Heed the Call
Calling All Cars may be light on content, but what's here is polished as hell.
Published: May 16, 2007
It's an awfully understandable feeling to want to do something smaller and more confined after making a mega-epic like God of War, and after hearing GoW's director David Jaffe expound on the process of making that game, then talk about a game that requires a team a fraction of the size and a project that lasts just over a year, the attraction there isn't lost on me. In fact, after playing Calling All Cars for a good month now (yes, I know, the review is late, there have been events like crazy as of late), and ping-ponging back and forth between "this is an exquisitely polished game" and "it's not enough for the money," I've finally settled more into the former camp than the latter.
The concept is beautifully simple: crooks are on the loose and with your slip-slidey cop car that ranges from an outhouse on wheels to a Formula 1 racer, you scream around the level hitting them into the air and then catching them before hauling ass back to the police station to drop them off for a point. The police station itself, however, is set up in such a way that drop-off points that offer more points require more elaborate means of getting up there. Some require that you wait, others have you rocketing up a ramp to get there and, in my favorite little bit o' timing, one requires that you drive up a makeshift ramp created by a passing train's lumber to get to the three point spot.
Here's the problem, though: three other cops are trying to do the same thing, and they'll do whatever it takes to stop you and bring the perp in themselves.
And thus begins the perfectly balanced dance of risk vs. reward. With three human or AI players on your ass, do you really want to risk them slamming into you and stealing your quarry or do you go for the easy point? That the game only has a three weapons -- a guided missile, a area effect ground-pounding hammer and a magnet that literally sucks the crooks right out of your ride and into theirs if held on you for long enough -- is a testament to the kind of balance the game is trying to strike. And limited though it may be, it's an intoxicating mix that even newcomers can grasp literally seconds after picking up the controller, which was the idea all along. Yes, there are more advanced moves like jumping with a shoulder button at the right time, but what's there at the start is generally the same experience at the end.
And therein lies the problem. Though you can learn to mash the R2 button to turbo blast into someone and steal their convict as an advanced technique (though, of course, in perfectly balanced fashion, you'll also cough the prey up if you hit anyone else while turboing) or learn when and where to give yourself a little extra air off jumps, there's not much in the way of "advanced" play here. In fact, you can play for about 45 minutes and see all of the levels, all of the weapons and unlock one of the new cars that count toward the dozen or so rides in the game.
The question, then, becomes a fairly simple one: is this worth the money? The answer lies almost solely in how appreciative you are of the level of polish and balance that exists in the game, and how well all of the factors -- the level design, the weapons, the slightly different handling of the vehicles -- come together when playing with someone online, because this game was made for multiplayer. Yes, you can play against absolutely brutal bots, but there's something intangible about playing against other people, and it's here that the game has any real legs.
Still, there is the matter of all that painstakingly balanced, polished, consciously chosen content being worth the cash. For me, after playing the game online with friends, it's there. We can't play for hours on end, but even pick-up games with strangers are a blast, and when you've got a couple drinks in you (or you're otherwise altered), shit-talking your buddies a couple states away does indeed justify the purchase. It is a game that absolutely, positively must be played with other humans (and in fact the game does support online split-screen, so two local players can hook up with two more online ones if you want). If you've got friends with PS3s and a copy of the game, then you've got a good half hour (and sometimes more, but rarely less) of fun to be had.
And it's not as if the game is a visual or aural turd either. Granted, there's not much to the presentation, but that was, I'm sure, fairly intentional. It is a four player 1080p/60fps experience (if that even means anything to you), nearly everything in the levels can (and will) be destroyed as you clash all through them and it all runs with nary a hitch. Moreover, the game's simple voice over work (only four people contributed voices, and those are minimal at best) and absolutely dead-on, brassy, throaty, moaning jazz just helps seal the whole presentation. Even now I can't get the damn title screen tune out of my head, but I really can't bring myself to mind all that much either.
