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Driver: Parallel Lines

Cops from hell

Speaking of driving, Driver: Parallel Lines fills the streets with traffic that seem to have only one goal - to annoy you. Everyone else seems to be driving at 20mph, while same cars under your control can't seem to be able to move at under 80mph. So you cut to the left lane to overtake, and happen to pass a cop car... and immediately get flagged as a criminal for driving on the wrong side of the street. Stop and pay a fine? Won't work. Even if you just run a red light, the response is always the same: cops will try to gun you down. I've heard stories of overeager cops, but this is a bit ridiculous.

There are two separate gauges for the wanted level - one for your vehicle and one for your character. If you annoy the cops, initially all "heat" is directed at your vehicle. If you can ditch it and replace it with another off the street without the cops actually witnessing the move, wanted level for your vehicle gets wiped out and you can continue on your merry way. Problem is, performing this trick is truly difficult. Police cars stay on you like glue, and it takes numerous quick U-turns and cuts to blind alleys to shake the law enforcement off your tail; far too often you manage to just lose the cops, only to turn into yet another police car at the next intersection - and the chase is on again.

If you manage to get "heat" on your character, even with a new car the cops might recognize your character behind the wheel, and that immediately flags your car as suspect, and it's time for another high-speed chase across New York. A trip to a safehouse or garage can be used to wipe all "heat" off.

The cops sure are more realistic than those armies of FBI agents in GTA appearing out of thin air, disappearing just as quickly if you find a star to clear your wanted rating. On the other hand shaking them off after every minor traffic infraction is a huge pain.

Bad guy seeks temporary employment

While driving around mowing over pedestrians and randomly shooting the cops is fun to some, the main content of the game is the story missions. There are usually several to choose from on the map, and you can skip the drive to the mission start location with one button by"T"ranslocating. This breaks immersion a bit, but speeds up gameplay greatly. Initially I drove manually to each mission, usually arriving in a wrecked car with a pack of cops on my tail. This way each mission had a "pre-mission" involving some professional evasive driving and the need for a new set of wheels. Translocate eliminates the need for any of this, and while it sounds like a silly shortcut, in this case it's pretty much needed due to the persistent cops.

Missions themselves are fairly conventional - drive here, carry this item there, shoot these bad guys, steal this car... Okay, there are some examples of originality such as the mission where you steal cars with a tow truck - with the obvious problem of performing a getaway with a big truck towing a car. Some missions require you to break some law on foot, and thankfully these bits are not as horrible as in the previous game (Driv3r). Character animation still looks pretty silly and the controls are bit unresponsive, but otherwise things work similar to GTA titles with both automatic lock-on and manual aiming available.

Earning some dough by street racing - and yes, almost anything goes.

Fancy a career as taxi driver?

Side mission selection is pretty familiar - you can drive a taxi, race in street and track races, debt collection and even assassinations. Some of these are fun for a few rounds, but the selection is pretty limited and the only reward is money for tuning cars.

Car tuning?

TK has one reliable partner: Ray the mechanic. Ray runs a set of garages around the city, and you can store and tweak "borrowed" cars in them. While it's nice to upgrade your vehicle with numerous extras, it all feels pretty pointless as you tend to replace your set of wheels due to "accidents" more often than your underpants. To solve this issue Ray automagically tows any wrecked cars back to the shop, but in the end modifying cars just don't seem worth wasting time with, and only reason to worry about it is the fact that some missions require a modified car. I guess Ray's garage is an improvement for those who liked to collect vehicles in GTA.

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