Fighting traffic
The flying in Crime Cities feels more like a bumper
cars in space than flying. Just as the missions tend to become
furballs, the combat tends to become a confusing game of dodging
traffic and buildings. If you try to fight on the move, you'll
spend most of your time avoiding collisions. You'll also find
that it's hard to keep track of your target in the all the traffic,
even though it's clearly highlighted.
Combat is similar to most space sims. You've got
radar to detect enemies, you have shields, and you have a variety
of weapons and missiles to fire. The big difference, besides fighting
in a city, is that the game is designed more for a mouse than
a joystick, so it plays more like a first-person shooter than
a flight sim.
Your shields absorb damage, so you can bounce off
cars and buildings -- and you will, trust me. Unlike most space
sims, the shields don't recharge over time. You'll have to visit
a refit station and pay to charge your shields. You can do this
in the heat of battle, but you're a sitting duck, of course.
Multiplayer jones unfulfilled
Crime Cities is mutliplayer ready, except for one
key ingredient -- other players. I never found any, so I never
tried it online. The multiplayer modes include deathmatch and
team deathmatch for up to 16 players. Multiplayer games also feature
power-ups, which the single-player game doesn't have. Since I
didn't play it and there's no bot support, I can't really comment
on it.
Out of ammo
Crime Cities is close to being a good game. I like
the concept -- flying around in a city is more interesting than
jockeying a ship in empty space. And I certainly like the nod
towards a Privateer style game. I like a game that dangles a money
reward in front of me that allows me to upgrade my ship in ways
I choose. I feel much more involved in a game that lets me work
on refitting my ship and making money than I do in a Wing Commander
style of game that just periodically unlocks new and better ships
for me to pilot.
I guess I'm more of a traditionalist than I ever
knew, but space sims seem cheapened when you use a mouse to fly
and fight. I can understand why Techland did this, given the recent
sales performance of games like Starlancer and Freespace 2, but
I wish they had borrowed a page from Flying Heroes which manages
to convey a much better feel for flying in a mouse-driven game.
When you play these games you should get the illusion of piloting
a ship through the restrictions that the flight model places on
you, not through eliminating the flight model altogether.
The other big problem with Crime Cities is that
the missions all feel the same. An escort mission is really just
a "kill all the enemies" mission since you end up fighting
them anyway. Tack this mission blandness onto the lack of an interesting
flight model and the bumper car feel of fighting in the too-congested
cities, and you have a game that just becomes a chore to play.
Techland had a really solid concept but just ran out of creative
ideas or funding or something -- the game falls short of being
a good game, and games that fall short tend to fall quickly into
the the bargain bin.
Publisher: Eon Digital Entertainment
Developer: Techland
Genre: Action space sim
Requirements: P200, 32MB RAM, 3D accelerator
Expected street date: Now, though it's not a widely distributed
game
March 23, 2001
