Driver 2

Driver 2: Back on the Streets
European cover art
Developer(s)	Reflections Interactive (now Ubisoft Reflections)
Publisher(s)	Infogrames
Designer(s)	Martin Edmondson[1]
Composer(s)	Allister Brimble
Series	Driver
Platform(s)	PlayStation, Game Boy Advance
Release date(s)	PlayStation NA November 13, 2000 EU November 17, 2000 Game Boy Advance EU October 4, 2002 NA October 22, 2002
Genre(s)	Driving, Action
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: T PEGI: 12+
Media/distribution	CD (2)

Driver 2 Take A Ride screenshot in Chicago (PlayStation)

Driver 2: Back on the Streets (named Driver 2: The Wheelman is Back in North America) is the second installment of the Driver video game series.

Gameplay

Driver 2 expands on Driver's 3-D, free-roam structure, as well as adding the ability of the character, Tanner, to step out of his car to explore on foot and commandeer other vehicles in the game's open world environments.^[2] 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.

While the original PlayStation version offered a two-player split screen play, the Game Boy Advance version introduced a four player link option.^[2]

Plot

Chicago

The game begins with an introduction showing a man named Pink Lenny and a tatooed Brazilian talking in a bar. Suddenly, two men burst in with guns and kill everyone in the room, except for Lenny, who slips out the back. Later, Undercover police officer Tanner and his partner Tobias Jones examine the body of the Brazilian at the morgue. The coroner informs Tanner and Jones of Lenny's disappearance and of the only witness of the attack. Tanner and Jones apprehend the witness, who tells them that the gunmen weren't after the Brazilian but were after Lenny, who is actually a money launderer working for Solomon Caine, one of the high ranking mobsters of Chicago whose empire goes from Chicago to Las Vegas.

However, Jones suspects that the Brazilian was working for Alvaro Vazquez, another high ranking mobster who is one of Caine's rivals. If Lenny was talking with the brazilian, he may have switched sides. Tanner and Jones investigate a warehouse owned by Vazquez, but it turns out that the police were raiding the warehouse and Tanner and Jones split up to escape the cops, though not before discovering that the forged documents in the craters came from Cuba. When Tanner returns to his apartment, he is hit in the face by an assailant (one of the shooters from the bar), who escapes down the fire escape. Tanner gives chase, but it turns out it was a trap set by Caine, who believes Tanner is a hired thug trying to take over his business with information from Lenny. While Caine's bodyguard, Jericho, drags Tanner away for execution, Tanner hits him in the face and escapes Caine's compound. Caine puts a bounty on Tanner's name, forcing him and Jones to escape to Havana.

Havana

Tanner and Jones learn that Vazquez is using Havana as the frontier for his arms operations, and plans to use Lenny's contacts to flood Chicago with guns and take over Caine's business. Tanner and Jones ruin Vazquez's arms operations in Havana, and also discover that Lenny is going to be leaving the city in a ship called Rosanna Soto. Despite Tanner's attmepts to arrest Lenny before the ship leaves, Lenny escapes.

Afterwards Tanner learns from Jones that Jericho has arrived in Havana, having learnt of Lenny's betrayal, and plans to kill all of Lenny's men at a hotel in Central Havana. Tanner and Jones follow Jericho to the hotel, where Tanner is unable to prevent Jericho from killing the men, but nonetheless rams Jericho off the road in a chase. Tanner and Jericho then form a truce, hiding from the Brazilians and head to Vegas to meet Caine.

Las Vegas

When Lenny arrives in Vegas, he is greeted by Vazquez, who is overseeing the arms shipments and is taking over Lenny's contacts after Lenny's failure in Havana. Tanner, Jones and Jericho arrive in Vegas and meet Caine. Tanner infiltrates Caine's gang by telling Caine that Jones and him once worked for Lenny but were betrayed and want revenge. Caine assigns Jones to track down Lenny while Tanner will use his driving skills to assist Caine's Vega's operations.

Tanner completes the tasks given to him by Caine, including delivering a car bomb to Vasquez's casino in Vegas and assisting Caine's henchmen in a bank robbery. Jones, infiltrating Vasquez's mob, discovered that Lenny has left Vegas and Tanner had to transport him to the airport (after shaking off a police ambush and subsequent chase). Caine then had Tanner disrupt Vasquez's operations by destroying his main front in North Vegas, and destroyed the trucks containing Vasquez's weapons. Caine and his henchman brutally interrogates one of the Brazilian guards and learn that Vasquez (and Lenny) are in Rio.

Rio

Tanner, Jericho and Caine meet Jones in Rio, despite Jones telling Caine that it is too dangerous for him to be in the city. Caine dismisses his warnings and only concern himself to find Lenny. Tanner still uses his driving skills to assist Caine and disrupt Vasquez's activities, such as ramming a stolen bus into the Brazilians' cars and tricking the Brazilians into giving Tanner cash for Caine.

Around this time however Tanner is worried that Jones's cover is deteriorating and that Vasquez will figure out that Jones is supposedly working for Caine. Tanner only gives Jones four days to find out the information where Lenny is before Tanner heads off to destroy a boat transporting Vasquez's weapons to Chicago. Jones later calls to Tanner that Vasquez has sent a gunman to kill Jones, forcing Tanner to save him. Tanner arrives at Jones' place to find him wounded and the gunman still lurking around. The gunman flees and Tanner rams him off the cliff of the coastal route.

