Driver: Parallel Lines
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Set Up. Locked Up. Get Out. Get Even.
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Driver: Parallel Lines is a video game developed by Reflections Interactive and is the fourth installment in the Driver video game series. It is a departure from previous titles in the series that focused on multiple cities, as the game takes place in New York City, between the periods of 1978 and 2006. It is also the only title not to involve the undercover cop, John Tanner, but instead focuses on a getaway driver named TK, who seeks revenge on a gang he worked with during his youth after they framed him for the murder of a drug lord they held for ransom. Due to the underwhelming performance of Driver 3, particularly the often-derided on-foot sections, Parallel Lines returns to the formula used in earlier games in the series, focusing on driving, although shooting remains in the game, while the game is more open-ended than previous titles. It was released in March 2006 on PlayStation 2 and Xbox by Atari. Following Atari's sale of Reflections and the Driver series to Ubisoft, the latter released the game for Microsoft Windows and the Wii in June 2007.
Plot
In 1978, The Kid (TK) worked as a getaway driver for criminals in New York City. As TK returns to Hunts Point to rest at the garage owned and run by his friend Ray Davies, Ray decides to help him move up in the criminal world by introducing him to Slink, the owner of a local strip club. Slink becomes impressed with TK's skills and eventually introduces him to two close associates - Bishop and "The Mexican". The men assign TK to help assist them in the breakout of Candy, a criminal mastermind, from Rikers Island.
After Candy's escape, the group introduces TK to their boss Corrigan, a corrupt undercover detective, who reveals that he intends to take over the cocaine business from the city's Colombian cartel. Candy devises a plan to capture a prominent Colombian drug lord, Rafael Martinez, and ransom him back to the cartel. TK successfully kidnaps Martinez and recovers the ransom money for Corrigan but upon handing it over, Corrigan and the others kill Martinez and betray TK, implicating him in the murder. While the gang leaves to take over the cocaine trade, TK is imprisoned in Sing Sing prison for 28 years, and spends his time planning to go after the group upon his release.
Why It Goes Parallel
- Great and interesting storyline about a man named TK who takes revenge on the people who betrayed him and ended up getting him arrested for 28 years.
- This is one of the first games to have an era transition change and this is before Red Dead Redemption 2.
- The first half of the game is played in 1978, while the second half is in 2006. After finishing the game, you unlock the ability to freely transition between both years at any time. Each era has a different setting but the same city, The color filter as 1978 has this yellow color while 2006 has a blue color, different guns, soundtrack, UI, cars and more.
- It is the first Driver game in the series where you can customize cars by selecting body kits, changing colors on them, and adding nitrous to them.
- Unlike Driver 3, this game tries to be less of a GTA clone by making car-based missions more frequent, like with the first two games.
- The soundtrack is decent and catchy, especially the 2006-era music.
- The car models look pretty nice.
- The graphics are stunning and great looking for 2006 standards and still looks amazing to this day.
- The 1978 era, has a sunlight effect that is rather beautiful.
- The car engines sound great, including the Melizzano which has engine sounds from some cars from the second Need For Speed era such as the Lexus IS300, Nissan 350Z and the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34.
- Hundred varieties of great cars to drive.
- There are different circuit races in which you can participate. In the 1978 era, you can think of it as Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport or Project CARS in the 70s or early 80s game.
- The voice acting is great.
- The city ambiance sound effect is relaxing and chilling.
- The cutscenes are greatly animated as most of the time feels like watching a real-life action crime revenge movie instead of playing a game.
- It did a great job in the 1978 era of how New York looked back then.
- There are many cars that are based on real cars with the most notable ones are the Melizzano being based in the Lamborghini Miura, the Cerrano being based in the AMC Javelin and the Andec being based in the Buick Rivera 1963, the Rhapsody being based on the AMC Pacer and so on.
- Unlike other games in the series, along with Driver 76, this game is a little more violent as it includes blood.
- It's overall a big improvement over Driver 3 and includes better combat, better weapon selection and even a tank/APC.
Bad Qualities
- Some on-screen subtitles don't match the spoken dialogue.
- Some of the songs were cut in the PC and Wii versions either due to expired licenses for those songs or these versions being released by Ubisoft instead of Atari.
- Luckily these can be restored on PC using the mod: Driver Parallel Lines MegaFix.
- This mod also fixes the low draw distance issue.
- Luckily these can be restored on PC using the mod: Driver Parallel Lines MegaFix.
- Unlike Driver 3, you can't jump or swim. If you do go into the water, you only spawn out of it.
- Also unlike Driver 3, rain is nonexistent, same for snow.
- Sometimes the game will crash when you play it for more than a few hours. It can also crash when quitting the game on a PC.
- While the map itself is pretty big, there's not a lot to do. NPCs feel lifeless and not many buildings are even accessible at all.
- Despite being a late era PS2 and Xbox game, it was not ported to the PS3 and X360 and is also not available through backwards compatibility on either of them.
- The gunplay, while a huge improvement over Driv3r, it still has some flaws such as most of the guns not having good accuracy and headshots not killing enemies in one hit.
Reception
TBA
Trivia
- This along with Driver 76 are the only Driver games to focus on a non-John Tanner protagonist.
- In Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned and Grand Theft Auto V, there's also an AMC Pacer-based car named Rhapsody.
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