Yes, Calling All Cars is a bit on the slender side. Adding a few more maps and a few more weapons, though, likely would have meant a few more months before we got what we did, and what we have here is a game that is unique on the PlayStation 3. It's perhaps a bit overpriced, but you won't find another game as frantic and intoxicatingly chaotic on the system, and if you're lucky enough to have a six pack and a couple of friends, you're going to have a great time.
The concept is beautifully simple: crooks are on the loose and with your slip-slidey cop car that ranges from an outhouse on wheels to a Formula 1 racer, you scream around the level hitting them into the air and then catching them before hauling ass back to the police station to drop them off for a point. The police station itself, however, is set up in such a way that drop-off points that offer more points require more elaborate means of getting up there. Some require that you wait, others have you rocketing up a ramp to get there and, in my favorite little bit o' timing, one requires that you drive up a makeshift ramp created by a passing train's lumber to get to the three point spot.
Here's the problem, though: three other cops are trying to do the same thing, and they'll do whatever it takes to stop you and bring the perp in themselves.
And thus begins the perfectly balanced dance of risk vs. reward. With three human or AI players on your ass, do you really want to risk them slamming into you and stealing your quarry or do you go for the easy point? That the game only has a three weapons -- a guided missile, a area effect ground-pounding hammer and a magnet that literally sucks the crooks right out of your ride and into theirs if held on you for long enough -- is a testament to the kind of balance the game is trying to strike. And limited though it may be, it's an intoxicating mix that even newcomers can grasp literally seconds after picking up the controller, which was the idea all along. Yes, there are more advanced moves like jumping with a shoulder button at the right time, but what's there at the start is generally the same experience at the end.
And therein lies the problem. Though you can learn to mash the R2 button to turbo blast into someone and steal their convict as an advanced technique (though, of course, in perfectly balanced fashion, you'll also cough the prey up if you hit anyone else while turboing) or learn when and where to give yourself a little extra air off jumps, there's not much in the way of "advanced" play here. In fact, you can play for about 45 minutes and see all of the levels, all of the weapons and unlock one of the new cars that count toward the dozen or so rides in the game.
The question, then, becomes a fairly simple one: is this worth the money? The answer lies almost solely in how appreciative you are of the level of polish and balance that exists in the game, and how well all of the factors -- the level design, the weapons, the slightly different handling of the vehicles -- come together when playing with someone online, because this game was made for multiplayer. Yes, you can play against absolutely brutal bots, but there's something intangible about playing against other people, and it's here that the game has any real legs.
Still, there is the matter of all that painstakingly balanced, polished, consciously chosen content being worth the cash. For me, after playing the game online with friends, it's there. We can't play for hours on end, but even pick-up games with strangers are a blast, and when you've got a couple drinks in you (or you're otherwise altered), shit-talking your buddies a couple states away does indeed justify the purchase. It is a game that absolutely, positively must be played with other humans (and in fact the game does support online split-screen, so two local players can hook up with two more online ones if you want). If you've got friends with PS3s and a copy of the game, then you've got a good half hour (and sometimes more, but rarely less) of fun to be had.
And it's not as if the game is a visual or aural turd either. Granted, there's not much to the presentation, but that was, I'm sure, fairly intentional. It is a four player 1080p/60fps experience (if that even means anything to you), nearly everything in the levels can (and will) be destroyed as you clash all through them and it all runs with nary a hitch. Moreover, the game's simple voice over work (only four people contributed voices, and those are minimal at best) and absolutely dead-on, brassy, throaty, moaning jazz just helps seal the whole presentation. Even now I can't get the damn title screen tune out of my head, but I really can't bring myself to mind all that much either.
Yes, Calling All Cars is a bit on the slender side. Adding a few more maps and a few more weapons, though, likely would have meant a few more months before we got what we did, and what we have here is a game that is unique on the PlayStation 3. It's perhaps a bit overpriced, but you won't find another game as frantic and intoxicatingly chaotic on the system, and if you're lucky enough to have a six pack and a couple of friends, you're going to have a great time.
