Though the series seemed poised for big things after Twisted Metal 2, the next two sequels on PS1 were oddly uneven affairs, and further franchise entries have only been released sporadically. The game built on everything that people loved about the first one, just added more characters, bigger levels, and more weapons for the ultimate demolition derby world tour. Quite a few of these games were made for the console (including one featuring the Star Wars license), but the best will always be Twisted Metal 2. One of the more surprising genres to take off on the PS1 was vehicular combat. This was not just another Spider-Man game.

You were free to crawl up walls and swing between buildings as you saw fit. From the opening moments, Spider-Man just had a certain look and feel, straight from the comics. Sure, the character sprites were red and blue and he might fire a web or two, but you could insert almost any random character in place of the web-head in prior games. Prior to Neversoft’s take on the wall-crawler, Spider-Man games tended to feel a little generic. Add in a massive roster of 35 characters (including the entire cast of Super Street Fighter II), and you have the definitive 2D fighter of its time. Street Fighter Alpha 3 features tight controls welcoming enough for rookies, but enough customization with its three -isms to keep pros playing to this day. Mortal Kombat had been a huge phenomenon a few years earlier, but after three entries, gamers were largely tired of fighters that offered little depth beyond ultraviolence.īut Capcom just kept quietly putting out games in the Street Fighter Alpha subseries, eventually releasing this masterpiece of the fighting genre. While gamers demanded flashier 3D fighters, few were technically sound enough for regular competitive play. Street Fighter Alpha 3įighting games were in a weird place in the late ‘90s.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Ubisoft will be revisiting Driver anytime soon. Though a lot of Driver’s innovations have found homes in other open-world games, the series struggled to find an identity of its own following the massive success of Grand Theft Auto. Honestly, though, it wasn’t that bad with practice. That’s if you could get past the famously difficult opening tutorial mission, of course. Sure, other games had experimented with the concept, but Driver just made it feel so damn good thanks to its stylish mix of gritty realism and arcade physics. No, you couldn’t exit your vehicle (that came in later games), but you could still drive almost anywhere at any time.

Two years before Grand Theft Auto III revolutionized sandbox gameplay, Driver let players freely roam around multiple cities completing various missions.

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