Driver : You are the Wheelman

Driver: You Are the Wheelman for Game Boy Color is a 2000 action-driving game developed by Crawfish Interactive and published by Infogrames. Released in North America on May 16, it adapts the car-chase premise of the first Driver game for Nintendo's color handheld. The subtitle used on the North American release makes its connection to the wider Driver series explicit, but this is not a simple attempt to reproduce the original PlayStation presentation: Crawfish rebuilt the experience around a top-down view and the strengths and limits of the Game Boy Color.

The player takes the role of John Tanner, a former racing driver working undercover for the police. Tanner must earn the trust of criminals by serving as a wheelman, then use that position to help expose their organization. That premise gives the game its mission-driven structure. Instead of racing for a finish line alone, players are asked to drive with a purpose: reach a destination under pressure, stay with a target, escape pursuit, or use the car itself to stop an opponent.

Driving is seen from above, making street layouts, traffic, turns, and approaching hazards central to every assignment. Steering requires anticipation, particularly when a route demands speed but collisions threaten a chase or a time limit. The compact perspective changes the feel of Driver while preserving its focus on moving through city streets and handling a vehicle in tense situations. Progress comes from completing successive challenges rather than from a separate on-foot component; Tanner remains behind the wheel throughout the action.

The Game Boy Color version includes missions with differing goals so that its campaign is not limited to one kind of pursuit. A getaway task tests evasive driving against police attention, while survival-style challenges turn the pressure into an endurance exercise against aggressive pursuers. Other objectives ask the player to catch up with a vehicle or ram it until it can no longer continue. These variations give each city assignment a different rhythm, balancing route knowledge, quick reactions, and careful control of the car.

As a handheld conversion, Driver makes deliberate changes from the 3D console original. The overhead design replaces the larger game's free-roaming visual perspective, and the presentation has been simplified for the system, yet the conversion retains the undercover-driving theme, city-based progression, police chases, and side challenges associated with the series. It is a single-player game, and its password system lets players resume their campaign after working through its missions.

Driver: You Are the Wheelman occupies an early place in the Driver franchise's move across platforms. The original 1999 game established John Tanner and its movie-inspired car-chase identity, while the 2000 Game Boy Color edition showed how that formula could be recast for a portable system. For players interested in Game Boy Color driving games, it stands out as a mission-based adaptation built around criminal undercover work and urban pursuit rather than conventional circuit racing.