Driver San Francisco

This is the first of the Driver franchise that I've played.  It has similar free roaming elements to the GTA series, but you are confined to a vehicle and "shift" into other vehicles - effectively taking over the driver.  That said, they did do a fantastic job with car drifting/weight/road texture - it felt great.

However, this shifting mechanic quickly turns you from hero to villain as you begin carreening innocent commuters into oncoming traffic to fuel your own brand of brutal vigilante justice.  This isn't just a matter of innocents being in the crossfire, you are put situations where you must directly sacrifice multiple bystanders to do something as absurd as win a street race.

The story begins with Jericho's prison-break and a car chase, ending with you getting crushed by a giant semi.  This gifts you with increasing power to shift into other vehicles, and as lame as a story mechanic as this may sound, it actually works.  Spoilers below so be careful.  Gradually this shifting starts affecting your mind and you start having more and more strange episodes.  And then ...

Well - you're actually in a coma, and the missions end up helping you figure out the motivation of Jericho's plot so that when you finally awake, you are able to have a final non-shifting car chase to take him out.

I had figured out the coma thing early enough that I thought it was just a stupid vehicle for cost savings of keeping you in the vehicle, but tying it into piecing together Jericho's plot was a bit of brilliance.