Video Game Vintage Title: Driver: San Francisco

Driver: San Francisco

Driver: San Francisco is a sandbox-style action-adventure driving video game developed by Ubisoft Reflections and published by Ubisoft. The game formally was unveiled at E3 2010 and was released in Australia on September 1, 2011, Europe on September 2, 2011 and North America on September 6, 2011 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, while the Microsoft Windows version was released on 27 September 2011.

Driver: San Francisco Plot

After the shootings in Istanbul, Jericho was revived from his gunshot wounds. After recovery, he eluded the security and escaped the Istanbul hospital, fleeing from Turkey and escaping back to the U.S. After 6 months of searching him, Tanner and Jones managed to find him and arrest him. He is currently in San Francisco, awaiting trial.

At the beginning of the game, Jericho is shown being transported in the back of a prison truck to his trial. A hired assassin fires an RPG at the convoy; whilst Jericho's guards are distracted, he melts through his chains with a hidden vial of acid given to him by a bribed guard. He overpowers his guards, and hijacks the truck. Tanner and Jones witness this from Tanner's car and pursue Jericho as he causes havoc on the streets of the city. Tanner loses track of Jericho when he turns into an alley, and is caught by surprise when Jericho drives up behind him. Jericho uses the truck to ram Tanner's car into the path of a semi truck, resulting in a devastating crash, putting Tanner into a coma.

Whilst in a coma dream, Tanner soon discovers his ability to "shift" into another person's body, retaining his persona but, to everyone else, looking and sounding exactly the same as the person he has shifted into. Using this confusing power, Tanner helps people around the city whilst trying to figure out Jericho's plan. After deducing that Jericho is after the materials to create a cyanide gas bomb, he shifts into Ordell, a low-time crook looking to rise up through Jericho's organization.

Tanner later discovers that Jericho can also shift, and realises that when he is not in his body, Jericho can take over. Eventually, Tanner figures out that he is in a dream world when the strange messages from the real world creep into his mind. Jericho's powers become more potent, but Tanner realises that as it is all in his mind, he can play by the same rules, and he ultimately defeats his mental projection of Jericho. In a mental visualisation of a police interrogation room, Tanner begins questioning Jericho and figures that the news reports from the television in his real-world hospital bed are feeding his coma dream. From this he knows of a real-world bomb plot, but deduces that it is not real - Jericho is a gangster, not a terrorist.

Finally waking up, Tanner requests his car keys from Jones, who reminds him of the truck that hit his Dodge Challenger. Tanner leaves in Jones' Chevrolet Camaro and heads for downtown San Francisco, which is being evacuated due to the bomb threat. A massive cloud of gas erupts from the city as Tanner approaches, but he quickly discovers it is harmless; the bomb is a literal smokescreen being used to cover a prison break. Jericho had made a deal with a prisoner for US$30 million to break him out of jail. After a pursuit, Tanner sees Jericho head into the docks. Tanner and Jericho drive at each other in an apparent game of chicken and a potential head-on collision, but Jones appears in a police SUV and rams Jericho from the side, incapacitating him. Tanner claims that he knew what he was doing, but Jones reminds him whose car he was driving, before suggesting a well-deserved beer.

Driver: San Francisco Gameplay

A new feature is Shift, which allows Tanner to shift from a car into another car and continue the mission. One of the inspirations for Shift comes from Google Earth. The game is also being described as a "return to the roots" to the series as the ability to get out of the car, which was introduced in Driver 2, has been removed and replaced with the ability to Shift (teleport) into other cars, as the developers felt that too many games have this kind of feature already and "it wasn't desirable to just copy that exact mechanic." With Shift, the player can also start missions. As well as the ability to use Shift, all cars will be equipped with a 'boost' feature, requiring the player to push up on the left thumbstick to use it. Players can also push L1 on the PlayStation 3 or the left shoulder button on the Xbox 360 version of the game to perform a special 'ram' attack on cars. The film director mode, which was absent from Parallel Lines, also returns, and players can share their videos on the Driver Club website. The game runs at 60 frames per second.