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Crimewave Review by: Patrick Tan Crime Wave is a chase and destroy car game with a top down (slightly angled to produce 3D effect) view. You move your car with accelerate, brake buttons and left/right control, chasing a target car following the arrow display at the top of the screen. You destroy the target car by shooting at it. There are eight areas (but you can choose from two initially) to battle out your skill, each area is reasonably large meeting the purpose of the game. In each area, you are supposed to destroy a certain number of target cars (I don't know how many because I haven't finished even one area yet, also don't bother to play it due to the severe slowdown). Graphics: 6/10 The graphics is quite nice if you are talking about static pictures, with clear and sharp pictures representing the buildings, roads, obstacles and cars etc. But it is spoilt by the jerky movement and unreasonable pauses. The less than smooth movement is still acceptable given the nice graphics, but the frequent pauses that occur when you are moving the car is totally unacceptable. The movement will just pause for split seconds (almost regularly) even when you are moving straight with no cars around! Control: 6/10 Because of the frequent pauses and slowdown, the control is frustrating at times. Otherwise, it serves its purpose well. Playability: 3/10 Again, the slowdown and pauses (this is the first time I see pauses in an action game, so far slowdown is the only gripe that most action/racing games have) make a supposedly interesting game unplayable. The concept of the game is pretty good, and the graphics is also nice (representing the city and roads very well). If only the developer can hold on to the game and improve on the slowdown and worse still the pauses, then it would be a game that I will look forward to play. I don't know how Eidos can pass the quality control and release this game. If it is too hard for Saturn (which I doubt so), then change the game to 2D top down view to eliminate the slowdown and pauses. I don't see any losses it can cause to the graphics and gameplay if the top down view is changed from 3D to 2D. From what I see, poorly executed game will never attract buyers, but slightly less than spectacular graphics with good gameplay and control will still definitely attract more buyers. Overall: 4/10 Don't buy this game unless you can bear with the jerky movement and poor control as a result of it, and you really like this kind of game (rent it first). This is the first Saturn game that I have regretted buying, because I know I will never play it again.
Email: ptan@letterbox.com
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