Driver 3

Driver 3, spelled out as Driv3r but branded as DRIV3R, is the third game in the Driver series. The game begins in Miami, where undercover police officer Tanner, along with partner Tobias Jones, must infiltrate a crime ring specializing in stolen vehicles. A ruthless woman named Calita, along with henchman and weapons specialist Lomaz run the gang. Tanner convinces them to give him a shot to work for them. Once he is accepted by the group, Tanner begins conducting various jobs for them, in pursuit of a total 40 stolen high performance vehicles.

Gameplay
The cars are nameless in the game, but all vehicles are modelled after the real automobiles. The official names were confirmed in some game guides including a 1969 Ford Mustang, 1975 Pontiac Firebird, Citroen CX, Renault Alpine, Lamborghini Jalpa, BMW 507, Seat Ibiza, GM New Look (Fishbowl) Bus and a Lamborghini Countach.

In Miami, all vehicles are from the 1970s and earlier. In Nice the cars are of newer and the traffic is more like the present. In Istanbul the cars are from the 1950s and 1960s, including a 1961 Chevrolet Impala.

The vehicles in Driv3r are modelled to behave as in real life. For example, bullet holes appear when a car is shot, vehicles only take significant damage when the engine is hit, rims of blown tires screech against the curb, and individual pieces of the car can be shot out or can fall out after taking damage.

Development
It is the third installment in the popular Driver series and was developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Atari. Driv3r was released in North America for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox on June 21, 2004. In Europe, it was officially released on June 25, although due to the way Atari shipped the title across the continent, it made its way into independent UK retailers before the release date, even making a #6 position in the ELSPA chart for that week. On March 15, 2005, it was released on PC for US customers and a scaled down version was released for the mobile phone in June 2004. At one point a Nintendo GameCube version was planned, but it was later canceled.

Reception
After an extensive and intensive promotional campaign, Driv3r was met with a poor critical reaction, with the vast majority of magazines and websites giving the game mediocre scores; IGN and GameSpot both gave the game 5.4 out of 10. [1][2] However, two magazines published by Future Publishing (PSM2 & OXM) gave it 9/10.[3]

Driv3r was criticized for Tanner's lack of hand-to-hand combat skills and meleé weapons. There were also criticisms for the poor implementation of the 'on the foot' missions. This was also a criticism levelled at Driver 2.

The game won the MegaGames.com award for Worst Game of 2005.