Driver: San Francisco is a sandbox-style action-adventure driving video game developed by Ubisoft Reflections and published by Ubisoft. The game formally was unveiled at E3 2010 and was released in Australia on September 1, 2011, Europe on September 2, 2011 and North America on September 6, 2011[3] on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360,[6] while the Microsoft Windows version was released on 27 September 2011
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
After the shootings in Istanbul, Jericho was revived from his gunshot wounds. After recovery, he eluded the security and escaped the Istanbul hospital, fleeing from Turkey and escaping back to the U.S. After 6 months of searching him, Tanner and Jones managed to find him and arrest him. He is currently in San Francisco, awaiting trial.
At the beginning of the game, Jericho is shown being transported in the back of a prison truck, but manages to escape with help of hired assassin Leila Sharan, who hijacks a KEOC news chopper and fires an RPG at the convoy, and a vial of acid hidden within his mouth by a paid off guard. He overpowers the guards, and hijacks the truck. Tanner and Jones witness this from Tanner\'s car, pursuing Jericho as he causes havoc on the streets of the city. Tanner ends driving in front of Jericho in an alleyway, who, using the truck rams Tanner\'s car into the path of a tractor trailer, resulting in a devastating crash, putting him into a coma.[7][8]
Whilst in a coma dream, Tanner soon discovers his ability to "shift" into another person\'s body, retaining his persona but, to everyone else, looking and sounding exactly the same as the person he has shifted into. Using this confusing power, Tanner helps some teenagers win street races to get money for college fees, aids some vigilante ex-cops remove fake medicine from circulation and lends his driving abilities to police officers hunting down criminals whilst trying to figure out Jericho\'s plan. After deducing that Jericho is after the materials to create a cyanide gas bomb, he shifts into Ordell, a low-time crook looking to rise up through Jericho\'s organization.
Tanner later, however, discovers that Jericho can also shift, and realises that when he is not in his body, Jericho can take over. He is deconspired, when disguised as Ordell, drives Leila to her target, which is his body. Eventually, Tanner comes to notice that he is in a dream world when the strange messages from the real world creep into his mind. Jericho\'s powers become more potent, but as it is in Tanner\'s head, he is over-powered and defeated when Tanner assumes control of his mental projection of the city. In a mental visualisation of a police interrogation room, Tanner begins questioning his mental projection of Jericho and figures that the news reports from the television in his real-world hospital bed are feeding his coma dream. From this he knows of a real-world bomb plot, but deduces that it is not real - Jericho is a gangster, not a terrorist.
Finally waking up, Tanner requests his car keys from Jones, who reminds him of the truck that hit his Dodge Challenger. Leaving in Jones\' Chevrolet Camaro and heading for downtown San Francisco, which is being evacuated due to a bomb threat, a massive cloud of gas erupts. Driving into it, Tanner finds escaping convicts, confirming his theory that it was not a real terror threat. Jericho made a deal with a prisoner for US$30 million to break him out of jail. The \'bomb\' was in fact a smokescreen. After a pursuit, Tanner sees Jericho head into the docks. Whilst at first appearing to be a game of chicken and a potential head-on collision, Jones appears in a police SUV and rams Jericho. Tanner claims that he knew what he was doing, but Jones reminds him whose car he was driving before suggesting a well-deserved beer.
[edit]Wii
This section requires expansion. (September 2011)
The plot of the Wii version of Driver: San Francisco is a completely different separate story and the story is a prequel to the original Driver. It features John Tanner in the 1970s to 1980s as a rookie undercover cop, in the story it is revealed while still a uniformed police officer him and his partner were giving chase to a speeding car driven by Solomon Caine a gangster attempting to cause massive gangs wars in San Francisco and disrupt the peace by killing several gang members in a drive by shooting. Caine shot Tanner\'s partner resulting in both the car crashing and the death of Tanner\'s partner. Tanner who was knocked out during the crash requests from his chief approval to go undercover to find this person making a promise to his dead partner, the Chief laughs and won\'t even let him out on the road until he completes a driving assessment with Detective Deakin whom Tanner considers to be a jerk. He passes the test and ends up catching a bank robber with Deakin. He is then tasked with transporting a witness to the court house, the witness was of the people who speeding car incident which lead to the death of Tanner\'s partner. They get to the court house although Tanner\'s superior informs him that some punk knifed him before he could testify but that he will now allow Tanner to go undercover. While undercover, Tanner\'s superior decides to send in Detective Jones to assist Tanner with his undercover case.
[edit]Gameplay
In San Francisco, players can shift to any car at any time, as long the player has enough points. Also, for the first time in the series, the game will have licensed cars.
A new feature is Shift, which allows Tanner to shift from a car into another car and continue the mission.[8] One of the inspirations for Shift comes from Google Earth.[8] The game is also being described as a "return to the roots" to the series as the ability to get out of the car, which was introduced in Driver 2, has been removed and replaced with the ability to Shift (teleport) into other cars, as the developers felt that too many games have this kind of feature already and "it wasn\'t desirable [for us] to just copy that exact mechanic."[8][9] With Shift, the player can also start missions. As well as the ability to use Shift, all cars will be equipped with a \'boost\' feature, requiring the player to push up on the left thumbstick to use it. Players can also push L1 on the PlayStation 3 or the left shoulder button on the Xbox 360 version of the game to perform a special \'ram\' attack on cars. The film director mode, which was absent from Parallel Lines, also returns, and players can share their videos on the Driver Club website.[8] The game runs at 60 frames per second.[10]
[edit]Setting
The game has one of the largest driving environments. The game\'s San Francisco recreation has about 208 miles (335 km) of roads.[7][9] Various landmarks are recreated in the game including half of the Bay Bridge and parts of Marin County and Oakland. In the Wii version, however, access to the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges are blocked, thus preventing the driver from driving through parts of Marin County and Oakland.[7] However, it is a more fictionalized interpretation of these areas.
