Where did it all go wrong, Kid? One minute you're a baby-faced youngster racing Vipers for kicks in the '70s, the next you're a grizzled old ex-con, ram-raiding warehouses full of bongo mags in the here and nw. You used to have the world at your bell-bottoms, now you're desperately scrabbling to get your life back together after 28 years in chokey.

It's tempting to read this massive shift in Parallel Lines' main character's fortunes as some sort of Freudian response to Reflections' review scores over the last few years. After two excellent Driver games, they got a bit too ambitious with the third one. Driving sections were broken up by extended but creaky on-foot sections and ruined by thicker than porridge enemies. But forget that now. They've done their time, they've learned their lessons and they're back on the streets, determined to make good. Besides, the shift in eras is much more than a simple plot twist - it's a defining moment in the way Parallel Lines looks, plays and feels. How so? Let's check out two typical missions from each of the time periods.

Strutting through Central Park in 1978 with the Kid's floppy hairdo waving in the breeze, we're checking out the local talent. Retro hot pants and leggings seem to be very much de rigeur. Suddenly we get a bleep on our pager. It's one of our contacts - velour-suited pimp Slink - with a job called 'Turning The Screw'. The brief's simple: a friend of his is in jail, and we need to squeeze a guard - who just happens to be selling his car - for some insider info to help with a prison break. But there's no need for violence, just a spot of reckless driving as we take Johnny Law and his motor for a test drive to put the frighteners on. And, hey, reckless driving is what Driver does best. There's a second when *we're* almost frightened as we hurtle up the wrong side of the road, and we're the ones with our foot on the gas. The feeling of speed is compounded by the sheer amount of mailboxes, fence posts and litter we clatter out of the way. A head-on collision provides the first taste of the new pressure-cam - a burst of off-putting slow-motion that is mercifully possible to turn off - and knocks an unsettlingly large wedge off our health. After six near misses and a handbrake turn, Mr. Shawshank starts blabbing, giving us the scoop on the other guards' movements before suddenly clamming up. By this time the police have started taking an interest, so we pull out our trusty hand cannon - an old-skool six-shooter - and blaze away at the pursuing heat, giving our terrified passenger just the incentive to spill the last bit of info we need. Job done.

2006 is a whole new New York -the streets are shinier, the cars are chunkier, hippy florists have been replaced by grumble vendors and the hookers wear leather instead of leggings. Fresh out of nick, the Kid's got a beard, a tattier jacket and 28 years of dropped-soap frustration to unload. Betrayed by one of our former employers, we're now working for super-professional ice maiden Maria, who gives us a call on our mobile (pagers are old news) with a job called 'The Gauntlet'. We're escorting the main lady herself as she makes a pick-up, and some very bad people want her dead.

At the first Junction things go bad, as two SUVs full of gangsters in regulation streetwear turn up and get fully auto on our lovely Mercedes. Thankfully, we've got some tricks of our own - like an auto-loading pump shotgun and some bullet-proof glass that we just couldn't resist buying at Ray's Auto Parts. And because new Driver's all about staying in the car, we don't even have to go on foot. Nudge R1 and we lean out of the window. A tap of the right analogue stick cycles through targets and some rapid-fire stabbing of L1 murders everyone. Repeat this two or three times, and we're home free. Three decades behind bars, but we've still got it.

Parallel Lines looks like a return to form for the beleaguered Driver series. The motoring is fast, with tight handling and chunky collisions, and the car damage is every bit as impressive as BurnOut. We do have one request, Reflections - please rethink the decision to knock off 30% of our health whenever we decide to dive out of a moving car. It is the 20th Century, after all.

This is the Driver we used to know - less about wandering around, more speeding down back alleys. It needs some tidying up, but could be the best time-skipper since Back To The Future II.