Driver Parallel Lines Limited Edition

Some games let you drive across a map. This one lets you drive across three decades of New York City. Driver Parallel Lines Limited Edition on PlayStation 2 packages Reflections Interactive's open-world time-hopper in a bundle that actually respects the source material.

You get a soundtrack CD pulling from the game's era-spanning licensed tracks, a making-of DVD that digs into the development process, a full game map of NYC, and mini posters featuring the cast of characters who populate this revenge story. The map alone is the kind of thing we used to pin on our walls before GPS ruined the fun of getting lost. While Driver as a franchise never quite got the credit it deserved living in the shadow of a certain other open-world crime series, Parallel Lines was the entry that proved the team still had serious ambition.

That 1978-to-2006 time jump was bold for 2006, and the PS2 version delivered it on hardware that was already being written off. The making-of DVD captures a studio trying to claw back relevance, and that kind of behind-the-scenes honesty hits different now. This is a PS2 shelf piece that tells a story most collectors have forgotten, and that's exactly why it belongs in yours.