Some had success, others sucked right out the gate, but they all merit a second chance
Driver: Parallel Lines was far from an amazing game, but it had one thing that made it unique: The Kid, a getaway driver who might be the first naïve, idealistic protagonist we’ve ever seen in a car-crime game.
Above: Also, he had some incredible sideburns
Never mind that he was kind of a dipshit, or that Game Informer named him its “Biggest Dork of 2006.” His cluelessness – at least during the ‘70s – gave him a certain charm that most hard-bitten anti-heroes lack, and if he had inhabited a better game than Parallel Lines, he might have developed and matured in ways more interesting than the abrupt “development” he underwent after going to prison and emerging in the ‘00s as a bitter, revenge-fueled adult.
Yeah, he was kind of a tool even in the ‘70s, rolling through the disco-drenched streets of New York and blithely getting into gunfights while never shaking his optimistic-teenager mood. But there was potential there, dammit!
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After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.
