History VideoGame / Driver

* CowboyCop: Tanner, to the hilt. He's perfectly willing to go head to head with other cops if it helps him reach his goal.
* DifficultySpike: The final level of the first game. Even using an invincibility cheat, it's easy to lose the level by having your car flipped over.
** And, oddly enough, the very first level is easily one of the hardest; and unlike the last level, no cheats will help you here. And if you happened to not know what certain car tricks were such as slaloms or burnouts, it could potentially be [[UnwinnableByMistake unwinnable]]; ''especially if you didn't happen to have internet access at the time, and failed to find the training menu with the demonstration''.
** It didn't help that the detection for some of the tricks was a bit unreliable and the harsh time-limit meant there was possibly not enough time to try the trick again if it didn't register the first time.

* FallingDamage: Present in ''[=DRIV3R=]''. Walking off of an elevated train track in Miami, for example, would damage you, if not outright kill you, also present but much more generous in Parallel Line where TK can fall significantly further before taking damage.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: Driv3r and Parallel Lines are this, While Driv3r only really removes most of the luck elements from missions, Parallel Lines generally reduces it further with more generous time limits, health kits filling full health and generally more powerful weapons.

* ArtificialStupidity: Though the police A.I.s has laser-like focus and will stop at nothing to take you down, they're also about as smart as a bag of wet leaves. It's pretty easy to get them to smash into stuff or drive off cliffs, while trying to take you down. Police cars even smash into each other pretty frequently.

* ArtificialStupidity: Though the police A.Is has laser-like focus and will stop at nothing to take you down, they're also about as smart as a bag of wet leaves. It's pretty easy to get them to smash into stuff or drive off cliffs, while trying to take you down. Police cars even smash into each other pretty frequently.

* ArtificialStupidity: Though the police AIs have laser-like focus and will stop at nothing to take you down, they are about as smart as a bag of wet leaves. It's pretty easy to get them to smash into stuff or drive off cliffs, while trying to take you down. Police cars even smash into each other pretty frequently.

SequelDifficultyDrop: Driv3r and Parallel Lines are this, While Driv3r only really removes most of the luck elements from missions, Parallel Lines generally reduces it further with more generous time limits, health kits filling full health and generally more powerful weapons.

* PlotTwist: In ''Parallel Lines'', it's [[spoiler:getting arrested because all five of your friends -- The Mexican, Candy, Slink, Bishop and Corrigan -- use you as a scapegoat for their crime and leave you to be arrested 28 years. Your 6th friend (Ray) then betrays you later to defect to Corrigan.]]

* BloodlessCarnage: All games except Parallel Lines. Largely makes sense given the games are about driving over combat. What is strange is how Driver 3 is the first M-rated game in the series, has a greater focus on gunplay, but has no blood whatsoever (or sex, profanity, or drugs for that matter).

* CoversAlwaysLie: No, Tanner can't shoot and drive in Driver 3 (however a gunman riding shotgun in select missions can).

** It didn't help that the detection for some of the tricks was a bit unreliable and the harsh time-limit ment there was possibly not enough time to try the trick again if it didn't register the first time.

%%* FiveManBand: In ''Parallel Lines'':

* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler:Senator Ballard]] in ''Renegade''. [[spoiler:He secretly sets up a crime ring with New York City's most notorious criminals, then sends Tanner to kill them so that he can take the credit for cleaning up the city."

The latest instalment is ''Driver: Speedboat Paradise'', with only [[RecycledInSPACE boats instead of cars]] to play with and developed by former Creator/{{Gameloft}} staff. Most recently, Reflections helped out with Ivory Tower with the development of ''VideoGame/TheCrew'', a racing MMO that was released in 2014.

* FallingDamage: Present in ''[=DRIV3R=]''. Walking off of an elevated train track in Miami, for example, would damage you, if not outright kill you.

* NitroExpress: In one mission of the first game, you must deliver a crate of unstable explosives in a pickup truck across the hills of San Francisco. In another level in the second game, you must take down an explosives-laden truck by ramming it.

* ThatOneLevel: The last level, and to others the tutorial, as detailed in the Difficulty Spike item.

* TimedMission: Quite a few. Perhaps the worst offenders are certain missions in the first game that require you to rendezvous with another character while the police aren't actively looking for you. Since you could just drive leisurely to the rendezvous point with little difficulty, the game enforces an arbitrary time limit for these missions requiring you haul ass. Either the people giving you these missions are giving out completely unreasonable meeting times, or Tanner is the ultimate procrastinator. And of course, then there's the [[ThatOneLevel first mission]] with a ridiculously strict 60 seconds. Most of the time-limits also give very little room for error.

* NoSwastikas: The criminal organizations that Tanner infiltrates in the first and second games are based on TheMafia and the Chicago Outfit respectively but are never named.

In 2011, Reflections (now Creator/{{Ubisoft}} Reflections) took another shot at the series with ''VideoGame/DriverSanFrancisco'', the first game in the series for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 and UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}}. Returning to the first three games' continuity and, like ''Parallel Lines'', taking place entirely in one city ([[CaptainObvious guess which one it is]]), ''San Francisco'' goes the supernatural[=/=]MindScrew route by taking place [[AdventuresInComaLand while Tanner is in a coma]]... and giving him "shifting" powers that allow him to [[MindControl possess other drivers on the road]].

* LesCopsSportif: Nice in ''[=DRIV3R=]'' features the National Police. The mission '18-Wheeler' also features the Gendarmerie.

%%* FiveBadBand: In ''Parallel Lines'':

** And, oddly enough, the very first level is easily one of the hardest; and unlike the last level, no cheats will help you here. And if you happened to not know what certain car tricks were such as slaloms or burnouts, it could potentially be [[UnwinnableByMistake unwinnable]]; ''especially if you didn't happen to have internet access at the time''.

* AnachronismStew: What exact year ''Driver 3'' is set in is ambiguous. Most of the cars are from no later than the 1970s and 1980s but Miami has the American Airlines Arena in it, which was built in 1999, and Sobe drinks and Nokia cellphones exist.

* AnachronismStew: What exact year ''DRIV3R'' is set in is ambiguous. Most of the cars are from no later than the 1970s and 1980s but Miami has the American Airlines Arena in it, which was built in 1999, and Sobe drinks and Nokia cellphones exist.

* AnachronismStew: What exact year ''DRIV3R'' is set in is ambiguous. All the cars are from no later than the 1970s and 1980s but Miami has the American Airlines Arena in it, which was built in 1999.

* AnachronismStew: Driver 3's setting is ambiguous. All the cars are from no later than the 1970s and 1980s but Miami has the American Airlines Arena in it, which was built in 1999.

* AnachronismStew: Driver 3's setting is ambiguous. All the cars are from the 1970s and 1980s but Miami has the American Airlines Arena in it, which was built in 1999.