear. In the meantime, your target has sauntered off towards whatever goal he’s currently aiming at.
[drop]As you might have guessed Driver: Renegade 3D, sadly, isn’t very good. In fact, during the couple of hours the main game will last you’ll find yourself thinking that very thought almost constantly, and that’s if you’re being polite. On a technical level, if you’re polite enough to ignore the draw-in in the middle distance, the lack of pedestrians and some atrocious AI, it’s not a terribly produced title, but as a game – no, this doesn’t cut any kind of entertainment mustard we’d normally like to play.The story’s not bad, mind, illustrated by way of some swear-heavy, blood soaked cut-scenes that book-end each of the game’s twenty levels, and although the twist is hardly unexpected there’s little padding in the plot, throwing Tanner from one corrupt individual to another all under the watchful eye of a senator and his bodyguard. The exposition will see you dashing around the Big Apple, normally with a predetermined goal, although the actual number of different mission types is disappointingly few.
The tasks themselves last between thirty seconds and a few minutes (depending on how many cars you need to FRAG! or how quickly you can cover the – admittedly impressively big – map) and only one caused any difficulty in completing on the default mode. Switching up to hard improves the experience a little (and rewards you with cars for the Career mode) but the core experience still remains a rather dull, plain one. And Tanner’s four or five lines of dialog mid-mission begin to grate extremely quickly.
Career mode, then, is a little better. Presenting you with a map of the city and a less linear path, the player can dip into the various modes as they please, even if most of them are just simple variations on the ever popular street racing theme. The actual handling is fine (apart from when you’re stuck against a wall) and although the cars are far too light for them to feel particularly convincing they’re fun to throw around at speed, especially when you flick on ‘Rage’ mode and fire up the turbos.
But then that’s Renegade in a nutshell. Loads of potential, but a poor game thrown onto what might have been a rather capable engine and a license that – alongside San Francisco – should have proved to be a surefire hit. As it stands, I walked away from this one feeling that my time with it had been a little bit wasted. It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly not worth £35. By all means pick it up cheap and give it an afternoon’s worth, but there are far better games on the system more worthy of your time.
Pros:
- Nice visuals, at times.
- Handling is fine.
Cons:
- It’s far too swear-heavy.
- Throwaway story mode is much too short.
We went into Driver with an open mind, and left disappointed. The first minutes were great fun, and then repetition set in and although the presentation is up to scratch there’s little else to keep you occupied once the game is done, which won’t take long. Oh, and there’s no multiplayer mode to keep you going either, a little competitiveness might have made the game less a battle with cheap AI and more something with a bit of substance. And if I hear anyone say FRAG! ever again…
Dan Lee
Glad I read this earlier, as I saw ithe game at the shops and would have been tempted.
Grabacr
Wierd how Driver san francisco is great and this is rubbish lol
wonkey-willy
how weird that you cant spell weird?
Jakster123x
Oh, no. What has happened to me?!
I’ve never heard of this game before!
I hereby resign from life.
Rocket_345
FRAG! Sorry couldn’t resist. Never even heard of this but it doesnt seem like i’m missing much.
colmshan1990
Now that’s more like what I’ve come to expect from my Driver reviews…
Pity it isn’t as good as San Francisco is reputed to be, hopefully future efforts will be better.
kivi95
Wow from the pictures this looks really really bad. But really have not ever heard of this game so i guess that’s probably why they have not been talking much about it.
Crocadillian
More lame 3DS games! What are the chances that the developer who made this will be closed within a week?
cam the man
Don’t think I’ll go and buy this…. even if I had a 3DS!
Sympozium
The real problem with the 3DS is that it seems developers aren’t using its power.
Surely they could add a little bit of more effort into the graphics, the buildings looks as if its been ripped of an photo saved right from Google images than the source it self. UGLY….>.< and the rest well… it looks generic, to think Driver was quite cool on Playstation..and this is made, pfft
colmshan1990
I wonder how much graphical power 3D takes?
Even with the slider turned down, the game is still making as many frames I’d say.
nofi
Running a game in 3D takes twice the power, roughly, as it’s drawing twice the amount of graphics.