‘Driver: San Francisco’ and ‘Drive’

In my campaign to single handedly push Driver: San Francisco into the critical consciousness I have written yet another piece for PopMatters on the game. That makes 3 total so far. I amaze myself that I’m still able to write about the game from fresh angles after all this time. I knew I was going to write about Driver and how it relates to Drive before I had even the seen the movie. I felt like there could have been a connection, but then I saw it and it’s a phenomenal movie and has absolutely no connection to what Driver is about despite the similar titles.

But a gauntlet thrown must be accepted, especially when you threw it for yourself. So I thought about it and noticed a lot of the criticism about Drive centered on the character and how he is defined by his profession. Wait, video game characters are defined by their profession. In fact it’s really the only way to read them. So there was my angle, but beyond that I had no idea what I could write. I should do that more often. This isn’t an essay so much as a think piece. I have a starting point and I go from point to point seeing where the logic leads me. I don’t know where I’m going to end up or what the writing is going to say until I get there. It’s a fun way to write. Of course it’s also a dangerous way to write if you’re on a deadline and your output ends up being crap.

In looking back on it, I kind of wish I could spend more time with the concept and really dig deep on the details of the movie and examine how the verb defines him. I’ve already spent quite a bit of time on Tanner. If you haven’t seen the movie and played the game (or read my previous criticism) you’ll end up taking a lot of my points and comparisons on faith. It may not be the best way to write, but I also didn’t want to start repeating myself on the basic points to get to the brand new ones.

Of course maybe me wanted to go back and write the longer version is just I want an excuse to think about Drive a bit more and write about despite the fact I work for the multimedia section of the site. That is also a possibility. Seriously though, it’s a shame the Oscars overlooked it, it might just be the best movie of 2011 hands down.

Alex V says:

February 9, 2012 at 5:57 pm

The link didn’t work for me, but I found the article.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/154296-/

You describe Tanner as maniacal, but it is also the influence of the player that seems to drive the character inevitably towards a level of hi-octane risk-taking that borders on madness. It is players who tend to ‘drive’ characters towards levels of excess, and the sort of surreal over-the-top versions of a sort of reality that games often provide.

I haven’t seen Drive, but it seems to me that meaningful cinema is often dictated by its own internal logic. When the internal logic is provided by the player, generally all hell breaks loose. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I do think Driver San Francisco is an insane but terrific game – is that just the way we’re playing it?

Eric Swain says:

February 9, 2012 at 6:37 pm

Thank you for telling me the link was broken. There’s been some trouble on the back end. It’s fixed now.

The thing is, while the player can drive in the crazy high octane fashion they can also drive sensible and according to the rules of the road. The game will neither punish nor reward either behavior on its own. However,in trying to complete the game you have to resort to that behavior. You have no choice. The missions in particular require a precision and inanity to simply beat them. Doubly so when Tanner creates the mission objective for the player to take down 18-wheelers by smashing them into garbage trucks. That’s not the player or the game’s idea. He outright states his plan. He grabs sports cars to drive under trucks to disable bombs. He participates in multiple street races, hijacks stolen cargo into the back of a trailer truck and I’m not going to go into the behavior should you take on the stunt challenges.

It’s true a work is subject to its own internal logic and by that logic Tanner is still a crazy mofo that no one is willing to reign in. Lucky it’s all in his head or there will be huge plot holes as to why he doesn’t get his license suspended. So yes we are playing it like that, but the game requires that play in return.

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