Driver: San Francisco © Ubisoft Reflections

Before Grand Theft Auto abandoned its top-down perspective and went full-3D in its third outing, Reflections' Driver was the undisputed champ of the open-world vehicular action arena. Although its vital place in gaming history has perhaps been forgotten in recent years, this iconic franchise arguably laid down the foundations on which Rockstar would later build its astonishing global success. Pull on those leather driving gloves and make sure you've packed your sunglasses, as we're about to go undercover and look back at the history of this criminally underrated series.

The story began back in 1999 with the launch of the original Driver on the Sony PlayStation console. The title was subject to a fairly lengthy development period and attracted a fair amount of attention and hype prior to release; the amazing 3D visuals were particularly eye-catching, and the game's special "Director" mode allowed you to fully appreciate the shiny car models as they tore through the streets of Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

Inspired by classic movies like Bullitt and The Driver, Reflections' game was all about chucking massive American muscle cars around narrow streets in pursuit of dangerous criminals. The developers absolutely nailed the weight and power of these massive cars, with the physics feeling particularly realistic. Commercially and critically successful, the game was one of the biggest of the PlayStation's latter years. If there was one thing missing, it was the ability to explore the world on foot – that would come in the sequel, which arrived the following year.

Driver: San Francisco © Ubisoft Reflections

Driver 2's swift development period was no doubt helped by the fact that the team was able to re-use the original game engine, but efforts were made to enhance the overall experience. The four cities included – Chicago, Havana, Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro – were noticeably larger than the quartet in the first title, offering much more scope to explore. They were also packed with hidden cars and famous landmarks – a move which necessitated the need for the game to ship on two discs instead of the usual one. However, it was the ability of the lead character to step out of his car that was perhaps the most striking element of this sequel – but sadly not in an entirely positive way.

The character's walking animation was hilariously stiff – something which Rockstar would later poke fun of in a mission in Grand Theft Auto III – and what you could actually do on-foot was very limited. As a result, the critical response to Driver 2 was somewhat muted when compared to the acclaim which was showered on the original. Another issue was that by 2000, Sony's 32-bit console was decidedly long in the tooth and players were anticipating in the impending launch of the PlayStation 2.

Reflections would take a little longer to produce the third Driver outing but really pushed the boat out when it came to production values, shifting development to the more powerful PlayStation 2 and employing a host of Hollywood talent including Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs), Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction), Michelle Rodriguez (Fast and Furious series) and Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2).

Everything about Driver 3 was bigger and more bombastic; the developers created a more realistic physics and damage engine, rendered almost 160 miles of road and crafted over 35,000 different buildings. No fewer than 70 different vehicles were included – including bikes, boats and buses – each rendered in a level of detail that was unprecedented in the series. Sadly, all of this hard work didn't quite pay off; the on-foot missions were clunky and the driving sections ruined by some blatantly underhanded AI. The controls also came under attack, with many critics claiming that they were unresponsive – despite the hours of work that Reflections had spent perfecting them. Driver 3 was a grand gamble to make the series equal to Grand Theft Auto , but it didn't achieve its aim.

Reflections would go back to the drawing board with the fourth Driver title, Parallel Lines. While it was still possible to exit your car and walk around, this 2006 release focused more on the vehicular action which made the original game so appealing. Its other main hook was the fact that the narrative was spread across almost 30 years; the game begins in the 1970s before shifting to the present day. Driver: Parallel Lines still fell short of the standard that Grand Theft Auto had established at the time, but it was a dramatic improvement over its immediate predecessor, and the fact that it featured two time periods gave the game a sense of variety that was missing from rival titles. A 2007 PlayStation Portable spin-off – called Driver 76 – would serve as a prequel to Parallel Lines.

By the close of the decade the Driver series was at something of a crossroads – if you'll pardon the terrible pun. Despite reclaiming some respect with Parallel Lines, Reflections was having to come to terms with the fact that Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto was the clear winner with the general public when it came to open-world driving titles. Something different was therefore in order, and that's exactly what the developer delivered in 2011.

Driver: San Francisco made the bold step of removing the on-foot sections entirely and replacing them with something much, much cooler – the ability to "shift" into different vehicles and control the person behind the wheel. The plot device to explain this newfound talent was so unique that we won't spoil it here, but suffice to say that it created a compelling narrative that wouldn't have been out of place in a Christopher Nolan movie.

Combined with a massive game world, plenty of real-world licensed cars and a game engine which delivered realistic handling, physicals and crashes, and it's easy to see why Driver: San Francisco was hailed as a remarkable return to form for the franchise. Interestingly, the Wii version – which lacks the shifting mechanic and serves as a prequel to the Xbox 360 , PS3 and PC editions – offers the ability to link up with a Nintendo DS handheld which can then be used to perform actions like setting up roadblocks in the main game. This was an early example of the asynchronous multiplayer that Nintendo itself would attempt to popularise with its Wii U system some years later.

However, since Driver: San Francisco the series has once again taken an unplanned diversion down a dusty track and its more recent offerings have been pretty forgettable. 2011's Driver: Renegade 3D was a clear attempt to cash-in on the release of Nintendo's new 3DS system and launched to negative reviews. In 2014, things would take an unexpected turn when Ubisoft released Driver: Speedboat Paradise, a free-to-play smartphone title which, as the titles suggests, is set on water rather than the open road. At the time of writing it's the most current entry in the lineage, and not the kind of footnote we'd personally want to see for what was once one of the most respected action brands in gaming. Hopefully with next-gen power at its disposal Reflections can once again make Driver a Triple A release fit to trade paint with Grand Theft Auto.