• Game: Driver: San Francisco
• Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
• Publisher: UbiSoft
• Developer: Reflections
• ESRB: T
• Genre: Racing
• Players: 1-8



• What's Hot: Astral projection mechanic; fun city to explore; well-handling cars; kitschy motif



• What's Not: Boxed-in streets

Review by: Justin Amirkhani

The Driver series has rarely been one that’s truly mattered. This explains why when Driver: San Francisco turned into one of my favorite games of 2011 I was not only completely surprised, but completely unprepared.

At the heart of this amazing metamorphosis is a gimmick mechanic that not only redefines the series, but reinvents core aspects of the genre. In the same way Burnout changed the game by making racing games more like extreme bumper cars, the vehicular possession gameplay of San Francisco gives you a lot more to think about while playing than just how fast you’re going.

With a flick of a button players are able to instantly catapult their spirits out of their car to hover ominously over a city suspended in time. Fly over any part of the fully-accessible Bay Area and when you find a car on the road worth driving, take it for yourself by possessing the driver. With this premise at the core of the design, we get into some very unique scenarios that haven’t really been possible before.

For example, why use your fancy Camaro to smash your opponent’s car up when you can abduct a civilian’s? All it takes is a few quick taps and you’re inside the innocent station wagon that was casually coasting in oncoming traffic, and with a few more you’ve made it collide head-on with the race leader. But then as you return to your car – which has been relatively well handled by the AI – there’s a giant bus about to hit you! Fret not, all it takes is a cool head and you’re in that bus piloting it away from you, securing your win.

Previously, racing games have pretty much been a contest of clean driving lines and faster cars but this mechanic makes it so much more. No longer are players constrained to what they’re able to do with their vehicle while on the road, now it’s about what they can do with every vehicle on the road.

While the gimmick does offer plenty of fun gameplay moments, what I’m most impressed with is Reflections’ ability to seamlessly weave a story around it. Players are given missions by taking over key cars around the city, giving them a brief glimpse at the dialog between the driver and passenger, that provides context for whatever mission is at hand. The little vignettes are well-written and carry the light-hearted tone the rest of the production exudes. It works to provide a fun, fly-on-the-wall perspective, when most games would be happy to just give you a list of missions to play.