Driver 2 : Back on the Streets (named Driver 2: The Wheelman is Back in North America) is the second installment of the Driver video game series.
Gameplay
Driver 2 expands on Driver’s 3-D, free-roam structure, as well as adding the ability of the character, Tanner, to step out of his car to explore on foot and commandeer other vehicles in the game’s open world environments. The story missions are played separately from the take-a-ride mode where the player can explore the cities in their own time.
Missions in the game are generally vehicle-oriented, and involve trailing witnesses, ramming cars and escaping from gangsters or cops. A cutscene is shown prior to almost every mission to help advance the storyline, and thus the game plays rather like a Hollywood-style car chase movie. Although Tanner can leave his car and interact with certain elements of the environment, all violence takes place during pre-rendered scenes.
While the original PlayStation version offered a two-player split screen play, the Game Boy Advance version introduced a four player link option.
Plot
Chicago
The game begins with an introduction showing a man named Pink Lenny and a tattooed Brazilian talking in a bar. Lenny is telling the Brazilian a story about how he really scared someone one time (“You should’ve seen the look on the guy’s face”). Suddenly, two men burst in with guns and kill everyone in the room, except for Lenny, who slips out the back.
Later, Undercover police officer Tanner and his partner Tobias Jones examine the body of the Brazilian at the morgue. The police captain informs Tanner and Jones of Lenny’s disappearance and of the only witness of the attack. Tanner and Jones apprehend the witness, who tells them that the gunmen weren’t after the Brazilian but were after Lenny, who is actually a money launderer working for Solomon Caine, one of the high ranking mobsters of Chicago whose empire goes from Chicago to Las Vegas.
However, Jones suspects that the Brazilian was working for Alvaro Vazquez, another high ranking mobster who is one of Caine’s rivals. If Lenny was talking with the Brazilian, he may have switched sides. Tanner and Jones investigate a warehouse owned by Vazquez, but it turns out that the police were raiding the warehouse and Tanner and Jones split up to escape the cops, though not before discovering that the forged documents in the craters came from Cuba. When Tanner returns to his apartment, he is hit in the face by an assailant (one of the shooters from the bar), who escapes down the fire escape. Tanner gives chase, but it turns out it was a trap set by Caine, who believes Tanner is a hired thug trying to take over his business with information from Lenny. While Caine’s bodyguard, Jericho, drags Tanner away for execution, Tanner hits him in the face and escapes Caine’s compound. Caine puts a bounty on Tanner’s name, forcing him and Jones to escape to Havana.
Havana
Tanner and Jones learn that Vazquez is using Havana as the frontier for his arms operations, and plans to use Lenny’s contacts to flood Chicago with guns and take over Caine’s business. Tanner and Jones ruin Vazquez’s arms operations in Havana, and also discover that Lenny is going to be leaving the city in a ship called Rosanna Soto. Despite Tanner’s attempts to arrest Lenny before the ship leaves, Lenny escapes.
Afterwards Tanner learns from Jones that Jericho has arrived in Havana, having learnt of Lenny’s betrayal, and plans to kill all of Lenny’s men at a hotel in Central Havana. Tanner and Jones follow Jericho to the hotel, where Tanner is unable to prevent Jericho from killing the men, but nonetheless rams Jericho off the road in a chase. Tanner and Jericho then form a truce, hiding from the Brazilians and head to Vegas to meet Caine.
Las Vegas
When Lenny arrives in Vegas, he is greeted by Vazquez, who is overseeing the arms shipments and is taking over Lenny’s contacts after Lenny’s failure in Havana. Tanner, Jones and Jericho arrive in Vegas and meet Caine. Tanner infiltrates Caine’s gang by telling Caine that Jones and him once worked for Lenny but were betrayed and want revenge. Caine assigns Jones to track down Lenny while Tanner will use his driving skills to assist Caine’s Vegas operations.
Tanner completes the tasks given to him by Caine, including delivering a car bomb to Vasquez’s casino in Vegas and assisting Caine’s henchmen in a bank robbery. Jones, infiltrating Vasquez’s mob, discovered that Lenny has left Vegas and Tanner had to transport him to the airport (after shaking off a police ambush and subsequent chase). Caine then had Tanner disrupt Vasquez’s operations by destroying his main front in North Vegas, and destroyed the trucks containing Vasquez’s weapons. Caine and his henchman brutally interrogates one of the Brazilian guards and learn that Vasquez (and Lenny) are in Rio.
Rio
Tanner, Jericho and Caine meet Jones in Rio, despite Jones telling Caine that it is too dangerous for him to be in the city. Caine dismisses his warnings and only concern himself to find Lenny. Tanner still uses his driving skills to assist Caine and disrupt Vasquez’s activities, such as ramming a stolen bus into the Brazilians’ cars and tricking the Brazilians into giving Tanner cash for Caine.
Around this time however Tanner is worried that Jones’s cover is deteriorating and that Vasquez will figure out that Jones is supposedly working for Caine. Tanner only gives Jones four days to find out the information where Lenny is before Tanner heads off to destroy a boat transporting Vasquez’s weapons to Chicago. Jones later calls Tanner, telling him that Vasquez has sent a gunman to kill Jones, forcing Tanner to save him. Tanner arrives at Jones’ place to find him wounded and the gunman still lurking around. The gunman flees and Tanner rams him off the cliff of the coastal route.
With time running out and Vasquez losing, Caine finally found out that Lenny is attempting to escape Rio. Tanner is forced to pick up Jericho before heading to Lenny’s location. The two manage to shoot down the helicopter Lenny is in when Tanner reveals his true colours to Jericho. Leaving Jericho behind, Tanner chases Lenny’s helicopter through the streets of Rio while evading Caine’s henchman. The helicopter finally crashes and Tanner quickly disarms Lenny before beating him to submission.
Ending
Jones and Tanner escorts Lenny back to Chicago and handed him over to the police captain seen at the introduction. When the police captain asks Tanner what was the connection between Caine and Vasquez, Tanner only replied “Took me a long time to figure that out”. It is revealed that the two had been affiliated in the past and are shown to have reconciled with each other before the statue of Christ of Redeemer in Rio. As Tanner drives away from the airport, a mystery car starts to tail him.
Cars
A wide variety of cars can be found throughout the game. They are based on real life cars like Chevys, Fords, GMC and more. All the cars can be driven and there are also hidden car around the cities that can be found. A unique feature about the cars is that hubcaps will fly off. The hubcaps fly off less than in the game Driver (video game) which makes it more realistic.
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