Driven

Inspired by Sylvester Stallone’s hit movie DRIVEN.

The first direct movie tie-in for GameCube, and it’s about a film I’ve never heard of. Driven was a personal project for Sylvester Stallone, who produced, wrote and starred in it. It was about an up and coming racing driver that started losing focus, so a champion is brought out of retirement (to help him out). It was supposed to be about Formula 1, but due to behind-the-scenes secret, Stallone had to settle on “Championship Auto Racing Teams”.

The game is, naturally, a racing game, but there are a few modes inspired by scenes in the film, and a story mode that follows the plot of the film, using the various modes throughout. The most unique mode is blocking, where you have to get behind a teammate and prevent an opponent from overtaking. You have to stay close to your teammate, so you just cant crash into your opponent (despite having a special crash camera, the crashes are extremely underwhelming).

A few scenes in the film are car chases in cities, and you get to play out these as well, dodging traffic, which is decent fun. There’s also a mechanic where if you don’t hit anything, you’ll enter “focus” mode and improve your top speed, acceleration and steering.

I really don’t like how it handles, though, cornering is very stiff and the opponents are near-perfect, making each mission extremely difficult. While some of the modes are interesting, it’s not very nice to play.

Fine

Remake or remaster?

The blocking mode could be implemented into F1 games (if not already done).

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Driven.

GameCube Games by Date

2001: Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2007: Mar, Jun, Aug

BAM! gamecube racing tie-in