⠀

[max.thunder]

I was too lazy and i didn't translate it myself , so i used google translator. (If anyone finds this interesting i can translate to English by myself, it will take me some time but i can do it. Just tell me and will do it.)

The approach to the possibilities of Driver San Francisco did last year on the occasion of our visit to the studios of Ubisoft Reflections Newcastle (UK) left us a good feeling. The return of the franchise to its origins and originality to high when considering the dynamics of the game made ​​us really expect an up to expectations as high as those generated by a set of style Driver.

Now, almost twelve months later, we know that the project is nearing completion, and also we have played from the beginning to answer all the questions that remained in the air after our first impressions.

Developed by the title he once was Reflections Interactive (known for titles like Shadow of the Beast or Destruction Derby) is highly expected. No less than twelve springs will separate the first Driver, and has also received nearly five years of production, a fact that speaks for itself of the effort and dedication they have in the British study to achieve a sequel that fits exactly what users expect: seventies Hollywood-style chases and all playable essentially led to the saga.


Welcome to San Francisco
Martin Edmonson (Creative Director) made ​​it very clear in the brief presentation that preceded our play session, "we want to return to the roots of the series, and perhaps for this experiment was abandoned us out of our car style GTA. Now all happen inside the car and a new city, San Francisco, which is faithfully represented, from the iconic Golden Gate Bridge to the small Chinatown, the majestic town hall and the characteristic area of the pier.

In total, 335 kilometers of surface (larger than Liberty City) that we can go in our car stuck in a play structure very similar to that found in works such as Burnout Paradise. In other words, as Edmonson told us later, "an open world, but with a structured story in chapters. The way you progress is through the Story Missions called, but among which we can complete additional tasks, as well the City Missions is served, in turn, to unlock new missions within the plot. "

Therefore, linear story missions, but tasks can be completed city at any time. A progression similar to what would be a GTA-in fact, unlock new areas of the city as we move forward, but only on wheels. A perspective that we, particularly, has convinced us of the variety of proposals put forward, from the classic sprint (to get the position established) to pursuits where you have to rescue, for example, a kidnapped woman.


However, if there is something that makes unique gameplay of Driver San Francisco that is the SHIFT technique, which gives us the strange yet interesting to change your vehicle at any time during the game. Simply press the X button (on PS3) or A (Xbox 360) to slow down time and go to a general view of the street or city to navigate through it to anywhere, from the position on the "muscle car, truck, crane or police car we want to pilot.

In short, a feat that increases the chances creative playable title with tasks such as, for example, drive the car of a member of a criminal gang (where our arch enemy) in order to help them escape the police while inquire more about where their lair.

With this approach you can I ask how the developers have managed to make the argument credible. Well, it seems that everything is a kind of dream in present time. After the events of Driv3r, in which Tanner and Jericho survived, both end up in San Francisco, a new prosecution where this time our hero comes out pretty badly, with a terrible accident that makes him into a coma.


From there, all we have is the action of a demo to which we agreed, with a play structure based on the SHIFT technique to handle the 140 existing vehicles, with a rich mix of models ranging from the oldest (Ford Torino) to modern (Nissan 370Z). All brands are licensed, and include labels such as Abarth, Alfa Romeo, AMC, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, Cadillac, Caisson, Truck, Chevrolet, Delorean, Dodge, Ford, Hummer, Jaguar, McLaren, Volkswagen ...

There is no shortage fire trucks and taxis, but surely you are most interested is that the driving style is really balanced to make us feel in an arcade, but without entailing lack of challenge. That had to be precisely the reason that you enter the seventies driving style that requires some skill at the wheel and where each vehicle is driven, of course, differently, but with a predilection for making the wheel turns and drifts to clear characters.

Moreover, the scenario in which the project is based aid, with its steep streets, corners, long straights and chasms in the form of slopes. San Francisco is a city unique in its urban layout, the main reason that Martin Edmonson team chose it as a star of gameplay that is completed by dozens of secondary tasks. Specifically, in the demo were called "challenges"and challenges we proposed both speed (get a trailer of a truck-mounted cranes to reach 85 mph) and action (make a slip of 30 meters).

Mental chase
True, at first glance, are not bright because of its complexity, but they help us-much-to get points (known as "Wp") that can be redeemed for new vehicles, more succulent save or garages where improvements. In the latter regard, we enjoy "upgrades " on increasing the skill bar (needed to carry out the technique SHIFT) to optimize the speed of recharging, to strengthen the resistance of our race cars to shocks and even to get a new camera that attaches to the four available-nose, dashboard, internal-external and completely to give us an external point of view, as if we were watching a car chase in a movie.

With this approach, and the number of options that includes, I can imagine that Driver San Francisco has a long duration, and it is. We are not even said how long the game by completing all secondary tasks, although according to Martin Edmonson, "if we play without all these secondary factors into account, and go as fast as possible through the plot, the game still us may last around 8-9 hours. "

A few hours of play that not only noted for its powerful storytelling, the creativity of the shift, the driving experience that gives San Francisco, secondary tasks and the wide range of improvements. The title also surprised us with small details like radar always visible at the top of the screen (very useful for finding new missions or tasks) or a whole range of skills ranging from Rapid Shift-an instant with respect to SHIFT nearest car, and Boost (with which to gain speed) to an attack capable of breaking the resistance of any car decorated (each car has a particular life bar).

