Driver: Renegade Review

I never felt the urge to jump out of a moving vehicle before. If Driver: Renegade were real-life and not just a video game, I might reconsider. This game for the Nintendo 3DS crashes and burns. Good thing that there’s an ejector seat, too, in the form of the power button.

Driver: Renegade is a mess in nearly all respects. The story is told through what can best be described as comic book illustrations. The game’s protagonist is undercover cop John Tanner, a potty-mouthed and horribly voice-acted character that drops f-bombs without hesitation. You get the green light by a senator to go on a crusade against criminals outside of the boundaries of law enforcement, because clearly senators have the power to do that.

Most of Driver: Renegade’s missions have you run around the city’s open-world environment, driving your car into enemies to take them out. Other missions have you running into “massage parlors” with your car, collapsing the building in the process. It is somewhat hilarious to watch, but the premise is ridiculous. Similar to Grand Theft Auto you can restore life to your car simply by going through a drive-in repair shop.

The sad thing about Driver: Renegade is that the driving mechanics are not bad in and of themselves. It could have been a competent enough game if they had added some variety to the missions, gotten rid of some of the lunacy, and cleaned up the dialogue to where it felt like a foul-mouthed teenager wasn’t responsible for the writing.

This isn’t the worst game I’ve played on the 3DS, Asphalt 3D would get that honor, but it is pretty close. Nearly everything about this game is universally bad and disappointing. A competent driving mechanic isn’t enough to save an otherwise underwhelming game with repetitive missions and a totally unlikable main character.