Driver 2 Advance

Driver 2 Advance for Game Boy Advance is a 2002 action-driving game developed by Sennari Interactive and published by Infogrames under the Atari label. It is a handheld adaptation of the PlayStation game Driver 2, rather than the original console release running unchanged on Nintendo's portable system. The game returns undercover police officer John Tanner to a crime story built around dangerous driving assignments, putting car chases, pursuit evasion, tailing and precision driving at the centre of its campaign.

The story begins with Tanner and fellow officer Tobias Jones drawn into an investigation after a Brazilian criminal is murdered in Chicago. Their case reaches into a conflict between the Chicago mob and a Brazilian organization, with Tanner following leads and completing jobs while trying to find the money launderer known as Pink Lenny. Driver 2 Advance tells this material with illustrated, text-led story scenes instead of the PlayStation version's full-motion presentation, giving the portable game its own compact way of linking missions and plot developments.

Driving is the main activity. Players guide Tanner through city streets in a behind-the-car view, handling traffic, tight turns and the damage that comes with hard collisions. Mission objectives vary from following a target without losing it to escaping police, getting from one point to another, protecting or escorting someone, and wrecking a designated vehicle. Cars can visibly lose parts after crashes, and Tanner can leave a vehicle and take another one when a job calls for a change of transport. These tasks make the game more than a sequence of races: the car is both the tool for investigation and the means of surviving gang and police pressure.

Sennari rebuilt the game for Game Boy Advance with its own X2 engine and condensed the much larger PlayStation source. The final handheld campaign concentrates its city action in Chicago and Rio de Janeiro, while the story has been streamlined for the cartridge format. That makes Driver 2 Advance a distinct version of the second Driver game, with its own reduced scope, visual approach and story presentation. It retains the series' emphasis on cinematic urban driving while reshaping it around a portable machine's hardware limits.

Outside the single-player missions, Driver 2 Advance supports link-cable multiplayer for two to four players. Its competitive options include checkpoint and cross-town races, a free-for-all survival contest, and the team-based Cops 'n' Robbers mode. This multiplayer addition gives the Game Boy Advance release a social mode that differs from simply replaying Tanner's case, while the campaign remains focused on the driver's ongoing pursuit through Chicago and Rio.

Released in Europe in October 2002 and in North America later that month, Driver 2 Advance arrived two years after Driver 2 first appeared on PlayStation. It belongs to the long-running Driver series, whose identity is rooted in film-inspired city driving and police-thriller setups. For Game Boy Advance players, it presents that formula as a mission-based portable action-driving game: investigate a criminal feud, meet each driving objective, and keep Tanner's vehicle moving when the streets become hostile.