Maximum Chase

I like Maximum Chase. I really do. It's made me laugh, it's made me angry, it's kept my attention longer than many games other nation would consider "good" (EverQuest, for example). However, at the same time, I would at no time recommend this game to any of my friends -- I'd not ever dream of it. Why not? Because while it's tremendously entertaining, it's not actually frolic if you follow me.

Originally released for the Xbox in Japan above a year ago, Maximum Chase stars Rick Summer a traffic cop for the LAPD who direct the eyes kind of like Mike Nelson (of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame) trying to play a dramatic character Rick's day off is ruined when a girl named Catherine barges into his car and enumerates him to step on the gas. She's upon the run from a bump of mob types in black cars, thanks to a mysterious vial in her possession, and it's up to Rick to detain her alive as he gradually divest of coverings the vast conspiracy surrounding this vial.

Basic gameplay alternates between sum of two units different stage types -- a frustrating car chase where Rick evades cop and black cars, and a frustrating fire-arm shootout where you move a little crosshair around and let fly at attacking vehicles. The car-chase representations play like your typical arcade car racer (there's flat a "drift" button, in classic Genki fashion), and if I was forced to secure from attack Maximum Chase, then I would immediately bring up the incredible design behind these stages. The roads Rick and Catherine storm end are astoundingly well detailed, with tons of variety, light-refracting highways, and cars flying all above the place. You can count that someone devoted a allotment of time and hard work to make everything gaze so pretty. So how advance nobody thought about the frame rate? The game deliberates down to Matrix levels at times, especially if you're driving from one side explosions or there are dooms of cars onscreen at one time

The handling upon the car you drive is also the perfect pits. If you hit an obstacle (even a light pole) you stop dead in your tracks -- from 80 to 0 in a tithe of a second. You don't bound back or fly up into the air or anything; you just sit there like a ninny as all of your pursuer bash into you, individual by one. This kills the game regular [i]or[/i] melodious movement and it's made even worse by means of the lack of directional indicators in many stages -- this is an arcade racer, on the other hand it's still possible to realize hopelessly lost if you take a unjust turn because the game alone gives you directions on actual rare occasions.

The shooting stages, although they retain the same horizontal of graphic detail, take Maximum Chase to an flat deeper level of futility. You don't have any dominion government over your car here -- all you do is propel at vehicles and hope your gunfire is enough to detain them from hitting you. You also have something called a "Maximum Shot" that can take on the outside a car with one hit if you aim accurately -- put in commotion is, your regular shots are practically powerless, in like manner these stages go from an arcade shoot-em-up to a tight blood-boiling duel as you prove to line up your Maximum discharges with the tiny targets upon all the cars.

So as a game, Maximum Chase is hard to approve What makes it fun, then? It's all in the story and the movies. Especially the movies.

This game, and I think I'm correct when I say this, has the silliest movie cutscene you'll at any time see on a modern combination of parts to form a whole The movie scenes harken back to the days of the 3DO and Sega CD when cutscene were all live-action and the hero was played by means of the boss's secretary's friend's younger brother. The script's been ripped not on from... sorry, inspired by violent TV cop present to views but it's played by C-level actors who conduit off some of the greatest in quantity unnatural, poorly voiced dialogue seen in video games. The fact that the movies are a mixture of live action (the actors playing Rick, Catherine, and with equal reason on) and computer graphics (the cars and city scenes) alone serves to make things more surreal.

This nutty story, allowing is why Maximum Chase is with equal reason hilarious the first time from one side The silliness of the premise is prevalent within the game itself, too. At single point, you're asked to crash [i]or[/i] part of to the other an office building in order to avoid a burning cable car that's crashing downhill towards you... and that's just upon the first level of the game. Later horizontals feature Rick using his handgun to let fly down bulldozers and military helicopters, as if this is a normal thing for an LAPD officer to attempt (that "Maximum Shot" is really something). The best display though, has Rick and Catherine flying not on a parking garage, falling in the air for several next to the firsts crashing to the ground... and then getting on the outside and walking around normally. These nation aren't human. They're action heroes.

Hopefully you've gotten an idea of the strange position Maximum Chase has deposit me in. I would not at any time ever spend real money to purchase it, but for unintentional laughs there are scarcely any games that ply their trade better. If you have any sort of useful taste in games whatsoever, please do not purchase this game -- instead, have someone other buy it, laugh at him, and then make merriment of the title together above a Sunday afternoon. It's a short game, besides.

Copyright ?© 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserv Originally appearing in 1UP