This game was wild. Series regular Detective John Tanner returns only to be knocked in to a coma in the games opening.

From here you play as Tanner in the coma who now has the ability to "shift" in to any other driver by zooming out to a satellite style view where time moves slowly, selecting them and taking them over Quantum Leap style.

It's a crazy idea, that is pretty nonsensical but it allows for a lot of fun with the mechanic. Need to chase down and stop a bad guy? shift in to a truck coming the other way and hit them head on, Losing a race? Park a bus across the road to slow the other racers down.

It's story is pretty basic and fairly short but there's a lot of optional side activities to do if you like. There's about 140 licensed cars that take damage which is pretty impressive for a game like this. It has a decent soundtrack too.

It's not incredible, but it's a fun open world driving game that is still worth playing if you can find it. It's BC on Xbox One too, although there's no enhancements.

When i played driver san francisco as a kid, i tought it had a very cool mechanic but it didnt stick with me, cause all i wanted was those good nfs races and customizations, but playing it again now, the races are the less interesting things in the whole game, the game design which let you handle the things you own way, be it using your own car or causing havoc in the city and impersonating others, works in the most marvelous of ways, sometimes its more about strategy and moving things the way you need to get a result, in the end its more like a chess game than a racing one, and i still cant figure out how they got this made under ubisoft.

I think this is Ubisoft's best game which is more than a surprise.
It is one of the most unique games I've ever played.
An action driving game that makes do stuff aside from racing and also makes you feel like Steve McQueen. It has a very compelling story as you play as the cop Tanner trying to take down Jericho who always seems to be a step ahead. There is an interesting feature in 'Shifting' which allows you to hijack into another car by 'physically taking over the bodies of any driver' kind of like Super Mario Odyssey. It works seemlessly and well to the plot as most of the game is spent in coma. Because of this, some wild stuff goes down as you further progress the game with missions having you do things you won't see from other racing or driving games and it complements the story.
The arcade driving physics is great and every car feels distinct and fun to drive. The nice depiction of San Fran makes the drive much better and also the great music selection and soundtrack. This game still looks good too.

Incredibly underrated and deserves more recognition. This is a driving game that everyone who isn't into driving games will enjoy. The car hopping mechanic keeps the game's flow silky smooth and the great writing just wraps the whole thing together nicely.
We will also probably never see this kind of game ever again. I wish I could experience it for the first time again.

Driver 76 and Driver: Renegade are garbage tier games, and San Francisco is only slightly better. Just watch a bus enter one of those forty-five degree inclines, (which can occur even during cutscenes)- it's borderline Big Rigs level hilarity. (As in unintentional hilarity, since the game's premise admittedly succeeds in being intentionally hilarious.) Too much time is spent floating around looking for the next event. It's also baffling that the game lets you purchase cars seeing as every car you see in-game is already technically yours.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
more like "DRIVERS" because although the main police drama revolves around a single protagonist, the truth is that thanks to a diegetically justified supernatural mechanics we will be able to possess any driver in the city and inhabit his vehicle with a single button, like a specter , a creative multi-level approach to changing vehicles that is often seen as it avoids the process of stopping / lowering and raising / starting a car, you only change cars while driving, simple pleasant and fast, but you also enter for a short time in the lives of those drivers; Maybe a rich mother who just bought her daughter a car, an engineer lamenting being an engineer with his brother-in-law, a kid training for a driver's license, a couple of cops on patrol, two Japanese brothers involved in a series of races illegal ... whatever you can think of, 150 characters (or something like that, dunno) in any case, the writing leads to very funny, imaginative and varied micro situations.
"sure, why not ?,"
It is a constant thought within the game, but always focused on movement, in contrast to other racers that look like high-end car porn, Driver: San Francisco is motion, and for the first time in a long time, I get excited driving, drifting alleys and I choreographed in the opposite direction, I no longer walk and just fly. i am true to the name "Driver.

Couple of thougths:
The world as a driving track and challenges has been explored on many occasions, but it has never been completely justified diegetically, nor has traffic been given so much importance as inhabitants. It is curious because when reinterpreting the world through a vehicle, perhaps giving importance to traffic as something more than fluctuating obstacles would be a cool idea.

Throughout the 20th century, San Francisco became synonymous with cultural experimentation and alternative thinking and the creativity with which this Driver takes the formal elements of open world driving games perfectly matches the description of this city.

The Driver series has been pretty rocky ever since the first game came out in 1998. The PS1 classic was one of a kind but sparked some bad to average sequels. San Francisco is the come back for the series and it is very and strong will please fans of the original. The story is kind of weird and takes a supernatural spin with the lead guy (John Tanner) getting into an accident and falling into a coma after wanted criminal Jericho smashes into his car. Tanner can now leave his body and float around the city entering any car he wants and this is what the game is wrapped around.

Most of the game consists of various side missions such as dares, speed chases, races, protecting vehicles etc. You can leave the car on the fly and move around to any car and smash into the car you need to take down. This can also be used in races to slow opponents down so you can win, but don’t consider this cheating since most of the races are very challenging. Sometimes you have to swap between two cars constantly and keep them in 1st and 2nd place which is pretty exhilarating. Or you can just enter cars in oncoming traffic and smash them up to win the race. This can also be down on other various missions and its great fun and never really gets old to take a big rig and smash it into cars to take them out.


However, this all gets old very fast because there are 50+ to finish and as you unlock more of the city you get more side missions to complete. Dares consist of doing certain things like drifts, speed limits, jumps, etc. The reason for completing these is for willpower which you can use to buy cars and new garages to unlock more cars. The selection of cars is awesome with pretty much every popular car you can think of. They even added the DeLorean and if you hit 88 Mph you get willpower! Driving is first person view looks great and the car handles well and drifting, jumping, and doing crazy stunts is great fun and the city is huge and you really won’t get bored here during the first half of the game. After the last half picks up you will be more engaged in the interesting story and probably stop with the side missions because they just repeat forever almost.


On another note, the main missions are really interesting and towards the end of the game you really get to use your supernatural powers, and overall the main missions have more diversity than the side ones. The voice acting is great and the characters are people you actually get interested in because of the drama the story brings you through. While the whole story is hokey you still get a kick out of being able to veer away from the realistic type of game while keeping it feeling pretty real with awesome licensed cars. You can boost in these cars and unlock a thrill cam, but the boost feels useless at low speeds because it doesn’t boost you at all and you can’t really use it to boost out of a spin.


Multiplayer is pretty fun, but overall you will get sick of the game due to the constantly repeated missions and there’s only so much you can do with a car. I highly recommend this to anyone into cars, action, or just plain old arcade style racers. If you can stomach the repetitive side missions, or if that’s just what you like, then you will find a good 25+ hour game here with the huge city of Frisco ready to explore.