A Farm production

Drivers

Definition

Any game involving driving as the primary function of the game, or something akin to driving (e.g. guiding an air-based craft round a course).

Drivers generally split between simulation drivers, which aim to mimic real-life driving situations, such as grand prix, touring car, rally, etc, and arcade drivers, which do not aim for realism and may include arcade features such as turbo boosts, time add-ons, deliberate crashing, etc.  There is a borderline type of game which divides between driver and shooter, e.g. where you drive to a specific location under time pressure and then travel armed on foot to take out enemies.  Primarily, such games tend to be drivers but may be described as driver-shooters.

History (all formats)

Drivers were best served in the arcades in the initial days of computer games.  Now, the powerful next generation consoles can match arcade drivers, saving the pound coins.  But back in 1986, Outrun was one famous coin-op driver in which you take your open-top convertible Ferrari around various parts of America, with blond hair billowing in the wind.  Outrun was in the classic format of driving a stage with a set time limit.

Earliest home computer memories for spaceman come in the form of Chequered Flag (1983) and Tranz Am (1983), the latter being an unusual variant which involved driving all over America in a graphically simplistic top-down view with the aim of collecting trophies.

As with many arcade games (include Outrun), many of the games released on home computers were conversion of the coin-op originals.  Two memorable such games on the Spectrum for spaceman were Chase HQ (1988) and Hard Drivin' (1988), both of which had obligatory sequels.

The Spectrum version of Chase HQ (released in 1989) maintained the pace of the arcade version, but had to sacrifice much of the graphics, and indeed colour (it was in monochrome white or yellow) - it was none the worse for it.  Chase HQ added to the completion of stages within set time limits with the inclusion of three turbo boosts and, more importantly, requiring the immobilisation of a fleeing crime vehicle by repeatedly crashing into it.  Five stages were included in all.

Looking back, Hard Drivin' (released on the Spectrum in 1990) was probably a little more slow and dull in comparison.  It involved driving round a 3D-polygon graphics circuit featuring obstacles such as loop-the-loops.  That style of game was superseded in the 1990s by the Amiga game Stunt Car Racer (1989) made by Geoff Crammond (more of whom later), which raised the road level to dizzying heights (requiring a crane to lift the car on to the track) and required high speed negotiation of death-defying jumps, bumps and banked corners.  You attempted to make your way from Division IV to Division I, competing against AI drivers on courses ranging from Little Ramp and Stepping Stones to Ski Jump and Drawbridge, with a limited amount of boost, and the twin dangers of falling off the track (usually meaning a lost race) and total destruction (a crack slowly edged across the screen following high impact collisions with the track).  The best but little-used feature was double-Amiga serial link-up for two-player Stunt Car Racer action, although sequential multi-player was enabled (racing against an AI driver in a human player league).  A simple classic.

More Amiga reminiscence comes in the form of Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (1990), a course-based two-player driving game which saw you race in a field of 20 cars.  The game's developers obviously decided that too much time would be spent coming up with sophisticated, realistic AI drivers, so they just programmed them to move in slow, predictable patterns.  This sounds basic (and it was) but actually it was quite effective, as it meant that the AI cars were essentially obstacles to drive past, on top of the other obstacles that were particularly a feature of the harder courses (oil, water, barriers, etc).  Collisions with obstacles or road-side markers resulted in a heart-wrenching dull thud and were rewarded with a dramatic reduction in speed.  A strategic element was added on the longer courses with the ability to stop to add more fuel where it was insufficient to cover the full distance.  Around 30 courses (split unevenly between easy, medium and hard, with a requirement to finish in the top x to progress to the next course) gave much variety and the lack of authentic racing driver names was an amusing plus (e.g. Nijel Mainsail).  The graphics detail was low level, but enabled the illusion of a fast pace, and the two-player capability enabled some fun mid-pack battles (annoyingly, on one-player, winning a race would the second-placed AI only seconds behind, despite having put a large distance in between - but just a small gripe).

The sequel to LETC, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 (1991) was more of an arcade racer, switching to themed stages (desert, snow, highway, etc) with a number of time-boosting checkpoints, and with impacts reduced to a mildly speed-reducing spring.  It was a slicker version, with more dramatic courses and some amusing voice samples ("congratulations!", "tuuurbo!"), but the laps-and-points system of LETC was preferred by spaceman.  However, one draw was the ability not only to engage in two-player action, but to link up to another Amiga and involve four players (split-screen on two TVs).  A third version, Lotus 3: The Ultimate Challange was released in 1992, and featured course editing functionality, but did not inspire.