[edit]Multiplayer
Split screen and online multiplayer are also available for the first time in the series with 19 different game modes including trailblazer, tag, sprint GT, cops and robbers, among others. In Trail Blazer, the players have to follow the trail of an AI-controlled car to accumulate points. The player who accumulates more points will win the match. The Tag game mode is similar to regular tag, but in reverse. All the players are trying to "tag," or hit, one player. Once he is hit, the person who tagged him is now it.[7][9] The multiplayer will also have experience points.[11]
[edit]Cars
For the first time in the series, the game includes 140 fully damageable licensed vehicles ranging from buggies, muscle cars, and sport cars including Audi, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Bentley, Ruf Automobile, Dodge, Ford, Shelby, Volkswagen, Pagani, Lincoln, DeLorean, Lamborghini, and Cadillac.[12]
[edit]Wii version
This section requires expansion. (September 2011)
The Wii version of the game does not include the "Shift" mechanic but allows players to use guns while driving. The SMG, the pistol, the shotgun, the assault rifle and the RPG are all the weapons available in the game. All weapons can be upgraded in the following categories, Clip size, reload speed,and damage. There is a maximum of four levels for each upgrade. Upgrade points can be earned by doing various tricks and earning awards around the city. A new feature for the Wii is the localized multi-player, where a second player may take control of the gun or, if they desire, can connect a DS, DSi or 3DS system through download play. The DS device can be used to make road blocks, look for police and buy player 1 some more time through playing various mini games. There is also a four player split-screen multiplayer. The split screen mode includes four game variants. The variants are Capture the flag, in which the players must grab a flag and drive it to spefic location. Pass the Bomb, in which players must pass a bomb from car to car before a timer counts down, ending the game. Gold Rush, in which the players must grab a bag of money and hold on to it for points. And elimination, in which players must race each other. There is also a cops and robbers split screen mode.
[edit]Development
The game has been in development for around five years.[13] A new game in the series was confirmed to be in production at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show when Sony announced a list of 102 that would be released on the PlayStation 3.[14] Ubisoft later confirmed a new game in the series after acquiring the series from Atari.[15] In June 2008, the BBC conducted reports on the computer game industry,[16] among those reports were in-game, and development footage of the next Driver game.[17] On April 21, 2009, Ubisoft registered the trademark Driver: The Recruit.[18] On January 2010, it was confirmed that a new Driver game was in development and due for release in Ubisoft\'s fiscal year ending in March 2011.[19] On April 23, 2010, Ubisoft registered the domain driversanfranciscogame.com as well as driversanfrancisco.com and driversanfran.com, suggesting that San Francisco was the setting of the new game in the series.[20][21] On May 27, 2010, Ubisoft confirmed that the next installment in the Driver series would appear on E3 2010, along with other games.[22][23] On 7 June 2010, Ubisoft released a teaser website containing a live action trailer, resembling the first mission of the original Driver game, along with a countdown for Ubisoft\'s E3 2010 conference.[24][25]
Ubisoft also created the game\'s Facebook page, which upon clicking in the "Like" button, opens a slightly different version of the trailer, showing a Californian driver license of John Tanner.[26][27] A billboard at the LA Convention Center for E3 revealed the title of the new game to be Driver: San Francisco.[28] Ubisoft officially announced the game on their E3 2010 conference.[29] On November 12, 2010 the game has been delayed and is set to be released in FY 2012, which is between March 31, 2011 and the same date in 2012.[30]
Reflections founder and series creator Martin Edmondson, returned to Reflections after he temporarily left the game industry in 2004. The game was developed by five Ubisoft studios with Reflections as the lead, and four other developers: Vancouver, Kiev, Shanghai and Montreal.[31] Ubisoft released a free DLC, with 12 new routes for all online modes on September 12.[32]
On July 15, 2011 Ubisoft announced that all of their future games with online functionality would require \'Uplay Passport\' online pass. Driver: San Francisco would be the first in line to utilize this feature.[33] However, due to misprinted codes, which left players who bought new copies of the game unable to play online, the online pass was waived for the Xbox 360 version.[32]
[edit]Audio
The game\'s audio was mixed at Pinewood Studios, which is known for the James Bond film franchise.[34] The game will include 60 licensed songs, an original score from Marc Canham along with a new version of the Driver theme by Canham.[35] The OST is mixed and produced by Rich Aitken at Nimrod. On August 30, the soundtrack was confirmed with 76 songs with genres like funk, hip hop, electronic, alternative rock and hard rock from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Dr. John, DJ Shadow, The Black Keys, The Cure, Beastie Boys, Queens of the Stone Age, The Heavy, Unkle, and Elbow. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions support custom soundtracks which allows the player to listen to their own music during gameplay.[36]