10 Rivalries That Killed Video Games
4. Grand Theft Auto III Vs. Driver
As a foremost franchise, Grand Theft Auto has encountered franchise warfare more than others, but none more infamous, more cheerful, more flagrantly this-is-so-stupid than their harmless dispute with Driver.
Where Grand Theft Auto was more sly (sort of...), Driver's comeback was in-your-face anti-GTA, which only pulled back the curtain on how far behind they were. Having been mocked by GTA III's Two-Faced Tanner mission - in which the player is tasked with eradicating a man described as being "more or less useless out of his car" - Driver 3 was a bit more liberal in its attempted mockery.
They included a character named Timmy Vermicelli, a depressingly obvious caricature of Vice City's Tommy Vercetti, adorned in a blocky Hawaiian shirt and a pair of water inflatables. Get it? Because GTA protagonists couldn't swim in this era!
It was admittedly hilarious - until they went overboard.
They effectively made what was once a bad GTA jab into something of a focal point of the game that awarded players; they had to find every Vermicelli hidden around throughout the game, of which there were 30, and if they killed each one, they'd receive...some gameplay tweaks.
The side quest as a whole was objectless and the reward was anything but. It scans more as free Grand Theft Auto advertising than it does a jab and revealed Driver at their worst.