Platform: PlayStation 3
Release Date: May 3, 2007
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Incognito
ESRB: Everyone
Genre: Action/Arcade
Multiplayer: 1-4P offline (splitscreen), 1-4P online
Format: Downloadable title from PSN (120 MB) ($11 CAD)
Official website

(This mini-review was originally written on May 11th, 2007.)

So I noticed that the (in?)famous Dave Jaffe’s oft-delayed Calling All Cars finally popped up on the PSN. Naturally I snagged it.

This game is based around the concept of… well there’s really no other way to put it: fucking over your friend at the last second. That’s CAC in a nutshell.

Not that this is a bad thing, but it screams for multiplayer. Playing against the computer-controlled cars was a little bloodless.

The game has a very stylized, R. Crumb-inspired cell-shaded treatment that looks great in HD. Very crispy. And the music is absolutely spot-on perfect, ragtime-inspired stuff. Incognito really managed to capture the right feel for this kind of setting; the entire game feels like an updated Looney Tunes episode.

You get a selection of funny cartoon cars to pick from, and four different maps. When the game starts, a criminal appears as if from a prison break. Your first job is to ram him with your car, which causes the criminal to fly up into the air. At that point all the other cars frantically chase and zoom around each other to try and capture him. You can steal the criminal (who is basically a ball) by ramming into another player, or by using a pick-up on them. These items are random, so you’ll never know what you’ll get: a homing missile, a magnet, or the standard issue Giant Cartoon Mallet. You grab the criminal and try to bring him to a jail location on the map. There is more than one jail option to choose from, and depending on the map, this can range from easier-to-reach jails that confer single points to really tricky ones like roving paddywagons and helicopters, which are worth more.

The game’s pace is quite insane. At first you don’t even know what the hell is going on. Maps are a single fixed isometric view with no camera control – its too fast and crazy to even imagine dealing with that. Mostly it works OK, but you soon realize that you must memorize the maps. There’s no way around it. Each one is full of pitfalls and traps to avoid – crisscrossing train tracks, jails that freeze over, cliffs to careen off of… that sort of thing. It doesn’t take long to discern out the danger areas, and objects such as trees and fences are nearly all destructible by your car (it would be very frustrating experience otherwise).

Its tempting to compare Calling All Cars to the more frenetic sports titles like NBA Jam or even the venerable Speedball 2. Every bit of it feels like a possession-type sports game. The cars don’t handle anything like a normal car. You can ‘hop’ the car to jump over things and avoid missiles, and you also get a turbo and nitro function. I found the inclusion of both to be a bit confusing… ‘turbo’ is really ‘sprint’ and ‘nitro’ is a limited-use large boost. (I frequently found myself tapping away at an empty nitro.)

After a few minutes, you can sense that Jaffe and Incognito wanted to create a trash-talking kind of game. It’s perfectly set up to screw-and-be-screwed at a hyper pace. I can’t tell you how many times I got within a millimetre of scoring, only to have the criminal cruelly stolen from me – its the kind of gameplay that elicits howls of outrage (in a good way). It doesn’t take long before you start devising strategies. Simply rushing after the criminal is not necessarily the best idea; its often better to hang slightly back from the action with an item at the ready, and then pounce.

The game is a little too easy with the computer players. The first time I played I achieved 2nd place, and then the next half-dozen or so times I placed 1st. That’s a bit breezy for my first play, particularly while trying to figure out the buttons. The game really shines in multiplayer mode with friends (offline or on), and that is how its obviously meant to be enjoyed. While offline means you have to share screen real-estate in splitscreen, at least you can physically attack your buddy on the couch next to you when he pulls a particularly egregious steal.

At $11 CDN, the price feels about right. One should not expect to get any lasting enjoyment out of Calling All Cars if you aren’t playing with friends. This is the kind of game you play just to get a few quick rounds in while you are waiting for something else to happen. It absolutely succeeds in that regard.