Medal of Honor and Mortal Kombat are two recent examples of franchises that are being rebooted for new audiences in this generation. Add another to that list: Driver.
Last evening during Ubisoft's E3 2010 media briefing in Los Angeles, the publisher formally announced the long-rumored reboot and demoed the game live in front of the audience chock full of bedazzled press. The game, dubed Driver San Francisco, sees the return of the franchises' trademark cinematic chase experience with a dash of both old and new. For example, bad-man Charles Jericho will resume his role as a villain in this latest title, but how you'll end up defeating him, well, that requires a coma on top of sheer racing talent.
The funniest, most insane, and perhaps the most compelling mechanic announced at the event was one called "Shift." Protagonist John Tanner gets knocked on the head in the game, and when he recovers, he's learned a new ability. This Shift talent allows him to teleport around the map, jump into faster cars without an on-foot sequence, and to jump inside civilians' brains in order to command them to demolish rival cars with their own vehicles. No, for real.
Less insane are the other features. Driver San Francisco will have over 200 KM of San Francisco pavement to drive on, 20 challenge-type races, 60 music tracks, 80 "dares," a director's mode, over 120 licensed cars, and 9 "addictive" online modes which features car ramming and tailing.
