Swearing. You'd have hoped that in this day and age, a game wouldn't still be considered "cool" and "cutting edge" if it swears more than Wayne Rooney doing his weekly shopping. Oddly, Driver: Renegade seem to be one of those games - a game that's attempted to make its mark by being one of the most foul mouthed games out there, with protagonist John Tanner - all round good egg in the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 and Wii versions of the game becomes something of an unhinged loon with a mouth that's so foul it's rancid.
But far from being the swearing simulator it may seem, Driver: Renegade is actually a driving game. Putting you in the mouth of the unreasonably aggressive John Tanner, you play as a cop gone renegade, who's sick of trying to not tread on people's toes and cut through red tape. Desperate to clean up the streets, with an offer from a senator who offers to pull a few strings to help keep him out of trouble, Tanner's given free reign to take out the criminal scumbags however he likes. Which, it turns out, is mostly by crashing into them.
It certainly looks pretty fancy. Sunsets are pretty.
With a story set across twenty levels, you'll be delving deeper into the murky criminal underworld with each mission, with the goal of luring the criminal bosses out of hiding. Whether you're driving around as dangerously as you possibly can to scare a snitch into talking, or smashing your car through "massage parlours" to upset their boss - or even, in one level, trying to destroy a tank - the levels all basically revolve driving your car as fast as possible into assorted mission critical objects. And that may be all well and good - but it's a little bit trickier than it sounds.
You see, several missions ask you to go after a group of cars - which is no problem. You're a lean, mean wrecking machine after all, and can easily take them down. But then, they split up, and you're forced to pick and choose. Unfortunately, for some reason, these levels require you to stay within a certain distance of the pack of cars - or at least, one particular car, from the pack of cars - but it neglects to tell you which one. So when they split up, should you make the wrong choice, you'll fail the mission - despite going after a car which has a friendly orange arrow above its head, indicating it's an enemy. Fair, right?
The funky little map at the bottom of the screen is a useful addition, though.
Odder still is that in a game about ramming cars, you're driving a car which can also be destroyed. As you crash into enemy vehicles (and innocent buildings - you're driving quite fast down rather narrow roads, so you do lose control from time to time) you'll take damage - take too much, and your car will explode. Sadly, there's no health bar to tell you how imminent your own demise is, with you instead having to try and hazard a guess depending on how tall the flames are coming out of your bonnet. And seeing as they sometimes disappear when you've picked up speed, it's hardly a very accurate way of telling. You can drive through a garage to repair your car, but sometimes, all you need is that little prompt to warn you, that maybe you should take that upcoming corner that little bit slower, as your car's about to explode. Even more annoying is when you ram a car (like you have to - after all, practically every mission revolves around crashing into things), only to find your car self destructs because you've pushed it too far.
The storyline, similarly, is a little bit hit and miss. While there's a sort-of love story in there, even when things start getting serious, Tanner just keeps quipping away, happy as Larry, calling other drivers "sh*theads" and shows next to no emotion when he finally gets to bring the criminals to justice. He's something of a 2D protagonist to say the least - as are most of the other characters, actually.
Along with the story mode, there's also a Career mode, which basically lets you choose from one of a number of races and events to compete in. Whether it's an elimination race, where the person in last place gets eliminated at the end of each lap, or a time attack, where you've simply got to complete the course in the shortest time possible, the career adds a little bit of variety to the game by including a few events where you need to do things other than just ram a car.
Chin up, girl. Maybe it'll get a better sequel.
But all being said, there's still really not enough to keep you playing Driver: Renegade. The story isn't interesting enough, and the gameplay sees you doing pretty much exactly the same thing with each and every level - which would be OK if it were fun, but it isn't. In fact, it's rather buggy. Enemy cars can simply smash their way through traffic without slowing down at all, and repeatedly crash themselves into buildings. Using your "rage" power, which builds up as you smash through bollards, street lamps, and the like, you can ram into cars sideways as they try to come past you, at which point the game for some reason pauses for a second, before starting up again. It's all very weird, and just leads the game to feel disjointed, and above all else, buggy. And after you've chased down a bad guy only to be shunted into a wall by a computer controlled baddie that's driven at 1000 miles an hour, straight through oncoming traffic in order to get to you, you could be forgiven for wondering why you were bothering in the first place.
A country mile away from the quality of both the Wii and the 360 versions, Driver: Renegade is undoubtedly the runt of the litter, despite trying to be the most "mature" (at least in that bizarre games industry definition of the word). At least maybe now we know why he's so angry.
Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS
