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Platform Filters:   All Platforms  Xbox   GameCube   PlayStation 2   PC   Game Boy Advance   Site Sections:   Updates  News   Games   Publishers   Developers   Reviews   Previews   Release Dates   Editorials   Glossary   Contact Us		Review:       5th August 2001: City Crisis  Take to the skies and save lives in Take Two's new helicopter game Posted by Marc Hull - PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe While many people have complained about the reams of sequels and generic games that have leaped onto the Playstation 2 since its launch, none of these arguments can be held against City Crisis. Take Two's latest title puts you in command of a helicopter and requires you to perform tasks such as putting out fires, air-lifting people to safety and even chasing stolen vehicles so that the police can home in on them. The first thing you'll notice when the game gets going is that the controls aren't as easy as the intro sequence would have you imagine. Piloting your helicopter requires you not just to think of acceleration and turning, but also rolling and lift, and therefore simple movement alone demands use of both analogue sticks. Fortunately, there are three training missions to get you used to manoeuvring your craft between the buildings of the busy city below, and once you've mastered getting to the crisis scene they also show you how to put out fires and air-lift people from buildings. For fires, the game requires you to use the two right-hand shoulder buttons of the control pad to fire 'water missiles', which are powerful and put out larger flames but limited in number, and water jets, which help to finish off the job. Meanwhile, to rescue people you have to hover close to the ground or building and use the front buttons to lower someone from your helicopter, pick up the patient, and then bring him safely to the aircraft. All in all, it's quite a complicated process, but rewarding in the end. Once past the training stages, it's time to move on to the full game. When you start off you're given a choice between rescue missions and chase missions. For rescues you're directed to an accident that has happened in the city, and you have to put out any fires and take any injured people to safety against the clock. Once you've dealt with one accident, another one occurs and your time limit is extended while you make your way to the next disaster scene. This continues until the level is finished after three or four accidents have been cleared up. At the end of the stage you get awarded a high grade for keeping fire damage down to a minimum, picking up as many people as possible and having time and water missiles left over. Often each of these in turn is affected by which of the three vehicles you choose to perform the mission with. As usual, there's the good all-round helicopter that beginners can choose to get started with, then there's the nippy little craft, but with a small body can only hold a few passengers before you need to stop at a heliport, and finally there's the large but slow one, which doesn't require you to make many stops to drop off passengers but is quite difficult to move into tight spaces. If, however, rescuing people and putting out fires is too tame for you, the chase missions are just waiting to be completed. These involve you helping the police track down stolen vehicles by keeping a spotlight on them as they race through the city streets. You have to fly low in order to keep your light targetted on the suspect vehicle, so therefore controlling it around sky scrapers at high speed is essential. To make matters even more difficult, the hijacker often gets scared if you stay around too long and tries to shake you off his tail by performing U-turns in the road, or making many sharp turns. Despite this range of different preset missions the game presents to you, possibly the best aspect is the freedom it gives you to do what you want. After all, you have complete control over a helicopter in a packed, living city - sometimes the want to cause havoc is just too much! Some of the best times you can have with the game is when you ignore the missions and spray water at pedestrians on the streets, or knock over vehicles in the road and watch a large pile-up develop. The game handles this well too, such as if you try to land your helicopter on top of the stolen bus in the first chase mission, a comedy speech bubble emerges from it showing that the driver's confused! Graphically, the game does very well recreating the city below you with pedestrians, cars and even other emergency vehicles rushing to the disaster scenes. Even though the infamous Playstation 2 'jaggies' are out in force, the amount of detail and nice lighting effects make up for this in the most part. Unfortunately, there is no 60hz mode and medium sized borders are present in the standard 50hz alternative. The music in the game is pretty good, with some fast tunes to accompany the quick on-screen action and sense of urgency. The sound isn't bad, with nice touches such as hearing injured people crying out for help. Overall, City Crisis should be commended for being different, and giving us such a wide range of gameplay styles. Despite the fact that there aren't many preset missions, the variety between the different gameplay styles and the freedom the game offers makes up for this. Although not excelling in any one area, as a complete package City Crisis is worth keeping an eye out for. Marc Hull             Latest Images:		Review Scores:    Graphics:   Sound:   Gameplay:   Length:   Overall: Click here for our Review Score Guidelines.  Review Summary:  City Crisis offers the kind of originality that most games are sadly missing these days, and although quite short and suffering from the PS2's 'jaggy' problem, is still well worth a look.  Related Games:  City Crisis for PlayStation 2  5  Screenshots  1  Review Click here for All Game Information.
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