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 secrets, 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 can’t 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.