Driver 2

Driver 2: Back on the Streets is an open-world driving and action game developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Infogrames in 2000 for the PlayStation. It is the sequel to Driver and follows undercover cop Tanner and his partner Jones as they investigate a crime syndicate. The game introduces the ability for players to exit vehicles and explore environments on foot. Missions take place across four cities: Chicago, Havana, Las Vegas, and Rio de Janeiro. Gameplay combines story-driven objectives with free-roaming exploration.

Released: 13 November 2000
Platforms: Game Boy Advance PlayStation
Genres: Racing
Developers: Ubisoft Reflections
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Action Thriller Drama Open world
Country: United Kingdom
Age ratings: ESRB T
Languages: English
Composers: Allister Brimble

About

Driver 2 (also known as Driver 2: Back on the Streets and as Driver 2: The Wheelman Is Back in North America) is a 2000 action driving video game and the second installment of the Driver series. It was developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Infogrames for PlayStation. A port to the Game Boy Advance, titled Driver 2 Advance, was released in 2002, developed by Sennari Interactive and released under Infogrames' Atari range of products.

The follow up to Driver, Driver 2 too was a commercial success, although received a less enthusiastic critical reception in comparison. The next installment would be Driver 3 in 2004, while a prequel title was released as Driver: Renegade in 2011.

›Story

Driver 2's story takes place across four different cities: Chicago, Havana, Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro. Tanner and his partner, Tobias Jones, are working together to capture a moneyman who has double crossed a crime lord. The moneyman is known as 'Pink Lenny' throughout the story, and he is portrayed as a weasel in the opening cutscene. Pink Lenny has double crossed Solomon Caine, and is now working for his enemy, a Brazilian known as Alvaro Vasquez.

Tanner must find and capture Pink Lenny, as Solomon Caine wants to kill him for double crossing him. Lenny has also been responsible for causing a large gang war in Chicago through his actions.

The elusive Avaro Vasquez, head of the tattooed Brazilian mob operating out of Rio, is turning his business interests to mainland USA. Violence threatens to ignite America when a U.S. crimelord`s money-man cuts a deal with Vasquez - his greatest rival.

Keywords

burnout
driving
crime
day/night cycle
polygonal 3d
unlockables
non-player character
declarative title
destructible environment
theft
anti-hero
invisible wall

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Driver 2 expands on Driver's structure, as well as adding the ability of the character John Tanner to step out of his car to explore on foot and commandeer other vehicles in the game's environments. The story missions are played separately from the 'Take a Ride' mode where the player can explore the cities in their own time.

Missions in the game are generally vehicle-oriented, and involve trailing witnesses, ramming cars and escaping from gangsters or cops. A cutscene is shown prior to almost every mission to help advance the storyline, and thus the game plays rather like a Hollywood-style car chase movie. Although Tanner can leave his car and interact with certain elements of the environment, all violence takes place during pre-rendered scenes.

Story

In Chicago, Pink Lenny meets with a tattooed Brazilian man at a bar. Two gangsters suddenly enter the bar and open fire on them; Lenny escapes, but the Brazilian man is killed. His body is later examined at a morgue by police officers John Tanner and Tobias Jones. The man's tattoos indicate that he worked for Alvaro Vasquez, the leader of a Brazilian criminal organization. Following this, Tanner and Jones are sent undercover to investigate Lenny's involvement in recent gang violence in Chicago.

They interrogate a witness to the bar shooting, who explains that Lenny used to work as a money launderer for Solomon Caine, a high-ranking mobster with operations based in Chicago and Las Vegas. Furthermore, it is revealed that Lenny has made a deal with Vasquez, Caine's greatest rival. Tanner and Jones later follow one of Vasquez's men to a warehouse, where they find hardware that has been shipped from Cuba.

Development

The game was first released on the PlayStation video game console and was later ported to Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. Due to the sheer number of FMVs which were almost exclusively utilised to tell the story, the game was released on two discs. The first disc contained the Chicago and Havana missions, while the second disc contained the Las Vegas and Rio missions.

The GBA version was significantly condensed from its counterpart on the PlayStation, due to memory limitations. Of the four cities in the PS1 version (Chicago, Havana, Las Vegas, and Rio), only Chicago and Rio are present, and the storyline is simplified to just these two cities, either omitting the other two cities' missions or transplanting them into the two that actually appear in the game.

Reception

The game received "mixed or average reviews" on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

Ryan MacDonald of GameSpot concluded that the PlayStation version was "an extraordinary game". In a mixed review, Douglass C. Perry of IGN described the same console version as "one of the most disappointing games, if not the most disappointing game, of 2000". David Chen of NextGen said that the same console version "should please both newcomers and fans of the first, but it's not nearly as revolutionary or well executed."