Driver Speedboat Paradise Review

Driver Speedboat Paradise is a rather pretty looking boat racing game, but don’t expect it to reflect anything that the Driver series of games has offered in the past. It’s all fairly formulaic and loosely tied to the name.

Utilizing a fairly aggressive energy system, you play your way through various stages. There are six different modes of play, such as a typical race, drag racing, and escape modes. It’s the kind of thing that’s been seen before within the genre. A choice of tilt or touch controls give you the power, with swipes allowing you to perform stunts. Drag racing throws in timing, requiring you to tap to change gear at just the right moment.

In a nod to the Burnout series, you can takedown opponents by ramming into them mid trick, or by collecting nitrous, activating it, and ploughing through them. Indeed, at times you’re going to need to do this if you want to win.

Driver Speedboat Paradise is fairly well balanced at first, but it relies upon you gradually upgrading your boat which in turn relies on timers and potentially buying premium currency with real money. Soon enough, you’ll hit a wall and have to wait things out. It’s all very typical of, well, pretty much all freemium racers now.

That’s kind of the problem with Driver Speedboat Paradise. It lacks enough spark to give it an individual identity. Its only really original moment is when it starts throwing in scantily clad women to make you feel popular through a fans acquisition system. Yeah, really. It's pretty patronising stuff. There’s a lifestyle section where you buy clothes too, something that doesn’t really seem that fascinating at all.

Otherwise, it could be mostly any other freemium based racing game. You’ll glean some satisfaction from upgrading your boat, but soon enough, you’ll find your attention going elsewhere.