SEGA Saturn

CrimeWave

At first this one reminded me of R.C. Pro-Am on steroids, but then I played for a little while and decided that it didn't have the same gameplay that Pro-Am had. I found the control slightly annoying, and finding your way around was confusing even with the map. The level design was very interesting - it was in the same style throughout, but there was some cool variations (like the highway system in the "business" level). The graphics were sharp and detailed, not hi-res, but very nice-looking. It's a good rental and possibly even a solid buy for some. For me, Crime Wave is a good game but it's nothing incredible.

The sounds and graphics are uneven. The detailed backgrounds are tempered by the ever-rotating overhead camera that turns whenever you go around a corner. The routine sound effects need voices or percussive explosions to add excitement. The jazzy music sounds like it's from a swingin' TV-cop show. Even if you do play long enough to master the controls, Crime Wave never swells to high-octane fun.

As driving-shooting games go, CrimeWave isn't bad. And while it has all the elements that make a game good, it unfortunately commits the cardinal sin of having limited replayability. Simply put, CrimeWave gets boring once it becomes clear that each level is really nothing more than a "shoot at cars till they blow up, yee-ha!" experience. Saturn owners may want to rent CrimeWave before investing in the game outright - it's fun, but barely above average.

In the end, CrimeWave falls into the 'lacks depth' category of been-there-done-that and fails to give players what they want most, originality. Given some more development time, Eidos might have turned CrimeWave into a game that would have raised the standards, not fall short of them.

Requiring the player to pit his wits against computer-controlled bounty hunters or a second player in a partially workable split-screen affair, Crime Wave is a game about driving across vast urban landscapes in search of other vehicles.