Driver 3 Aims For Filmed Car Chase Nirvana 25
Thanks to UGO.com for their interview with Martin Edmondson about Atari's Driver 3, the PlayStation 2 driving sequel due in early 2004. He explains the point of the game: "Driver was always about the most realistic car chases possible on a computer or console and Driver 3 is very much true to that... So you can set up your car chases and then have all the cameras positioned as you choose... it should look like a car chase movie, and that's the whole point behind Driver." But the developers of the previous Driver titles and Stuntman shy away from certain comparisons: "The thing is, we're not trying to do Vice City. Driver actually started the whole city, car-chase environment, so it'd be a big mistake to say, 'Let's do [all the GTA features], instead.'"
Ramblings, perhaps (Score:1)
Re:Ramblings, perhaps (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ramblings, perhaps (Score:1)
What they are doing with Driver is to make a game that takes driving games away from the "official" track, and away from the open-ended courses in games like Midnight City, yet still retaining the fun, and focus, of the driving aspect.
And last but not least, they plan to implement stuff like outrun the
Movie cities? (Score:3, Interesting)
Portland, Oregon: Yeah, I'm biased, I was born at and grew up in the Elliot and West Slope neighborhoods. But it frequently is used for movie shoots. [ohsu.edu] Antitrust [imdb.com] was filmed and set in Portland and featured a car chase across town from someplace downtown eastside to a TV studio located where Raleigh Hills Elementary School is in real life (not sure what building they used for the movie, but it's nothing anywhere along Schools Ferry Road where the chase ended in the movie). More recently, The Hunted [imdb.com] had a long chase all over downtown (with some movie magic to make geography more convienent), culminating in a fight on the roof of a TriMet MAX [trimet.org] train (never mind that in real life, the train doesn't spend what seems like 30 miles on the Hawthorne Bridge (it goes about four blocks across the Steel Bridge and there haven't been tracks on the Hawthorne Bridge since Portland Traction went out of business decades ago), and that the overhead lines make standing on the roof of a moving train impossible).
Vancouver, British Columbia: The most generic American city on the planet. Most action movies you see set in American cities are filmed in Vancouver, anymore. Along Came a Spider [imdb.com] was filmed in Vancouver, with some stock footage used between scenes to make it look more like Washington, DC. But watch the scenery: The street signs are uniquely Canadian, and you can spot more Vancouver, BC landmarks in the movie than Washington, DC landmarks. And Washington, DC doesn't have that many Douglas Fir trees. A couple decent car chases in that movie. It's also a favorite city to film Jackie Chan movies.
Boston! (Score:2)
It's OK, the red mist is clearing now.
Re:Movie cities? (Score:1)
This is a very cool series. (Score:1, Interesting)
Here's hoping that 3 manages to recognise and learn from their mistakes / fumblings and lives up to it's potential to outdo Vice City. Those early screenshots look gorgeous - their realism makes VC look like a cartoon in comparison. I guess after shoe-hornin
Re:This is a very cool series. (Score:2)
Too bad the PS2 graphics mean the XBOX port will look like crap. I really wish companies would start with the XBOX then downgrade for the PS2. Incidentally, the screen shots look a lot like Need for Speed.
Realistic car chases - my arse (Score:2, Interesting)
Realistic to the computer game world seems to mean something totally unreal.
"That looks so realistic", people say about events they have never actually witnessed.
Re:Realistic car chases - my arse (Score:2)
Anyone who would dispute this only need look to the OJ simpson car chase footage. Not the most riveting vehiclular performance.
My favourite gripe in movies is people being shot (Score:1)
Or when someone landing on you from above instantly incapacitates you.
Re:Realistic car chases - my arse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Realistic car chases - my arse (Score:1)
Speak for yourself. Last time I was in a car chase, it was pretty damn exciting. Driving my '74 Dart with a 383, I'd say that I open the throttle about 75% of the time when I get lit up by a cop. In real life, they usually will not chase you through a red light. In other words, the chase is over almost immediately. Every now and then, I get a cop with a bit more ambition, but putting my car up against a city cruiser with a V6, I generally outrun them within a block or two.
Re:Realistic car chases - my arse (Score:1)
I generally outrun them within a block or two.
well, that supports my hypothesis that they are over in 3 minutes and end unspectacularly
If the developer is that excited... (Score:2, Funny)
>>ME: I guess so.
>>UGO: Do you want people to buy this game?
>>ME: I guess so.
...
>>ME: And then he goes to a place in Turkey called Instanbul...
>>UGO: Not Constantinople?!
Vice City was the first GTA, not. (Score:2, Informative)
Hello! McFly! Driver wasn't first at anything. Carmageddon came before Driver and did whole city car-chase environments. Grand Theft Auto(the original) came before Driver and did WHOLE(wow those were big cities) city car-chase environments. And before these was Test Drive, which did city/city limits car-chase environ
Re:Vice City was the first GTA, not. (Score:1)
Re:Vice City was the first GTA, not. (Score:2)
Re:Vice City was the first GTA, not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Carmageddon is more or less a destruction derby with goals in a city enviroment.
Test Drive is a typical open-ended course racing games in a city.
The original GTA is however, a valid point to consider. Although you seem to be forgetting the that the original GTA was 2D and Driver is 3D, which makes a big difference.
Driver is a storyline based mission-set game.
Re:Vice City was the first GTA, not. (Score:2)
The GBC Driver was kind of fun.
Driver Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's typically where my enjoyment of the game ended. Why? So many special tricks and manuevers exist in Driver that are mandatory to your success.
I think that the ultimate car chase game would take the very basic controls of The Need for Speed III (steer, accelerate, brake, and handbrake), the modes of NFS3 (outrun, be the cops, etc), and stick it in a massive, non-linear city environment as opposed to a linear track. Give the player very basic controls and let them mix and match them to concoct their own tricks, rather than putting them through a long tutorial on different turning degrees, premade "macros," and other nonsense. I heard that the Game Boy Advance version had simplistic A + B controls and it got by just fine.
In short, Driver was often too complex for its own good (tying in to what Carmack said about modern games a few days ago). This is a driving game and, as such, the controls need to be as simplistic as possible. Let the physics engine handle the results.
It's good to see them admit it (Score:2)