Textbook Shovelware -- Driver: San Francisco
According to Wikipedia, Shovelware is defined as: "Shovelware (sometimes also crapware or garbageware) is a derogatory computer jargon term that refers to software noted more for the quantity of what is included than for the quality or usefulness."
There is a momentum that AAA video games build as they approach release, and it is partly a product of PR work, partly of showing off the very best of the game to games journos, and partly a product of gamer excitement for the Next Big Game. Driver: San Francisco (hereinafter to be called DSF) is just such a game.
It was very carefully presented to us at E3, and its pre-release PR was master crafted to push an image of the game in our minds that was something worthy of being excited about, and feeling anticipation for. When it was announced that a free demo play would be made available this was, at first, accepted as natural proof that a good game was coming, and there was reason to be excited. After years in the shadow of GTA, and following on the coattails of Saints Row, we were going to get an original and awesome Driver!
Right?Well, no, not so much really.
Created as the direct sequel to Driv3r (more commonly known as Driver 3), the events in DSF take place around six months after the events of Driv3r, and as the game opens we learn that both John Tanner and Charles Jericho survived the shootout in Istanbul -- with Tanner and his partner, Tobias Jones, having followed the outlaw to San Francisco, where Jericho is now in police custody and about to be transferred.
OK, that is good for a start... But why is Tanner acting like a cross between Nash Bridges and Sonny Crocket? Of course he does not address anyone as "Bubbuh" but only because we never get to get out of the car with him... Still, it is a Driver game, so we were not expecting to, right? Right! And yet...
As the game begins, the pair are shadowing the armored transport van containing Jericho because Tanner feels an overpowering urge to see the process through to the bitter end, and that means functioning as an unofficial over-watch of sorts. As they watch from an overpass, the transport convoy is attacked in a manner that is so ludicrous that it is insulting. A female cohort has commandeered a TV News Chopper, and stands in the door with an RPG-7 Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher which she aims and fires while standing in the open door of the helicopter.
What is wrong with that you ask? I will be happy to tell you!
The RPG-7 is a cold-war era weapon that was produced by Russia in significant quantities and is the RPG of choice for insurgents in the Middle East, and terrorists throughout the world, because the originals and copies are cheap to make and easy to obtain on the black market. Want to know a factoid most gamers do not know? The "RPG" in "RPG-7" does not stand for "Rocket Propelled Grenade" but rather "Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot" or "hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher."
The RPG-7 launcher is designed so that the rocket exits the launcher without discharging an exhaust that could be dangerous to the operator -- this is true -- but here is the rub: in order to fire it safely you need at LEAST 2 meters of open space behind you. Not 2 inches. Specifically the RPG-7 rocket is launched by a gunpowder booster charge, and the rocket motor ignites only after traveling around 10 meters or so. So while she would not have been cooked by the exhaust of the rocket, the backblast of the charge gases with only a few inches clearance would have truly ruined her day. But that is not the true joke to this...
Have you ever fired one? I have, we were familiarized with them in training... But since you have not, this is not going to be easy to explain without something you can relate to... So how about this: have you ever fired a 12-Gauge Shotgun? Yeah? OK! Now double that and you get the feeling of firing an RPG-7. That is why you fire them from either a kneeling or prone position. If you need to fire one from a standing position, you do it from a braced standing position.
Now part 1 of the joke is how she fired it -- part 2 is that she hit her target. Protocol for using the RPG-7 is to assign four to each target. Why? Because they have a really odd behavior pattern when their guide fins move through a crosswind. They go wonky and lose all accuracy. At 200 meters distance WITHOUT a crosswind you have about a 50% chance of hitting a moving target when YOU are standing still. The chance to hit a moving target FROM a moving launch platform? 25% or less. Note that even if she somehow managed to be totally accurate, the grenade she has loaded into it is a standard HEAT Grenade not the long-range variant -- which has an automatic fail-safe built into it that auto-destructs the grenade after 4.5 seconds (roughly 185 meters).
Bottom line? She could not have made that shot -- but Jericho might have gotten free anyway, thanks to his acid capsule concealed in his mouth... Yeah... Probably. Of course since there is no access from the back of a transport van to the front, how he would have gotten into the driver seat is anyone's guess and a fit subject for speculation -- but all of that is simply the ludicrous bits, and not the reason that this game is total rubbish. And it is total rubbish, make no mistake.
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