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[Michael]

I've recently run across a Let's Play of a commercial game that is turning out to be surprisingly dwarfy (that is, sociopathic).

The game is Driver: San Francisco, and the first episode of the LP is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4CZnpV8osQ

(Oddly, the only mentions I see on a global forum search for "driver francisco" are a few lists of games and one complaint about its copy protection.  Am I really first?)


Anyhow, the premise of the game is that after mysteriously surviving an awful crash, the hero Tanner gains the ability to leave his body and take the place of other drivers, sort of like Quantum Leap.  (Also, sort of like Sixth Sense, but more on that at the end.)

At any given time, there are a number of "missions", specific vehicles with quests Tanner accepts when he shifts into them.   Quests are things like races, pursuit, evading pursuit, as well as more creative things.  For example, one simple quest has Tanner take over a timid driver who has to win a street race so he can use the prize money for college.

Just because Tanner accepts a mission car does not stop him from shifting into other vehicles temporarily.  And herein lies the dwarfiness, or something worse. 

It would merely be dwarfy to allow Tanner to hijack an oncoming car and crash it head-on to a vehicle he is pursuing for a cheap win.  But this game goes beyond that and has a tutorial within a storyline mission, with the rationale that you need to hit the bad guy from the front to avoid hurting a kidnapped woman in the trunk.

And at least that mission was to rescue someone else.  Just before that, the LP shows a side mission where Tanner has to arrange that "World's Craziest Drivers" has some "crazy drivers" to film....

It's a little hard to accept that Tanner is the "good guy" when he drafts bystanders as kamikazes.  He's as careless as Kirby. I think I'd rather have Tyler Durden or Light Yagami loose in my city than him.

Now, on to the Sixth Sense issue.  There are a few cutscenes showing Tanner in a coma.  It's clear that Tanner really didn't recover from the initial crash, although it's not clear yet whether the rest of the game is just a dream, or whether the ghost of Tanner is loose wreaking havoc in the real San Francisco.

For all that, though, I am eagerly awaiting the next episode....

[klingon13524]

Digital restrictions management is not at all dwarfy.

[zestorum]

 I have a voucher for this game I'm willing to trade.

[PsyberianHusky]

The name implies that it would be a survival horror game.

[ductape]

I actually want this because I live in SF and it would be fun to drive around my town and crash into shit without getting in trouble like what usually happens when I do that.

[Leatra]

Being able to shift into other cars is a neat idea. It brings a new perspective to racing games.

[hemmingjay]

If only it would let me rampage and run over the awful tourists @ pier 39.

[Tilla]

It really is a great game, the setting is really well realized and the music is incredible.

[ductape]

I just got home, it took me ONE FULL HOUR to drive from the Marina to the Bayview. Thats like 2 miles. Sometimes I hate SF.

Oh how many times I thought about jumping a curb and driving down the Muni tracks, mowing down the skateboarders at the Embarcadero.

I just may have to try this game.

[Michael]

Digital restrictions management is not at all dwarfy.

Oh come now.  If dwarves had computers, you'd be deploying artifact DRM that causes offending computers to blow up into 9 tiles of 6/7 magma.  And then buying the software from a separate fort so that irritating nobles may be converted into useful magma, via the gift of counterfeit games...

Dwarf Fortress players wouldn't like that in real life, but they wouldn't like to live in bedrooms that flood at someone else's whim in real life either.

The name implies that it would be a survival horror game.

How so?

As it is, DSF is basically the opposite of a survival horror game, as Tanner has the powers of a survival horror archvillian. When shifting, he is invisible and in bullet time.  He can turn almost any vehicle into a hammer to smite you with, and damaging those vehicular hammers does nothing to harm him.

Only the direct "enemy" vehicles appear to be immune, usually.  Although there's one storyline mission where Tanner torments a "jerkass" by controlling him.

[PsyberianHusky]

The name implies that it would be a survival horror game.

How so?

Have you ever driven in SF?

[Michael]

Have you ever driven in SF?

Oh.  Well that's not an issue, as this game does not enforce traffic rules on the player.

If the problem is with SF's road layout being complicated, I think the gamers prefer it that way.  Manhattan would be too easy to code. It doesn't add to the difficulty as the game gives you waypoints.

Otherwise, solving the kidnapping mission, where you have to reach waypoints 25 seconds after seeing a glimpse out the back of the target, would require a taxi savant's knowledge of the city.  Beyond that, even, as a taxi savant only needs to index his memory by street name, not visual.

[buckets]

Digital restrictions management is not at all dwarfy.

Oh come now.  If dwarves had computers, you'd be deploying artifact DRM that causes offending computers to blow up into 9 tiles of 6/7 magma.  And then buying the software from a separate fort so that irritating nobles may be converted into useful magma, via the gift of counterfeit games...

Dwarf Fortress players wouldn't like that in real life, but they wouldn't like to live in bedrooms that flood at someone else's whim in real life either.

Uh, what?

[Michael]

Dwarf Fortress players wouldn't like that in real life, but they wouldn't like to live in bedrooms that flood at someone else's whim in real life either.

Uh, what?

I was referring to the dwarfy way of dealing with an inconvenient mandate -- assigning the responsible noble a special bedroom designed to kill him.  Flooding is one of the simpler principles on which to build such a death room.

Dwarfiness seems to be all about treating entities within the DF world in a hilariously unethical matter, either for the smooth functioning of the fort, or occasionally just "For Science".  Against all that, breaking someone's computer game (because random failures trigger an anti-copying failsafe) seems a rather trivial slight.


Anyhow, back in the Let's Play (episode 6), we've just seen a mission where Tanner helps a cop stop a street race.  When you look at the resulting car-nage, and compare it against the reasons street racing is illegal, it does seem kind of silly.  It's like the father, shocked to discover condoms in his supposedly pure daughter's bag, who pokes holes in them and puts them back to "teach her a lesson".

[Michael]

Just thought I'd bump this with an interesting development in the LP of this game.  There's now a mission that could be called horror.  It starts out with Tanner apparently catching his nemesis, but his partner notices something off.  And then...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=l40IUmLgJ0I#t=730s

There's some dialogue at 15:20 that's a little rich considering the way the game encourages you to play it up till then.