Car Jack Streets Review (DSiWare) March 15th, 2010

800 Nintendo Points

"Not a perfect clone"

Car Jack Streets is a top down 2D action game, and it shouldn't take you long to guess which popular game IP its trying to copy. Looking at screenshots you may think this is early beta footage of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars here. Well, if only that was true. To be honest I pretty much wanted this. When the phenomenal Chinatown Wars came out for DS almost exactly one year ago I hoped this would happen. I had hoped that there would be many more GTA-esque titles for the DS as Rockstar had proven the DS was an incredibly capable platform for the franchise. You'd think the problem with a game that's clearly trying to borrow so much from another popular game would be originality. While CJS does lack originality, it also misses the mark on some fundamental game play features that I guess I took for granted in Chinatown Wars.

Lets finish discussing Chinatown Wars. It set the bar really high. Too high for Tag games it seems. GTA:CW's graphics were outright amazing for the Nintendo DS. The action on the 2D plane worked well with detailed 3D environments. Cars were in full 3D and accidents, police chases, explosions were gorgeous. Additionally that game had physics which I thought were just industry standard. It turns out Tag doesn't do physics well at all. Once you get over the huge 2D downgrade to CJS's visuals from CW's graphics you'll notice many more game play changes. In CJS when your car bumps another car, prepare for some of the worst animations and physics seen on the DS. I thought the animation/physics when you're skater wiped out in Skate It was the worst I'd see on DS but somehow this 2D game has outdone it. Cars bump back and forth for seconds in incredibly unrealistic ways. You will often barely touch a car and you're entire vehicle will turn 360 degrees despite not even hitting the car at full speed. It really hurts you when you're rushing to get to a mission, more painful when these spastic physics knock you into a police car.

And here comes the Popo. The man is hunting you down. Like GTA, its fairly easy to get away from the cops in this game though they'll often start chasing you for silly reasons like barely tapping their car with yours. Despite the fact that you rarely see actual cop cars in game, they're apparently invisible and waiting. They come at for virtually anything and everything, but they don't really put up a fight.

Fighting. Key to an action game like this right? Well be prepared to die randomly. My first death was from one shot from an enemy. I thought "hey its just one death". Every death is pretty much a one shot death and aiming is only done horizontally or vertically. You can't aim a weapon diagonally like in CW, or like in most 21st century video games. You're weapons blow up cars extremely easily and that will cause a lot of deaths. Two blasts from a shotgun make cars go boom and all surrounding cars follow suit. Oh, you'll get blamed by the cops for any innocent civilians who die in this random explosion. Often you hit cars with bullets only coz you're having difficulty with the aiming. There is a good variety of weapons and you will enjoy killing gang members and blowing up trucks.

The game world is free roam, but there is a constant annoyance stopping you from freely roaming. You owe a mobster $1 million. You are constantly (and I mean every moment you're playing the game unless you're on a mission) you get offers to complete jobs or missions. This is rather annoying as its unpredictable and it breaks the immersion. If you're having fun on a killing spree you'll get interrupted by a static image of a mobster and text. And it will happen again and again. Until you turn the game off.

The map is large and it does have some cool secrets while you explore but so much of the landscape looks identical. This really grains on you as you play, and the game itself isn't as bright as I'd like. I had to play with brightness turned up and in a well light room for full enjoyment. The missions are varied. Bus driving missions, EMT driving missions, assassinations, races. Everything you'd expect from Grand Theft Auto but a lot more clunky. The variety in the jobs brings your attention away from the issues with the actual game play, and this game can be a lot of fun in short bursts.

Sadly its apparent this game was a rushed iPhone port. Yes, physical buttons are a huge improvement. Its great to have this pick and play title waiting in your pocket without swapping carts. If you can get around the quirky driving controls which are entirely overly sensitive you'll really enjoy this game but I can see a lot of people simply turning off their Dsi and acting like this never downloaded. All in all, it may not be worth you're $8 considering its much cheaper on the Apps Store, but you'll get a game with hours full of content. You're not going to find anything like this on the DSiWare service, but you can find much better games. It has a good amount of replay value, but that all depends on how much you want to play it.

GAMEPLAY: 6.0

GRAPHICS: 6.0

DEPTH: 6.0

ENTERTAINMENT: 7.5

INTANGIBLES: 5.5

OVERALL: 6.3 (not an average)