Calling All Cars review (PlayStation 3)

HD gaming… Next Gen… Downloadable Content. All phrases that developers throw around as if saying those precious phrases can ensure a big success to their game. Calling All Cars takes none of these aspects (obviously except that it’s an HD game on a Next Gen platform that happens to be downloadable), and yet it has been one of the most highly anticipated games released for the PS3 of recent times. And also one of the only PS3 games released recently too, but still, I’m getting to my point. The point is, it remains a fun multiplayer blast of an experience.

The game gives you a choice of cars (different only in their visuals) and asks you to capture a criminal in your car (by ramming him, and catching him as he lands) and take the criminal to jail. The twist is that while your opponents are trying to achieve the same thing, if you have the criminal, they can ram your vehicle and claim him off you, in some modern times high stakes racing version of ‘it’. To add a little twist, there are various different ways to take the criminal to jail, from driving in through the front gates, taking a jump through an open window, or even driving underneath the police helicopter for long enough for them to extract him from your car, naturally awarding different numbers of points for each method depending on their difficulties.

Upgrades

At the end of five minutes, the person with the most points naturally wins. Sounds simple enough? It is, only with a few extra twists. A Nitro boost is available to give you a speed increase, but it takes a while to recharge, so do you use it when you’re far from the jail in the hope that you’ll get away from your enemies, or do you save it in case one of them gets close enough to use their speed boost to maximum advantage?

In addition to that, you can pick up one of three randomly selected power ups; a micro machines style massive hammer that takes out an opponent (and releases their criminal) if you are close enough, a missile, the ranged version of the former, and a strange magnet attachment that allows you (if you are skilled enough) to pluck a criminal straight out of an enemy car, or off the ground if you desire. These additions give the game a few more elements of tactical play, making it more than just a race to the criminal at the start. Devious players could wait by the jail in the hope that a quick snatch at the finishing line could award them the points.

The jail has frozen?

While the game is much fun from the get go, a variety of levels and environments to play with can only be a good thing. Unfortunately, Calling All Cars is limited to just four. This doesn’t preclude that they aren’t all interesting. The obligatory ice level is less symmetrical and can trick you at the most inopportune moment. Flying through the air into the big point scoring window at any point, the Jail can ‘freeze up’, bouncing you back off, and demanding that you find the Paddy Wagon and drive into it from behind to unload your notorious captive. Sure, you could hang around the jail, but on the off chance that another player doesn’t find you first, the limited time that you can hold the criminal could quickly expire, and we don’t want him roaming the streets all over again, do we?

Another level provides the most points by soaring through an upstairs window, but with no visible ramp to get to it. Observant policemen will notice a train with a ramp-like carriage occasionally passing in front of the jail, and timing it just right is not only an impressive feat, but downright lucky for the most part, especially given the fact that you’ll have to avoid your opponents until it arrives.

Structure of the game

The game is presented in a fun cartoon cell (Sony nuts will love that pun) shaded style, from a fixed 3rd person view. This works well even in multiplayer split screen (4 players at once incase you’re wondering), but does mean that when you are driving down towards the camera, it is a lot harder to see what you are heading towards, and in this game of criminal ‘chicken’, gives a strong advantage to the player driving upscreen.

The game provides an adequate single player mode (though why you’d want to do that when it’s free to play online, and the fact that you downloaded the game suggests you’ve got the Internet available), which allows you to play through the maps and unlock new vehicles to play through various tasks (oh right, that’s why). You can play individual levels or a tournament of them all, trying to score the most points over the whole length of the tournament. While the varying difficulty levels can influence how quickly the enemies manage to get the criminal to jail, their expertise with the magnet gets ridiculous to the point where you feel that they cannot fail, adding a bit of frustration. Then again, the game was clearly designed as a multiplayer game.

Get your mates round

Up to four players can play locally, and if you’ve only got other friend, you can even go split screen online against either one or two other players to max out the number of human opponents, but it won’t take long before you realize that man is the most devious pray of all. Fortunately this equates to a good game.

While it remains simplistic overall, Calling All Cars is undeniably a great little multiplayer game, easy to pick up and very fun to have a quick blast on. I can see that I’ll keep coming back to it for some variety sometimes, but when I do, the limited environments may make it a game that you play multiple times but for short bursts. As with most of these PSN games, we seem to be blessed by a rather forgiving price tag, and personally I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the game at the £4.99 price tag, assuming it’s the kind of game you’d want to play… more than Super Stardust HD. I’ll be back, but right now I’m going to unlock another planet!