One of spaceman's all-time favourite driving games, and one which took a different angle, was Super Cars II (1991) on the Amiga (Super Cars, released in 1990, just wasn't as good - itself inspired by Super Sprint, which was released in 1986).  Incorporating a purely top-down view and with neat graphics, Super Cars II was as addictive as hell.  Similar to LETC, courses were divided into easy, medium or hard (7 in each, from memory), with a requirement to finish in the top 2 or 3 to progress to the next course.  As courses got harder, they featured more humps, jumps, crossovers, gates and roundabouts, with some courses requiring drivers to negotiate a live train track.  The icing on the cake was the addition of a varied arsenal to deploy mid-race, including missiles, mines, homing missiles and nitro boosts, as well as the ability to upgrade the car (primarily speed and armour).  Cash earned based on finishing position, and with an optional, between-race, tongue-in-cheek driving quiz offering the chance to win (or lose) cash (or points?), could be used to invest in more weapons or upgrades, and a slightly randomised pricing structure enabled a trading strategy to be employed (sell homers, buy mines!).  Again, the inclusion of a two-player option improved its compelling nature.

Geoff Crammond, he of Stunt Car Racer fame, produced the definitive Formula 1 game of the 1990s (and arguably beyond) with the release of Formula One Grand Prix (or F1GP) in 1992.  This was released both on the PC and the Amiga , with the Amiga version obviously running a little slower, but lowering the graphics detail helped.  F1GP featured accurate representations of the tracks, teams and drivers at that time.  Generally, realism was the aim, although a number of driver aids gave it both a helpful learning curve and essentially an arcade-style option (fun could be had by making the car indestructible and using the AI cars as a braking aid).  Unfortunately, two-player action was only possible in a alternate control system (with the other player's car being driven by the AI temporarily).  Nevertheless, the handling of the cars was balanced, as was the gameplay in general, and it was a great game.  It inspired spaceman to write an essay for English GSCE coursework, essentially a review comparing the pros and cons of F1GP and Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (1989), which was naturally limited by the requirement to race round the same oval circuit at high speed.

The final mention of Amiga games (in a perhaps overly long ramble on the subject) is in respect of Skidmarks (1993) and its sequel, Super Skidmarks (1995), which were course-based racing games with a pseudo-3D viewpoint and a 3D graphics engine.  Skidmarks was a real indie game, made by Acid Software, and the emphasis was very much on addictive gameplay.  Reminiscent of Supercars, but with rally-style cornering inertia (and no weapons), Skidmarks went to another level with Super Skidmarks.  With more tracks, more types of vehicle, and the ability to play not just two- and three-player split-screen, not just four-player catch-up racing (whereby dropping of the field of vision resulted in jumping back into the fray), but eight-player, entire-course-on-two-TVs, linked A1200 action (unfortunately, the basic A500 did not having the capabilities for this.  Alas, spaceman never saw this in operation, but to this day it remains a burning ambition.

Drivers, like shooters, have been a staple of the console world, suiting the combination of multi-button controllers and the particular graphics engines.  Spaceman's first console, the PS1, had a number of distinctive driving games, from the realism-seeking Gran Turismo (1997) to rally games such as V-Rally (1987) and Colin Mcrae's Rally (1998), as well as mission-based drivers or driver-shooters such as the Driver series and The Getaway series.

Gran Turismo on the PS1 required, like its sequels, the player to take a test to acquire the requisite racing licences, a dull start to a game if ever there was one.  However, the game itself featured lovingly-crafted cars and entertaining, high-octane circuits, and as a strong fan-base.  Nevertheless, spaceman preferred the more arcade feel of rally games such as V-Rally 2 (1999) on the PS1 and V-Rally 3 (2002) on the PS2, and Colin McRae's Rally 04 (2003) on the PS2.  In particular, V-Rally 2 enabled 4-way split-screen multi-player action (surely a feature that every game, where practical, should have).