Additionally, you can count on in the game menu there were two alternatives to the single player campaign: "Challenges" (challenges) and "Film Director", which is something like an option to create our own videos of the game and send them to other users via Internet. However, the most interesting to scrape a few more hours of fun product that will appear in multiplayer.

In the words of creative director: "We split screen, which enjoys a high variety of cooperative modes, apart from other arrangements for careers or pursuits. In regard to the online multiplayer will have a different approach, with about 12 modes of play including of course the races and chases, but also other options such as Defend the base or Capture the Flag, consisting of players from eight teams divided into two in order to carry the flag to our base. "

We further confirmed that we will have from 4-8 players at most (depending on the mode chosen) and the SHIFT technique will have a great importance in the set. In fact, Martin Edmonson hopes to become "a precedent within driving experiences online. " We do not know if eventually it will, because this time we have not had a chance to try, but in 2010 and we saw that game modes such as Trail Blazer pointed waysfor its approach (wheremultiple users should compete to be the first to follow the wake of a vehicle controlled by AI).

In any case, we have finally managed to uncover the mystery surrounding San Francisco Driver, as the structure of the game (which is finally open) and the technical feasibility of the important SHIFT, which is essential to understand the title and we believe we will finally end fitting in with the narrative raises. We can only emerge some doubt on the artificial intelligence of opponents (in the campaign and in certain multiplayer modes). In certain situations, the police are very aggressive and just rammed the fleeing vehicle.

There will not be day / night cycle, although a strong engine that flows at 60 FPS, with no apparent drop in frame rate throughout the show (something very difficult to get a degree from these features). The damage system is also very competent-he showed us about something wetalking about the Destruction Derby - makers ,with many details : cracked windows, broken glass, hoods raised, dented andscratched metal in different parts of the structure of vehicles.

The effects of smoke particles during acceleration or skidding also manage to be at the forefront, while the physics engine gets to be within the average of the genre, equally difficult to deal with so many jumps, falls, and rollovers such as those able to create a street so dangerously exciting as the American city.


Finally, it should make special mention of recreation vehicles, especially in its internal version that we can watch all details from the view of the dashboard that incorporates the game. There are even times where we see when we get the passenger side and listen to their comments (of course, on our drive) or directly disguise with the 70 songs that will be able to listen from the radio-CD of our racing car . And it's not exactly a bad collection, with groups like The Black Keys, Buck 65, Howlin Wolf, Fort Knox, Peter, Brain Children, The Dirthombs, Black Rebel Motorcycle, The Chi Lites, Presets, The Hustlers, The Noisettes, Marlena Shaw , The Heavy, DJ Shadow, Dr. John, Death in Vegas, Aretha Franklin ...

But to listen to everyone and finally see if San Francisco Driver is what it seems (a driving arcade original, durable and an excellent driving experience) have to wait until the end of the year, particularly September-time to finally live the dream John Tanner: drive any vehicle in the open world of a great city that is only possible on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and compatible.

Most imprortant details: (extracted by me)
5 years of production
335 kilometers of surface (larger than Liberty City)
140 vehicles
There is a points system: you can buy cars, garages and upgrades.
According to Martin Edmonson, "if we play without all these secondary factors into account, and go as fast as possible through the plot, the game still us may last around 8-9 hours. "
Two alternatives to the single player campaign: Film Director and Challenges.
Split screen with cooperative modes.
12 Online modes.
No day/night cycle.
70 Songs

3DJuegos: The system of teleportation from one vehicle to another, known as Shift, gameplay is the star component Driver: San Francisco. What inspired you to create something like that?

Martin Edmonson: The inspiration came from Google Earth, the fact that any person could, through a virtual globe, find your home or workplace on the basis of photographs taken every six months or every year. That idea was what led us to create the SHIFT technique that allows us to see the city of San Francisco from an elevated position (as in Google's tool), and from there move on to check any vehicle that we saw.

3DJuegos: Driver: San Francisco is a court game seventies, with chases, cops and criminals who flee from them. "you took as inspiration a particular film?

Martin Edmondson: Yes, of course. Some of our most important sources of inspiration were The Driver (1978), which has been undoubtedly influenced us most, The French Connection (1971) and Bullitt (1968), all based on car chases so popular that acquired in the cinema of the seventies.

3DJuegos: Would you say that Driver: San Francisco represents a return to the origins of the series?

Martin Edmondson: We put all our efforts to get it, and we've rescued the muscle cars, drifts, clouds of smoke up the wheels ... Driving style is also unique, with that sensation of being inside a Hollywood pursuit. We want to capture all the excitement of the original Driver, and believe that with this new game we are getting there.

3DJuegos: What is best about a city like San Francisco? What feature of this site has helped you most in achieving your goals in designing the game?

