Nintendo Okie

There have been a lot of different racing games on the Wii. Some of them have been successful, and some of them haven’t. There have also been a lot of ports of games that were brought over from the HD consoles, many of them having to have sacrifices made in order to get them to run properly on the Wii. Ubisoft is bringing out a version of Driver: San Francisco to the Wii, but it might not be what you expect. How does the game fare in the world of driving games on the little white Nintendo console that could?

What You Need to Know

Driver: San Francisco for the Wii is not the same game as Driver: San Francisco for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. It has nothing to do with that game and is actually set before the events of the first Driver game. It stars series protagonist John Tanner when he’s fresh out of the Academy and he’s beginning his undercover work for the Bay Area Police Department. You go undercover to investigate rival gangs, and cause plenty of mayhem in the process. All of the events in the game take place in your car so expect to do a lot of driving in the game. Did you really expect anything else from a game called Driver?

Great Visual Style

I’ve said many times before that I like companies that do something different with the Wii; Red Steel 2, Super Mario Galaxy, even the Super Monkey Ball games. They’re all going to stand the test of time because they didn’t try to push graphics that the system wasn’t capable of. Ubisoft has done the same thing with Driver: San Francisco by forgoing the more realistic visual style of the Xbox and PS3 versions of the game in favor of a more cel shaded look. It looks like they took the visual filters from Red Steel 2, slapped them on a car and put everything in the middle of San Francisco. I really like this visual style. It’s something that’s become very popular with Wii developers, but it works for the system.

The cut scenes, while they’re mostly just pictures and video of cars with very little action they’re done with the same cel-shading and an added touch of making it look like a grainy 1970’s era buddy cop film. You’ll see the blemishes of old movies complete with some really nice slow motion blur effects.

In addition to that everything in the game is destructable and it breaks in very realistic ways. Pieces of the car come flying off when you’re involved in collisions and they litter the roadway. Trash cans, and newspaper stands go flying through the air. Everything in the game that’s not a building can be broken and it’s greatly satisfying to see that much detail put into the physics engine of the game. It really does a lot to immerse you in the world and you feel like running through things can give you enough of a “smokescreen” to evade pursuers.

It’s a Wii Game

Another thing that I really like developers doing is creating a game that uses the strengths of the system. In the case of the Wii it’s been proven that games designed for the system are better than ports with dumbed down controls and ugly visuals. Ubisoft has taken the opportunity to create a game that really takes advantage of the Wii. The visual style fits the system. They toned down some of the game’s harsher themes and they’ve added a bunch of Wii specific things to give Wii owners a game that they’ll enjoy playing. It seems a bit odd that the 3DS gets an M rated Driver game, but the Wii has things toned down for a T rating. In any case though, the game fits the system and it’s fun.

There are some motion controls used in the game. Stunts and physical attacks from the car are mapped to the motion controls. Pressing the A button and tilting the remote will put the car up on two wheels which will let you fill some of the special move meters. Some missions require you to use the Wii Remote as a radar and hold it up to obtain a signal while driving around the city. The pointer is used for the shooting sections of the game. With few exceptions these work very well and give the Wii owner something you don’t get on the other systems. Some of the bumps and ramming mapped to motion don’t always register properly and that can be frustrating, but those moves aren’t required all the time to successfully complete a mission. It’s very fun and satisfying to pull off a PIT maneuver in a car with a perfectly timed swipe of the Wii Remote and see those other cars spin off into oblivion.

Multi-Player Mayhem

Over the years developers have pushed the party aspect of the Wii system. So much of the Wii library is filled with games where there are four people in a room together having fun. Driver: San Francisco is no different. The entire campaign can be played co-operatively with one person driving and the other taking over pistol duties.

There are a number of multi-player party modes all of which can be played by up to four players. You’ll find the standard racing fare with players driving all around the map of San Francisco. Cops and Robbers is exactly what it sounds like. There are modes where you play capture the flag or rush around the map collecting gold. There are nearly a dozen different missions or modes that all can be played by up to four different people and they’re a lot of fun. I expect if you’ve got a regular group of friends that like to race you might find yourself playing this mode more often than you’ll jump into the single player. It’s really a lot of fun to drive around these streets shooting at each other, or trying to run your friends into all of the many obstacles on the road.

You can even have a DS hook up to the game allowing a second player to place obstacles in the roadways or keep an eye on traffic for you while you’re racing around avoiding cops and other criminals.

Floaty Controls

Where I felt the controls in Driver: Renegade were perfect on the 3DS, I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum for Driver: San Francisco. Not having analog control really poses a problem when you’re trying to pull of precision maneuvers in 4,000 pound muscle cars. It’s either all or nothing when you press the gas pedal and the brake. This means that you’re going to be spinning your tires very often and the power of the car will push you too far in turns. Whipping the car around 180 degrees can also prove problematic as there will be many times you do something expecting the car to turn slightly only to have it continue on and turn you nearly a full 360 degrees. This lack of control can prove frustrating especially in very high speed situations where you’re trying to lose someone that’s chasing you. It makes it very hard to pull of quick turns and drags on the length of these missions longer than necessary. It also means you’re going to end up in a lot of head on collisions with oncoming vehicles.

It would have been nice to actually pay attention to the rules of the road in the game. Instead it’s either stop and start or full out pedal to the metal. When you really get the hang of what the car is going to do I can definitely see someone being able to pull of the most amazing things with these cars, but I wasn’t able to do it.

Too Many Similar Mission Styles

The same thing that plagued the 3DS version of Driver: Renegade is present here. You’ll get fairly standard driving mission types. One minute you’ll be tailing a criminal and trying not to spook them followed by a mission where you’re out to destroy everything in a given area. Then you’ll go on missions where you need to disable a vehicle without destroying it, followed by another mission where your job is to take out every enemy car on the map. Then you’ll be given another vehicle and told to do the same things all over again.

They’re pretty standard and present in just about every other driving game out there. Not too much variety to find here and after a few hours you’ll get pretty tired of doing the same thing over and over again.

Conclusion

Driver: San Francisco is something of an oddity. The campaign is pretty entertaining. There’s not really anything that hasn’t been done before. You’re going to play the same types of missions numerous times, but I had fun with it. The multi-player portions of the game are where there is probably going to be a lot of fun. Every player has to deal with the unwieldy controls and it’s going to lead to a lot of fun moments. It’s a game designed specifically for the Wii and looks really good. There could be some confusion and disappointment from people thinking they’re getting the same experience as the Xbox and PS3, but if you know going in that it’s a completely separate game then there’s definitely a lot of fun to be had.

Final Score: 

Review copy of the game provided by Ubisoft.
Played through single player campaign in its entirety. Sampled portions of the multi-player.
Total Play Time: 9 hours