In 1999, a full two years before Grand Theft Auto III changed open world driving games forever, Driver was a big hit on the PS1. As the title implies, there was a good amount of driving involved, and the game featured open world environments, police waiting to pull you over for even the most minor traffic violations, and missions not entirely unlike ones you might find in a Grand Theft Auto game. In fact, playing it now, it's easy to see how the developers of GTA III could have taken inspiration from Driver. Unfortunately, the sequels weren't quite so good, and the series has floundered since then.

From the looks of this website and accompanying teaser, it appears that Ubisoft is trying to take Driver back to its glory days with Driver 1999. The driver's license from the short video shows the main character from the first game, and the parking garage is very reminiscent of the difficult tutorial level of the game that must be completed before doing anything else. There's also a countdown that ends next Monday, June 13--the day of Ubisoft's E3 press conference. What a coincidence.

We'll be in attendance at Ubi's conference next week, so expect to hear more about Driver 1999 and whatever else Ubisoft has to offer. I was a huge fan of Driver back in the day, so I'm actually pretty excited to see what Ubisoft has in store. I just hope that whole parking garage segment isn't as frustrating in the new game.