Martin Edmonson: San Francisco is an iconic city, probably the most iconic of all the world, everyone knows it. And, secondly, offers one of the most diverse driving environments within the U.S., with an abundance of flat roads and blocks. Thus, we end streets, bridges, landmarks, continuous elevation changes ... in short, everything you need to work in a racing game fun and never dull.


3DJuegos: How long is the single player campaign?

Martin Edmondson: It really depends on how the user plays, because the title you have the possibility to get money for the challenges overcome, which in turn allows for improvements, buy new cars or buy garage to store our motorized fleet owners. But if you play without these secondary factors into account, and go as fast as possible through the plot, then the game will last around 8-9 hours. It will be difficult to do for a normal player, and that in practice end up doing many of the tasks accessories we offer.

3DJuegos: How is the structure that will articulate the gameplay? Is it linear, divided by chapters or something closer to a world free style Burnout Paradise?

Martin Edmondson: It's an open world, but with a structured story in chapters. The way you progress is through story missions (Story Missions), among which we can complete additional tasks in addition to the "City Missions" (mission city) is served, in turn, to unlock new missions within of the plot.

Best of all, you can perform these tasks secondary and city missions in the order you want, unlike the "Story Missions" (story missions) that we perform in a predetermined order to maintain the progression of a plot it is full of scenes of introduction and a wide variety of situations.


3DJuegos: How many multiplayer modes have in the game?

Martin Edmondson: We split screen, which enjoys a high variety of cooperative modes, apart from other arrangements for careers or chases. Regarding the online multiplayer will have a different approach, with about 12 modes of play including racing course and persecution, but also other options such as "Defend the base" or "Capture the Flag", which consists of items eight players divided into two teams with her ​​goal of bringing the flag to our base.

To this we must add that we have taken advantage of the shift (car sharing at any time), which creates a precedent with online driving experience is concerned.

3DJuegos: How many users can participate in a maximum in these forms?

Martin Edmondson: We've tried different combinations to create a balance between performance and gaming experience, so in some ways we have four, six and eight others, which is the maximum that we have allowed ourselves to never create chaos not playable .

3DJuegos: It's been many years since the first Driver and we know that for you is very special to go back to the origins of the series ...

Martin Edmondson: Yes, I worked on the project Driver for many years and all we were in Reflections Interactive have learned a lot within the company. The industry has changed much in recent years, dramatically in terms of hardware, but some things always remain, such as experience, and in this sense we know much about how it has to involve a vehicle or on how to react cars and their bodies (deformation and mechanical damage) to collide.

Moreover, thanks to new technical possibilities have been able to create something like SHIFT, which enables us to move from one point to another in San Francisco with a press of a button. Believe it or not, is something that requires resources from many machines like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Without the progress and experience in the previous titles (Driver, Driver 2, Driv3r) would have been impossible to create a new game.

3DJuegos: Was it an inspiration damage system used in Destruction Derby?, a title that you developed yourself.

Martin Edmondson: We could say that our experience with the damage system used in this Driver began there. We learned to create visible damage on the cars with that game, but the hardware is very different now, so there is very little that can redeem for application at this time. In today's games can not apply a distorted textures and that's it, we must also take into account lighting effects known as "blending effect ".

3DJuegos: Is this your most ambitious video game as a videogame company?

Martin Edmonson: Definitely. It is ambitious for several reasons. The first Driver was pretty ambitious because it took too far the power of a machine like PlayStation, to the extent that it was impossible to design the game on another platform at the time as SEGA Saturn. It was a very hard and now history repeats itself with Driver: San Francisco, and that techniques such as SHIFT would be impossible in the first Xbox or a console such as PlayStation 2.

In that sense, the title is very ambitious, especially considering that the game runs at 60 frames per second in an environment with so many cars on screen simultaneously. Even I have to say there were many people who said we were crazy if we thought we could get something similar. But we have succeeded, and I think it is because of the ambition of the work.


3DJuegos: We would like your opinion on the evolution of the genre of driving in recent years. What do you think are the biggest challenges for the future?

Martin Edmonson: I think the biggest challenges will be more innovative, and is there a gender problem, because most driving titles ever try to be more realistic. That's fine now, but there will come a point, particularly with the arrival of the new generation of consoles, where the maximum realism either, like watching a television broadcast.

At that time, you can no longer do anything to create something more realistic, which will be necessary for developers to start creating more innovative things from the point of view of the gameplay. However, you also have to be careful about trying to be innovative without taking into account the project of a video game should always work as well commercially. And that is the challenge, how to attract users while trying to innovate.


3DJuegos: Will you still be working in future new driving titles?

Martin Edmonson: From my personal point of view I must admit that I would create something that was not a driving title, but I also know that we have a team that is extremely talented in this particular genre, specifically in racing games level street. There would be a great risk if we decided to get involved in other projects, so I think for the moment, we will continue creating the kind of game that we were developing from the recent past.

Sources:
http://www.3djuegos.com/juegos/avances/ ... francisco/
http://www.3djuegos.com/juegos/avances/ ... francisco/