June 26, 2007 - One of the most interesting phenomenons within all disciplines is the "one-hit wonder". Someone comes out of the blue to deliver a product that people gobble up quickly and enthusiastically, before parasitically moving on to their next chunk of entertainment. It happens with books (The Da Vinci Code), movies (Ask anyone if they liked any of M. Night Shayamalan's movies after the Sixth Sense), music (does anyone remember the Bloodhound Gang from the late nineties), and it happens in video games.

The Driver franchise is the epitome of the one-hit wonder as it applies to video games. When the first title was released on the PlayStation nearly a decade ago, it was a revelation. Grand Theft Auto had not yet evolved into the 3D powerhouse/political whipping boy that it has become today. The original GTA was a stagnant, top down mess of a game with poor controls and lousy graphics. Driver on the other hand, featured fully three-dimensional renditions of well known American cities, spot on controls, and fantastic physics and damage models. Driver was a runaway success, and many thought that developer Reflections had caught lightning in a bottle. A sequel was released that was too ambitious for the PlayStation hardware, and the decline of the Driver franchise began steeply and sharply. A third title that was filled with glitches and poor game mechanics was dropped after Grand Theft Auto III was released, but by then, no one except the developers and their families seemed to care.

So Driver never really evolved into the fully fledged classic franchise many envisioned when the first title was released. Driver '76 on the PSP is not the shot of adrenaline the series needed; quite the opposite in fact. Considering how beat down this franchise is at this point, I can't even call it a nail in the coffin. Driver '76 is just another shovel-full of dirt thrown on top of the coffin already sitting in the grave.

Where to begin? Driver '76 is a complete mess. You know you're in for trouble when the game has to load a loading screen. The ironic thing is, is that the nicer, stylized loading screen comes up first. After about 45 seconds, the screen disappears and you're treated to a black screen with a spinning disc logo in the left side for another 30 seconds or so. This happens before every level, side mission, and even between menus. But hey, excessive load times are tolerable if the game is fun to play.

Unfortunately, Reflections' vision of 1976 New York is where fun goes to die a slow and painful death. You play as Ray, a low level crook who sounds like Ray Liotta's unsuccessful brother. Your sidekick is the afro'ed walking 70's stereotype Slink who makes Snoop Dogg look like Al Sharpton. As the game begins, you are trying to hook up with a Chinese crime boss' daughter. For that to happen, you must do menial jobs driving back and forth committing felonies. Only once you do enough jobs will her father like you enough to allow you into her pants. Will Ray get laid? The suspense is palpable!

In technical terms, Driver 76 is an unabated disaster. While the rendition of New York is large and spacious, it's completely deserted. There are rarely more than four cars on the road at any given time, and pedestrians are rarer than a virtual boy owner. Even with the total lack of activity in the streets, the frame rate can't stay smooth. The game constantly seems to hover around 15-20 frames per seconds on average, but will also jump, chop, and stutter on a consistent basis. Sometimes the game will fully lock up for a few seconds before suddenly springing back to life again. What is it about the game that makes it do this? Are the three pedestrians in the city too much for the PSP to handle? Maybe it's the horribly muddy textures and choppy animation that brings the engine to its knees? Buildings pop in and out of existence on a block by block basis as well. At least the cars are nicely rendered, with lots of visible damage.