Although the storyline is solid, and the car models are beautiful, inside and out, the game's physics are atrocious. With only WASD controls, just about every car handles as though it is on ice. Using a race wheel may help, but for those who don't own one, your 2 options of tire-spinning full throttle or locked-up brakes make gameplay quite difficult at the best of times.

Along with the horrid keyboard driving controls, the NPC drivers tend make gameplay even less enjoyable. If civilian cars aren't gluing their rear bumpers to your front when you rear end someone at high speed, swerving with you until you stop, back up, and then swerve around them, the unreliable, inconsistent police AI will drive you mad. In some cases they can be easily outrun on a long, flat stretch, other times they keep up with you at speeds approaching 170 mph (I've clocked them) in vehicles seemingly as strong as tanks that handle like they are glued to the tarmac, while in standard, NPC-started car chases they barely crack 80 and drive like they're going on a Sunday cruise. Adding to the police chases is the cops' tendancy to spawn just ahead of you 2 seconds before you escape, making for incredibly aggrivating runs through San Francisco.

Last but not least is Ubisoft's game launcher. During the quite frequent spells when the launcher will not sync up with the Ubisoft network, the multiplayer game mode is deactivated. Out of my close to 100 hours* in the game, about 70 of those hours were done in 'offline-mode', a shame, as the few times I was able to play multiplayer with friends, even with the terrible controls, much fun was still had.

All in all, the graphics are incredible, the story line well thought out, and the variety of vehicles available is quite impressive, but the poor driving physics and terrible AI really drag the game down, along with Ubisoft's unreliable game launcher. I honestly wonder how the game was rated so high by professional critics.

*Contrary to what my Steam game hours may show, I have actually devoted closer to 100 hours to the game, beating the Campaign mode, and nearly completing all extra challenges. The Ubisoft game launcher system doesn't function too well with Steam when it comes to Steam acknowledging Driver: San Francisco has actually started, and in order to get Steam to recognize I am playing the game, I need to tab back over to Steam once the game has started and press the play button once again, which then 'officially' shows me as playing the game. After a while I got sick of bothering, and just played in 'non-Steam' mode, hence the low Steam hours.

Although the storyline is solid, and the car models are beautiful, inside and out, the game's physics are atrocious. With only WASD controls, just about every car handles as though it is on ice. Using a race wheel may help, but for those who don't own one, your 2 options of tire-spinning full throttle or locked-up brakes make gameplay quite difficult at the best of times. Along with the horrid keyboard driving controls, the NPC drivers tend make gameplay even less enjoyable. If civilian cars aren't gluing their rear bumpers to your front when you rear end someone at high speed, swerving with you until you stop, back up, and then swerve around them, the unreliable, inconsistent police AI will drive you mad. In some cases they can be easily outrun on a long, flat stretch, other times they keep up with you at speeds approaching 170 mph (I've clocked them) in vehicles seemingly as strong as tanks that handle like they are glued to the tarmac, while in standard, NPC-started car chases they barely crack 80 and drive like they're going on a Sunday cruise. Adding to the police chases is the cops' tendancy to spawn just ahead of you 2 seconds before you escape, making for incredibly aggrivating runs through San Francisco. Last but not least is Ubisoft's game launcher. During the quite frequent spells when the launcher will not sync up with the Ubisoft network, the multiplayer game mode is deactivated. Out of my close to 100 hours* in the game, about 70 of those hours were done in 'offline-mode', a shame, as the few times I was able to play multiplayer with friends, even with the terrible controls, much fun was still had. All in all, the graphics are incredible, the story line well thought out, and the variety of vehicles available is quite impressive, but the poor driving physics and terrible AI really drag the game down, along with Ubisoft's unreliable game launcher. I honestly wonder how the game was rated so high by professional critics. *Contrary to what my Steam game hours may show, I have actually devoted closer to 100 hours to the game, beating the Campaign mode, and nearly completing all extra challenges. The Ubisoft game launcher system doesn't function too well with Steam when it comes to Steam acknowledging Driver: San Francisco has actually started, and in order to get Steam to recognize I am playing the game, I need to tab back over to Steam once the game has started and press the play button once again, which then 'officially' shows me as playing the game. After a while I got sick of bothering, and just played in 'non-Steam' mode, hence the low Steam hours.