Stinky Game of the Month: Driver: Parallel Lines

Perhaps they just want to make gamers commit suicide en-masse?

Imagine, if you will, a version of GTA that’s had all the fun striped out of it. Pretend that someone’s gone through it with a magnifying glass, searching for anything even mildly amusing so it can be disposed of. Ditch anything else that’s good – the liveliness of Vice City, the attention to detail of San Andreas – and what you’re looking at is Driver: Parallel Lines.

Parallel Lines begins with a mission that’s somewhat reminiscent of Mafia’s introduction. And despite the liberal scattering of annoyances like the way the dialogue repeats itself, you could be fooled into thinking you’ve purchased a decent game. The sensation of speed as you hoon through 1970s New York trying to lose the cops is great. The car seems to handle well. The soundtrack seems okay.

But as Kevin Spacey would put it, it’s all downhill from here. Once you’ve moved onto the second mission, you begin to realise that this game is sort of like a multi-car pile-up that’s been burnt onto a DVD. And just as you think it’s over, a huge truck full of sewage smashes its way onto the scene.

Much like the ‘photorealistic’ interpretation of New York in which the game is set, the missions are terribly dull. As you fight to stay interested you’ll realise that you had far more patience and tolerance for crap than you ever realised. Seriously, it’s a test of the human spirit. Unlike GTA’s assortment of missions which ranges from the mundane to beautiful displays of insanity, Driver’s missions involve things like picking up robbers from banks to drive them home, collecting debts and racing. Not good racing, mind you. Bad racing. Racing that will make you want to fall asleep at the wheel and die in a fiery traffic accident.

Occasionally you’ll move about on foot, too, something that makes for an experience approximately ten times worse than the driving stuff. The controls are awkward and the fighting bits are woeful. Basically what happens is you walk up to someone and hit a button which activates an automatic punch-kick routine. No one fights back, they just get killed instantly. Oh, the cops fight back, but they shoot you for speeding, so their credibility is pacifists is already null and void. You can arm yourself with guns too, but by now you’d realise that that’s just asking for an exhibition of hideous game design.

It’s hard to work out what Reflections Interactive wanted from this game, but it’s safe to say that they failed. We’d like to think that the inevitable sequel will be better, but seriously, this is the fourth time this is happened.