With time running out and Vasquez losing, Caine finally found out that Lenny is attempting to escape Rio. Tanner is forced to pick up Jericho before heading to Lenny's location. The two manage to shoot down the helicopter Lenny is in when Tanner reveals his true colours to Jericho. Leaving Jericho behind, Tanner chases Lenny's helicopter through the streets of Rio while evading Caine's henchman. The helicopter finally crashes and Tanner quickly disarms Lenny before beating him to submission.

Ending

Tanner escorts Lenny back to Chicago and handed him over to the coroner seen at the introduction. When the coroner asks Tanner what was the connection between Caine and Vasquez, Tanner only replied "Took me a long time to figure that out". It is revealed that the two had been affiliated in the past and are shown to have reconciled with each other before the statue of Christ of Redeemer in Rio. As Tanner drives away from the airport, a mystery car starts to tail him...

Cities

Driver 2 includes four cities which are notably larger than the original game. The cities are Chicago and Havana, which are both immediately open for 'TAKE A RIDE' mode, Las Vegas, which can only be accessed once missions are complete for the first two cities, and Rio de Janeiro, only accessible after completing the Las Vegas missions. The cities all have secret cars hidden within them, which become available once the player finds the buttons to unlock the entries to where the cars are located and then approaches the cars to unlock them. The cities include many of their respective landmarks, such as the Navy Pier and Wrigley Field in Chicago, the Havana's Plaza de la Revolución and El Capitolio, recreations of the hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, and the Corcovado, Christ the Redeemer and some other known landmarks of Rio.

Soundtrack

In a move similar to the first game, Driver 2 featured a soundtrack reminiscent of typical 1970s car movies, containing instrumental funk and boogie tracks as well as more popular songs by artists and composers, to further emphasize the retro feel of the game.

Background music

Background music for each city seems to match both with the car-chasing movie music and the predominant music styles of each city, for example, Havana BGM seems to be influenced by the Son cubano, Vegas BGM sounds with influences of North America's Western music and Rio BGM is influenced by samba and bossanova.

Cars in the levels themselves have approximately 5 or 6 seconds of looped music, in Chicago it is Rock/Electro Beat style and in Rio it is Drum & Bass.

The licensed songs featured in the game (as listed in the credits) are given below:

• "Fever" by Dust Junkies- The first cutscene in Las Vegas with the trucks pulling into the gas station.
• "In the Basement" by Etta James- in a bar in Las Vegas where Tanner and Jones shoot pool.
• "Help Me" by Sonny Boy Williamson- Tanner arrives back at his apartment and confronts Jericho.
• "Sitting Here Alone" by Hound Dog Taylor- The opening scene of the game at the Red River bar.
• "Just Dropped In" by Kenny Rogers & The First Edition- Plays over the end credits of the game.
• "Lacrimosa" by Mozart- The climactic scene in Rio at the base of the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

Development

The game was first released on the PlayStation video game console and was later ported to Nintendo's Game Boy Advance.^[2] Because the game was so long, and cutscene graphics were somewhat advanced for that of the PlayStation era, the game was released on two discs. The first disc contained data for the first two cities, and the second disc contained data for the last two cities.

Reception

PlayStation Reception

Reviewer	Score	Comment
GameSpot	8.2 / 10	Driver 2 is a great sequel[3]
IGN	5.0 / 10	Go get the first one, it's a better game[4]
PSX Extreme	5.2 / 10	Driver 2 is just a plain disgrace[5]

Reception of the game was mixed. Some felt it expanded on the original Driver and contained enough fresh content to be a worthy sequel, with GameSpot concluding "Driver 2 is an extraordinary game".^[3] IGN described it as "one of the most disappointing games, if not the most disappointing game, of 2000."^[4] Others felt this was not enough of an upgrade, or lambasted the graphics (particularly the framerate) and almost constant slowdown whenever the action on the screen got too busy. However Official PlayStation Magazine gave the game 10/10 and stated it was better than the original and proved to be just as, if not more popular with fans than its predecessor.^[4]

References

1. ^ "In The Driver's Seat". 1UP.com. Ziff Davis. http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3122222. Retrieved 2007-04-30. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Johnny Minkley. "Interview: Infogrames Tanners our hides". Computer And Video Games. Future. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=76951. Retrieved 2007-04-30. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Driver 2 for PlayStation Review". GameSpot. CNET. http://www.gamespot.com/ps/driving/driver2/review.html?q=driver%202&tag=result;fullreview;3. Retrieved 2007-05-01. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} Doug Perry. "IGN:Driver 2 Review". IGN Playstation. IGN. http://uk.psx.ign.com/articles/164/164153p1.html. Retrieved 2007-04-30. 
5. ^ Solid Snake. "Driver 2". PSX Extreme. Poise Media. http://www.psxextreme.com/scripts/reviews/review.asp?RevID=170&letter=D. Retrieved 2007-05-01. 

External links

• Driver 2 at MobyGames
• Driver 2 retrospective at Gamer Limit