Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Tyres

Don your snakeskin boots, hop in the nearest Torino and screech over to your nearest videogame store; Driver 2 has returned, sliding over the bonnet of your Playstation and funking out!

What makes Driver 2 so good? It's hard to tell but it's got that certain factor that will always pull you back for one more go and make you glad you did. With 40 missions, 2 player mode, ability to hi-jack cars and 2 discs, you know you're one for one long, funk filled ride!

GRAPHICS

The game's weak spot. The pop-up here is horrendous and nearly put me off the game. There's also some slowdown in the game which isn't always apparent but does come into play sometimes. Also if you have to drive from one end of the city to another (which will take a while as they're HUGE), the game will pause sometimes for maybe a second as though it's loading the data for the new part of the city. I don't want to blame Infogrames entirely for this but you do get the general feeling that the game would look far better on Playstation 2.

As you fling your chosen vehicle around the huge cities, it will eventually take damage. As in the first game the damage is area based so if you get a head-on collision, your bonnet will be crushed. There's no way of fixing the damage unless you hi-jack a car which brings me to another graphical weak spot; on foot.

Being on foot is new to Driver 2 but the graphics here are terrible. Your character might look like the cool, gangster hunting character in the cut scenes but get him out of his car during the game and he runs around like a boneless chicken dying for the nearest loo. The pace he runs at is agonisingly slow, obviously our hero should spend more time jogging in the mornings instead of slumping on the sofa watching TV.

When your polygonal mess eventually finds another car, the collision detection is good as in the first game and it needs to be because the game will often force you to make improvised shortcuts through and around parks, cars, lamp-posts and so on. You can bust through roadside bins, parking meters and other objects lined up just waiting for you to plough through. Try as you might you can't run anyone over though which also means a blood and gore free game!

Finally the CG cut scenes here are gorgeous, right up there with the Final Fantasy series when it comes to telling stories and setting the atmosphere.

SOUND

The sound FX here are superb and they are plenty of them. Listen to your passenger scream at you as you narrowly miss on-coming traffic and your tyres smoke and screech before you scream off down the road at excessive speed. Even the police sirens are different; listen to the ones in Havana. They sound so old-fashioned, you almost want to get out your car and start pointing and laughing at them.

This leaves the soundtrack; cause for delight or pain in the butt? It's all down to personal taste, I love the funky music which sets the scene nicely although maybe some licensed names would be nice. It would be much better chasing your victim with a song like Cut Me Loose by Push playing instead of the in-house music but it does the job.

Music in the cut scenes is licensed, for example, when you go back to your hotel room you can hear Help Me by Sonny Boy Williamson playing! It works though and I've got to say, I'd prefer this soundtrack than a punk rock soundtrack as this does a great job in immersing you in the 70's style atmosphere.

GAMEPLAY

Now for the big question... what's the gameplay like? First of all, it's not for the impatient or easily frustrated. The cars don't take kindly to being thrown around those corners at high speeds and unless treated with care will often spin out, hit traffic or worse still, flip over. This will put many gamers off at first but once you get used to gently guiding your cars around those bends, that's when the beauty of the game reveals itself. The feeling of chasing other cars throughout the city or even escaping them is matched only by the original Driver.

The missions here are far more varied than the first game and will tailing cars without being spotted to taking out ammunition trucks to escaping from warehouses. Not to mention jumping bridges, busting through roadblocks and rampaging around in a school bus if you want. Or just driving like a normal citizen so the police ignore you. Eventually when they do start to take a disliking to you, you'll not only have to contend with police cars flying at you from all directions but roadblocks too.

The curved roads play their part in this too, making the cities seem more life-like and realistic. It's a simple addition but a more than worthy one. The weather comes back in full force too and when it rains, you'll know about it! The car becomes a nightmare to control but you'll grin when a police car tries to hit you head on and ends up sliding into a lamp-post behind you because of the slippery roads. Genius!

Now of course, there's a new ability to get out of your car and hijack others. This adds a nice extra angle to the gameplay because changing cars will get the police off your back for a while but don't be fooled into thinking this is some 3-D version of Grand Theft Auto; the general system is clumsy and not as well implemented. Generally speaking there's very little difference to the handling of the cars either.

The challenge has been knocked up a few notches for the sequel though and combined with the driving which will seem awkward at first, can put some gamers off. Stick with it though and your persistence will pay off!

REPLAY VALUE

The replay value will almost definitely come from the extra driving modes especially now 2 player mode is here. My personal favourite from the original, Survival, is also back along with the others such as Trailblazer and Quick Getaway.

2 player mode is more something to pass the time than a real highlight of the game, the smaller cities and glitchy graphics don't make this as much fun as it could've been.

The modes here are pretty much the same as the first game and Survival is yet again probably the highlight. The cops are much faster than you this time and come steaming in from all directions to take you out; the idea being survive as long as you can. If taking turns with another player, this is probably more fun than 2 player mode. None of the levels here are as good as San Francisco for the original survival though, where the hills made spectacular crashes commonplace.

You can also save your replays and 'direct' them, so in theory you can make your own like mini-version of Bullit or Starsky and Hutch. It's pretty fiddly at first but once you learn the ropes and figure out what you're doing, it comes into a world of it's own.

Free Ride is also back again where you start off without the police hunting you down and can drive around like a normal everyday person. However break the law by even the smallest infringement (such as driving on a red light!) and you'll have the police hunting you down until you change vehicle or shake them off.

Overall this game is packed with tons of replay value not from the game itself but from the various modes that come with it. They haven't broken any new ground the sequel but then again, they don't have to; they were great to begin with.

CONCLUSION

Driver 2 is a fantastic sequel and bar the graphics, has everything fans of the original could've wished for. It's not quantam leap from the original but simply adds more modes, more variety and more fun. Well done Infogrames; you would've done Steve McQueen proud!