Driver posts

Driver San Francisco has suffered through a few release date delays since being offically announced a year ago. Now it looks like publisher Ubisoft has finallly settled on a new date for its revival of the driving-action game series from developer Reflections Software.

Our sister site Joystiq reports that Ubisoft will release the game for the PC and Mac, along with other console platforms, on August 30 in the US. That's when we will get to see if this mix of car chasing game with some odd, almost supernatural, elements (your player character is in a coma and all the in-game action is inside his head) will work.

Driver: San Francisco got a big reveal at publisher Ubisoft's E3 2010 press conference last June as the open world driving game from developer Reflections showed off an unusual premise; the "driver" of the title is in fact in a coma and the world the player drives in can be found in the driver's mind.

The game was supposed to be out this fall and later got pushed back to the first quarter of 2011. Today as part of Ubisoft's financial press release it announced that Driver San Francisco has been delayed once again. Like Ghost Recon Future Warrior the game will now be released in the publisher's 2012 fiscal year which in calendar year times starts on April 1, 2011 and ends on March 31, 2012. Ubisoft has not revealed why the game has been delayed again.

DC Comics' Wildstorm division is the undisputed king of the video game comic book adaptation with a number of mini-series under its belt. Today IGN revealed the latest such project from the comics publisher as it will release a one-shot comic based on Ubisoft's Driver driving-action game series.

The one shot comic, which doesn't have a release date yet, will bridge the gap between the crappy Driv3r and the upcoming (and hopefully much better) Driver San Fransisco. The comic will be written by David Lapham with interior artwork by Greg Scott and a cover by Jock. Jock will be signing a preview copy of the Driver comic at the San Diego Comic-Con this week at both the DC Comics and Ubisoft booth.

Publisher Ubisoft's relaunch of the Driver action-driving game franchise has hit a speed bump on its way to the freeway. Driver San Fransisco, officially announced during E3 2010 as coming out this fall, will now be released during the first quarter of 2011.

Ubisoft made the delay announcement as part of its latest financial press release, saying they decided to push back the launch of the Reflections Interactive-developed game "due to the competitive market at Christmas." Ubisoft made a similar decision earlier this year to push back the release of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier from a fall/holiday release to a first quarter 2011 release date.

Driv3r was not a very well-received game. Panned by critics for deviating too much from the formula that made the previous Driver games great, it got hammered. Learning from their mistakes, the developers decided to revisit the setting and fix the gameplay, and that's where Driver: San Francisco comes in. This particular trailer is our first look at the game, and effectively shows off the rivalry between the two main characters: Tanner and Jericho. Unfortunately, there's no gameplay footage, but if the cutscenes are this beautiful, we'll be impressed.

Download HD Driver: San Francisco E3 2010 Trailer (251MB)
Check out all Driver: San Francisco downloads

Today we are exactly one week away before the doors of the Los Angeles Convention Center opens its doors and the E3 2010 exhibit hall opens to its estimated 40,000 + attendees. This week we are giving you a brief look at what games we are most anxious to see and perhaps get our hands-on at the annual trade event.

On Monday we covered the massive amount of first person shooters that are planned to be at the show. But there are a number of more conventional action games that we want to check out too. After the jump you can look at our list for yourself. One action game we were expecting to show up on this list, Max Payne 3, won't be on display at E3 as publisher Rockstar Games has decided to bypass the show this year.

With E3 2010 now less than three weeks away, game publishers are firming up their plans on which games they will be showing at the show in the middle of June. Today Ubisoft revealed a partial line-up of their games, mentioning for the first time that a new entry in the long-running Driver action-driving franchise will be shown at the event.

Aside from a brief mention a few months ago in a financial press release, this is the first time that Ubisoft has publicly mentioned it will be publishing a new game in the Driver series. Ubisoft bought the rights to the franchise from Infogrames/Atari a while back but aside from porting a previous Atari-published game (Driver: Parallel Lines) to the Wii and PC Ubisoft has done little with the series until now. There are still no details at all on what the new Driver game will be like.

Our sister site Joystiq reports that Ubisoft claims there will also be a number of unannounced games from the publisher shown at E3. On Monday, June 14, the day before E3 officially begins, the publisher will hold a press conference in Los Angeles. For the second year in a row, it will be hosted by The Soup host Joel McHale.

Earlier this week Ubisoft announced plans to revive the Driver driving action game series sometime in their next fiscal year. Now folks can download and purchase the last PC game in the series, Driver: Parallel Lines, over at the DRM-free PC gaming web site GoG.com.

Released back in 2007 by the franchise' previous owners Atari, the game takes place in their version of an open world New York City. It follows the life of "TK", a getaway driver who gets sent to prison in 1978 for a murder he didn't commit. The game then changes to 2006 as TK get out of prison and ready to exact some revenge against the people who put him in jail. The game is now available to download for $9.99.

Ubisoft bought the rights to the Driver driving-action game series from its previous owner Atari in 2006 but aside from a minor PSP game released in 2007 the publisher hasn't done much with the property. That is apparently going to change as the publisher, in its financial report today, announced plans to release a new game in the Driver franchise.

Atari, under its previous parent company Infogrames, released several games in the Driver series in the last decade but only the first game was considered to be a huge seller. Atari sold off the series and its developer Reflections Interactive to Ubisoft in 2006. There's no other details on what will the new Driver title from Ubisoft will be like.

It's always interesting to read stories about trademarks being secured and then see the writer of said article proclaiming that the trademarked name means that a new game is in the works with that title. Nope . . not always. Sometimes it's just a company making sure that no one else can create a game or any other property with that title.

Even with that minor caveat, it's interesting to see that Ubisoft has now secured a trademark for the title Driver: The Recruit. Ubisoft bought the Driver action-driving franchise from Atari a couple of years ago but aside from porting a previous Atari-published game (Driver: Parallel Lives) to the Wii and PC it hasn't done much with the series at all. A new Driver game is certainly possible but it's still uncertain whether Driver: The Recruit will be the actual title.

[Via Superannuation]