A different type of driving game was highlighted with the release in 1999 of Driver on the PS1, a mission-based driver which required the player to get from A to B but avoiding the police (or losing them if detected).  The game started with the requirement to earn your stripes by carrying out a number of manoeuvres in a parking lot (including 360 donuts).  Driver 2 (2000), also on the PS1, added a number of additional types of completing each stage of the game, and enabling the player to exit the car and commandeer other vehicles, while Driv3r (2004) on the PS2 went a step further and allowed the player to use weapons.  Meanwhile, The Getaway (2000), and its sequel The Getaway: Black Monday (2004), incorporated an accurate mapping of London (although with limited access to back and side streets) and a clear split between getting from A to B and then clearing out the building of enemies with a targeting control system and an array of guns.  Having done half the The Getaway as the criminal, you would switch to controlling a police officer (although spaceman never got this far, having got stuck on the epic last level of the first half, with no mid-level saving, not realising for a while that leaning against the wall healed the character).

Action-packed arcade racing was covered off by the brilliant Burnout series.  Spaceman did not own the first Burnout (2001), but did play it on the XBox.  It was a relatively strait-laced driving game, requiring the completion of laps in the standard way, but rewarding exciting gameplay (near misses, driving on the wrong side of the road) by charging up a boost option.  Burnout 2: Point Of Impact (2002) added 'crash' and 'pursuit' modes, while Burnout 3: Takedown (2004) introduced the ability to gain boost by taking out opponents' cars, including spectacular slow-mo takedown replays, as well as additional driving modes, such as 'road rage', where the player must takedown a set number of computer-controlled opponents.  The fourth in the series, Burnout Revenge (2005), added, naturally, a revenge element (and also made it ok to hit the back of some cars).  There was fifth version on the PS2, Burnout Dominator (2006) and the PS3 received an incarnation, Burnout Paradise, which featured a world to explore, with races started by driving to pre-set locations.

Finally, TOCA Race Driver 2 (2006) was an enjoyable two-player track racer with a number of different vehicle types (including large trucks), lots of AI opponents and crisp graphics.  It was a precursor to Race Driver: GRID (2008) on the PS3 (more later).

But the above narrative is typically focussed on Spectrum, Amiga and PlayStation games that spaceman has played (to death) over the years.  Other classic drivers were the Ridge Racer series, a regular feature in the arcades and the Wipeout series, involving controlling a futuristic craft hovering above the circuit's surface rather than the out-dated wheel-based vehicles.

Present day (PS3)

Drivers on the PS3 have best been served by the excellent Race Driver: GRID, featuring a vast variety of cars, tracks and racing modes although, unfortunately, no two-player mode (that said, it does have online multi-player capabilities).  One notable feature was the ability to rewind nasty crashes, negating realism but adding fun.

The first driver that spaceman had on the PS3 was MotorStorm (2007), which incorporated spectacular graphics but lacked perhaps the tightness that drivers need (laps were very long).

These games and others are considered in more detail in The Games section.

Operation_good_guys says

I must point out that there was TOCA Touring Car Championship (1997) before TOCA Race Driver 2 (2006) - as well as many others in between.  TOCA Touring Car Championship was a visually stunning game at the time let down by an overly unfair control system.  Playing the game with anything other than a properly configured steering wheel and pedals was just madness.  It was perhaps with TOCA Race Driver 2 that they toned down the simulation and moved into a hybrid simulation/arcade genre to cater for the wider audience.

Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now (shortened to C2CN and released in 1998), the sequel to Carmageddon (surprise, surprise - which was released in 1997) and the prequel to Carmageddon: Total Destruction Racing (TDR) 2000 (released in 2000, naturally), to me was a game style I'd rarely seen before.  Wikipedia puts its genre as "vehicular combat, racing".  I suppose the first type of game such as this was Road Rash (1991) on the Mega Drive, which I actually 'wagged' school for on some occasions.  C2CN was designed originally with the driver running over pedestrians, which would show blood and body parts.  Such was the uproar about the level of violence the pedestrians were changed to zombies and the blood to green slime.  Of course, as is with most PC games, someone designed a patch to convert them back.  C2CN was a massive improvement over Carmageddon, both visually and game play.  In fact, I rarely played Carmageddon.  C2CN on the other hand was a brilliant source of stress relief.  Carmageddon: TDR 2000 pushed the graphical limits and improved on the weaponry and overall feel.

The similarity between the Carmageddon series and TOCA Race Driver 2 is that it was another hybrid.  You could take part in a race to earn credit to buy other cars; or simply drive round like a nutter running over zombies, trying for the best crash/jump, or just trying to go through as many special weapons as possible.