Prison Break
Quick hands-on impressions of Calling All Cars! from last night's festivities.
Published: March 7, 2007
It's not a slight against the game in any way, but Calling All Cars is the sort of game that you more or less "get" in a matter of seconds. Slamming into other cars or pummeling them with weapons fire to get them to cough up their captured criminal and then hauling ass back to the police station with multi-tiered drop-off points isn't exactly a high concept.
But then that's precisely what will hopefully make the game a hit. With less than a half-dozen levels and gameplay that has depth but not necessarily a ton of nuance (at least from what our limited hands-on time has revealed) is exactly the kind of experience that levels out Sony's own first-party PlayStation Network offerings. Yes, an epic 25 level multiplayer smorgasbord like Warhawk (which, incidentally, was blaring from behind us as we played through CAC) is the kind of stuff we want to see up on the PSN, but just as welcome is something that you can show off to friends and get them playing instantly with little set-up.
While we're certainly lazy enough to leave a preview at that, there is at least a little 'splaining to do when it comes to CAC's gameplay (and yes, we giggled the first time we read that as "caaaaack"). With the exception of a bit o' refillable boost that's kicked off by pressing R2, you really need only use your left analog stick and an index finger to scoop up weapons and unload them -- be they crook-sucking magnet or ground-pounding hammer or blind fire missile or what have you -- at the other guys that are carrying a baddie. The catch is that while you're packing a con, you can only drive, so it goes from screaming around the level, sucking up whatever random weapon the question mark icons dole out to you and firing or blindly ramming the other guys to ohshitohshitohshitohshitting your way back to the police station to drop off your perp.
It feels a little like soccer, actually, in that there's an almost constant see-sawing game that goes on beyond the attack/flee portions. When you finally do get to the station, you can take the easy route and just drop off your human cargo for a single point, or you can get a little more complex and chance going through extra steps or ramps or over switches to net yourself more two or three points depending on how tough the feat is to accomplish. It's a fantastic risk/reward breakdown because any extra time you spend getting a little greedy and going for more points is more opportunity for the other guys to close in and unload on you, which pops up your quarry right next to where they have to be dropped off.
It's a simple concept, we know, and one that doesn't need a ton of explaining, but Sony's Santa Monica Studios and head cheese Dave Jaffe have built the levels to be tight, chaotic little bits of action that work just as well with a couple human players as they do with the full four-player complement. And that's the idea, that no matter how many people are playing, you're never really safe, be it from AI-driven combatants or your own friends/enemies.
We said it before, but we'll say it again: Calling All Cars is the perfect example of taking a simple idea and making it instantly understandable within seconds. There's almost no barrier to entry, but the way the game can crank you up just rushing back to score a point means that it offers no shortage of tense moments. The good kind of tense. The kind of tense we don't mind throwing about $5 at. Luckily, we only have to wait about a week more to do that.
But then that's precisely what will hopefully make the game a hit. With less than a half-dozen levels and gameplay that has depth but not necessarily a ton of nuance (at least from what our limited hands-on time has revealed) is exactly the kind of experience that levels out Sony's own first-party PlayStation Network offerings. Yes, an epic 25 level multiplayer smorgasbord like Warhawk (which, incidentally, was blaring from behind us as we played through CAC) is the kind of stuff we want to see up on the PSN, but just as welcome is something that you can show off to friends and get them playing instantly with little set-up.
While we're certainly lazy enough to leave a preview at that, there is at least a little 'splaining to do when it comes to CAC's gameplay (and yes, we giggled the first time we read that as "caaaaack"). With the exception of a bit o' refillable boost that's kicked off by pressing R2, you really need only use your left analog stick and an index finger to scoop up weapons and unload them -- be they crook-sucking magnet or ground-pounding hammer or blind fire missile or what have you -- at the other guys that are carrying a baddie. The catch is that while you're packing a con, you can only drive, so it goes from screaming around the level, sucking up whatever random weapon the question mark icons dole out to you and firing or blindly ramming the other guys to ohshitohshitohshitohshitting your way back to the police station to drop off your perp.
It feels a little like soccer, actually, in that there's an almost constant see-sawing game that goes on beyond the attack/flee portions. When you finally do get to the station, you can take the easy route and just drop off your human cargo for a single point, or you can get a little more complex and chance going through extra steps or ramps or over switches to net yourself more two or three points depending on how tough the feat is to accomplish. It's a fantastic risk/reward breakdown because any extra time you spend getting a little greedy and going for more points is more opportunity for the other guys to close in and unload on you, which pops up your quarry right next to where they have to be dropped off.
It's a simple concept, we know, and one that doesn't need a ton of explaining, but Sony's Santa Monica Studios and head cheese Dave Jaffe have built the levels to be tight, chaotic little bits of action that work just as well with a couple human players as they do with the full four-player complement. And that's the idea, that no matter how many people are playing, you're never really safe, be it from AI-driven combatants or your own friends/enemies.
We said it before, but we'll say it again: Calling All Cars is the perfect example of taking a simple idea and making it instantly understandable within seconds. There's almost no barrier to entry, but the way the game can crank you up just rushing back to score a point means that it offers no shortage of tense moments. The good kind of tense. The kind of tense we don't mind throwing about $5 at. Luckily, we only have to wait about a week more to do that.
