When the lights go down in the city… Review

When the lights go down in the city…

Great Scott! The city is in peril and trouble is breaking out everywhere! Fires

are blazing out of control, criminals are on the loose and stupid people are

getting trapped in street gutters! We need a fearless helicopter to save the

day! Who will help us? Blue Thunder?

Airwolf? Harrison

Ford? No such luck – it’s the City Crisis rescue chopper!

I guess that means we can kiss the city goodbye.

City Crisis is an action-oriented helicopter game where you, the fearless

pilot, are charged with extinguishing fires, rescuing people from precarious

situations and tracking down criminals. While mildly fun for a moment, this

flight has enough problems to keep it from lifting off.

You’ll find a mere three game modes at the Main Menu – with two-thirds of

them lasting a virtual heartbeat. Training mode will help you get accustomed

to the controls and Time Attack has you flying through rings. Neither of these

modes is fun, period. All of the action takes place in Mission mode.

In Mission mode, you’ll have a choice of a whopping two mission variations:

Rescue and Chase. In Rescue, you’ll fight fires and save the civilians, while

Chase will have you pinning the spotlight on criminals in getaway cars. This

wouldn’t be so bad if there were more to it, but as the game stands, you’ll

be able to count the number of missions for each type on one hand. Needless

to say, this is a game that’s only good enough for a single night.

From the get go you’ll have a choice of three helicopters, two of which just

totally suck. There is also an unlockable VTOL, which is pretty cool. Not a

very wide selection of vehicles, but I’m just happy that a choice is available

at all.

City Crisis is simply one big anti-aliasing problem that exploded all

over the place. Signature flickering is everywhere, so all you gamers prone

to epileptic seizures should stay far, far away.

The graphics are just shameful.

The audio experience is decent enough. When all you’ve really got to do is

replicate a chopper sound effect, there’s really no excuse for doing a bad job.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the background music selection. It fit the action bill

well and bonus points were awarded for the track the sounds like the theme to

MacGyver. That show ruled.

The controls are seemingly simple, but actually flying the chopper is something

else. The main problem stems from the top-down view that you’re stuck with.

Lining up with a target is extremely difficult and it’s almost impossible to

tell what your altitude is in relation to important objects such as A VERY LARGE

BUILDING. With this kind of depth problem, bumping into objects is about as

common as blue jeans.

On a side note, it’s really funny to see the predicaments that some civilians

get themselves into. While most people demanding rescue are trapped on top of

burning buildings, some are stuck in strange places. One person seemed to have

their foot stuck in the street gutter and another needed rescue across the

street from a fire. But what the hey – if you can rescue a man in a pig

suit from a burning building, you can certainly rescue a dog that managed to

get stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel. And speaking of Ferris wheel…

One of the things this game actually does right is the environment. The city

is large enough to hold all of the action and not once did I slam into the invisible

border. It would have been nice to see more people and cars on the streets,

but what it has isn’t too bad.

After playing through this game, it’s obvious that it would have been much

better as an arcade game. Sitting in a faux cockpit with a flightstick in hand

would probably be pretty fun. But alas, that’s not what we have here.

What we do have is a 6-minute action game that’s worth nothing more

than a rental. Despite a few minutes of fun, City Crisis is only

worth the quarters you find in your couch. Even Superman

couldn’t save this one.