Discussion for Driver [EU] / Driver: You are the Wheelman [US] (1999)
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#59806
RANT MODE
Alright I've finally decided it's time for me to beat the President's Run mission legitimately; no cheats. I played through Driver 2 with hard mode cop difficulty and no cheats just prior and succeeded; thought why not do the same with Driver. Right off the bat, this mission is relentlessly dropping me; usually my car is wrecked or I know it's hopeless at some point before I can even get to the first park when going straight. I occasionally make it to the next 2 parks, by sheer luck, but get mauled around there anyway. The further I've made it is the rectangular block that the garage is on; again, by pure luck. But I got destroyed by an oncoming enemy complementing one right behind me.

My biggest struggle is the damn tails that rear-end the car. I can't predict when a hit will send my car swerving out of control; I can try to align my car with the chasing one as much as possible to avoid losing control when hit, but then I lose focus of what's ahead of me. I also don't know whether the car will swerve right or left. After swerving, I'm annihilated by oncoming traffic, a newly spawned cop/mob car, obstruction, dog-piling tails, take-your-pick. It also doesn't help that they tend to speed-boost at you when there is little traffic around to try to crash them into, and even that isn't easy to do as they're pretty smart.

Someone suggested letting go of the accelerator when they hit to prevent swerving, but that doesn't work. There was also the suggestion to turn off auto handbrake, but that defies the point of playing on hard mode. When they hit you, the car is locked into turning a certain direction, freeing up whenever it wants to.

Sticking to the sidewalks isn't a useful strategy either.

If the mob and cops aren't killing me, it's the sh*t handling of the car. Besides swerving out of control, it's nearly impossible to recover back without getting smashed another time. Sometimes, the turning is too tight, while other times it's loose enough to send you spinning in circles. After crashing, it takes some 3-5 seconds before the car actually turns when you press left/right, and about the same time for the car to even start accelerating/reversing. Meanwhile, the enemies can make sharp and wide turns, slow down and speed up on a whim, no matter how big of a crash they get into. Not only that, but your car defies the laws of physics and loves to flip on its sides; once tipped over, it almost never comes back up straight even when hit in ways that should make it do so.

For oncoming enemies, there's the trick of driving in one direction and quickly turning the opposite way to make the enemy turn away from you. It works... in only rare situations. If they're aligned in front of you, it's useless. If they spawn too close to you, it's useless. If they're coming to you at too big of an angle, it's useless. If you have an asshole on your tail, it's useless. If you're making a turn when they appear in front of you, it's useless. If you're too slow driving forward, it's useless.

If it's not that, it's the stupid NPC cars obviously driving without a license with the kind of stupid things they do. Crossing intersections as if they're blind; turning at intersections on a whim; etc. Though I understand this is more chalked up to AI limitations; it's still frustrating, regardless.

I've seen youtube videos of people beating the mission on hard mode, in hopes to get inspiration. Instead, all I get is the impression that I have a different version of the game than them (North American release, btw):

-Oncoming enemies turning away from the player while the player is just driving straight. I do that and they don't turn away; they straight up smash right into my car.
-Enemies much more rarely rear-end the car (WTF); when they do, the car almost never swerves; when it does swerve, the enemies are kind enough to let the player recover and get ahead a good distance before catching up.
-Same sh*t when the player crashes into something; he/she recovers as if no one's behind and the enemies do not pile up on the player.
-After the crashes themselves, the player is able to speed up much more easily.
-Enemies rarely speed boost up to the player.
-In the videos, the car seems to control WAY better. Mine is eager to either spin out of control at the slightest press of a turn, or not turn at all when trying to make sharper turns.
for example, the car's handling is solid. My game, the handling is like a greasy turd.
-So much more. Bottom line, enemies drive like idiots in the videos and the car controls way better while it's the total opposite in my game. I can't use any of their strategies as they don't want to work on my game.

Neither Chase the Gunman in Driver 2, nor The Chase in Driv3r is harder than this. At least for me. With the former, playing on certain time limits makes the mission much easier; likewise, playing when the traffic is at certain patterns on the streets makes the latter mission much easier. Even Lenny Gets Caught has a consistent strategy and only needs a bit of luck. Here, there seems to be nothing. It's like I have some coked-up version of Driver.
/RANT MODE

Any tips? Do most of you play on lower difficulty and turn off auto handbrake?
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#59811
I just tested with auto-handbrake off and it makes the mission WAAYYY easier. Beat it on my first try. So it does reduce the difficulty. I noticed 2 main things here:

-Obviously, handling the car has become much easier. It's not nearly impossible to make turns.
-Strangely, the enemy AI becomes dumber AND handles like my car when auto-handbrake is turned on. So yes, now the game plays like the youtube videos of this mission. Why is this?

So my questions are what does auto-handbrake do that makes your car very difficult to handle (ie, what are all the situations that the car automatically applies the handbrake), how to counter the car's compensation effect and why does this option also affect the cop/mob AI? Anybody beat this mission on hard mode with auto handbrake turned on.
User avatar
By somebodynamed
Registration Days Posts Posts Posts Avatar
#59815
driverretro wrote:I just tested with auto-handbrake off and it makes the mission WAAYYY easier. Beat it on my first try. So it does reduce the difficulty. I noticed 2 main things here:

-Obviously, handling the car has become much easier. It's not nearly impossible to make turns.
-Strangely, the enemy AI becomes dumber AND handles like my car when auto-handbrake is turned on. So yes, now the game plays like the youtube videos of this mission. Why is this?

So my questions are what does auto-handbrake do that makes your car very difficult to handle (ie, what are all the situations that the car automatically applies the handbrake), how to counter the car's compensation effect and why does this option also affect the cop/mob AI? Anybody beat this mission on hard mode with auto handbrake turned on.
wow that makes it so much easier! i made a long replay and my car was at 0% damage the entire chase
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#59819
I take it back, this is sh*t.

Anybody have a solution to the god damn rear-enders? I've been trying to finish the mission a second time, on another save that leads to the other ending, and I realize that it was probably nothing more than freak luck that got me through it the previous time. This mission is back to kicking my ass and it turns out the auto handbrake turned off has little to nothing to do with the success in it, at least for me. The cops are back to being over-powered while my car goes back to handling like complete sh*t when struck by cops or when crashing (though definitely different from auto-handbrake on).

I decided to play on the medium and easy modes for comparison and they're indeed way too easy; I've possibly played it on one of these on the previous run inadvertently and so that could explain why I did so well.

WTF do I do to avoid or reduce the swerving from rear-ending cops/mobsters? They're causing me the most trouble. 95% of my 150+ failed attempts are because of them.
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#59844
Any way to prevent the speed-boost chase cars from sending your car out of control after getting hit? Hard cop difficulty, keep in mind.
Crazy Copper Frenzy

https://youtu.be/xAE3QsULyB4

https://youtu.be/AxdGf3F0yIg

Driv3r "Nice Getaway"

https://youtu.be/CYkmGAPoO9s Lucas in Driv3r's Ni[…]

https://youtu.be/Yvc_xKrKhnc?si=k4I5kraarTXctHJp […]