Driver® Parallel Lines

I went back to Driver: Parallel Lines half-expecting a janky relic, and came out the other side with a grudging appreciation for how much personality this thing has. The premise drops you into 1978 New York as TK, a getaway driver who gets framed and locked away for 28 years, then picks up the story in 2006 with a full revenge agenda. It is a single-player-only ride, and the dual-era structure is genuinely the most interesting idea in the game. The warm sepia tone and funk-heavy radio of the 70s half gives way to a colder, blue-tinted 2006 version of the same city, and the contrast works well enough that it almost papers over the thinness of the story in both halves. The driving is where the game earns its keep. Arcade handling with enough weight to feel satisfying, police chases that stay tense without becoming impossible, and a garage system at Ray's Autos that lets you soup up nearly any car you steal off the street. Performance upgrades, nitrous boosters, bulletproof glass, ride height adjustments, custom paint, the works. There are close to 80 to 100 vehicles across both eras, from boxy 70s muscle to sleeker 2006 sports cars, and the era-locked weapon loadouts (older guns in 78, newer hardware in 2006) add a bit of tactical texture. Side content includes street races, demolition derby in Central Park, circuit tracks, and pursuit jobs, which gives the open world enough to do between story missions. Here is where I have to be straight with you though. The on-foot sections are clunky. The auto-aim helps, but the shooting never feels better than serviceable, and a handful of missions lean on it too much. The story missions clock in at 31 entries and the campaign wraps up faster than you would want. Era-switching only unlocks after you finish the story mode, so the real freedom to explore both timelines is a second-playthrough reward rather than something you get to mess with mid-campaign. The PC version also has a history of crashing when returning to the main menu, so keeping manual saves frequent is just good practice. For racing and driving fans specifically, this hits a very specific itch. It is not a sim, not even close. Think of it as an arcade driving sandbox with light open-world crime trimmings, closer in spirit to the original Driver games than to GTA, even if critics kept making that comparison. The soundtrack alone, with Funkadelic, Iggy Pop, Blondie, David Bowie, LCD Soundsystem, and Public Enemy splitting duties across the two eras, makes cruising around the city feel legitimately cool. There is no split-screen, no co-op, no multiplayer of any kind (online multiplayer was dropped during development). This is a solo evening game, best played with a controller, good headphones, and zero expectations beyond having a decent time behind a wheel.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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