Crash Time

Crash Time (prefixed Cobra 11: Crash Time in some regions) is based on the long-running German TV series Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei, a cop show on the RTL network that packs in as many stunts, cheesy dialogue and speedy thrills as possible into its runtime. A game based on such a show naturally carries the same hooks, and while Crash Time isn’t a triple-A title with a gigantic budget, it has a nice cocktail of ingredients that will appeal to any driving-game enthusiast.

In story mode, players take control of Semir and Chris’s supercharged pursuit car and gradually work through mission-based cases to complete chapters. Each case is like a piece of a linear jigsaw puzzle, and solving each one begins to build up a bigger picture.

The game kicks off with a slight front-end design annoyance: it’s not always obvious what has been highlighted in the menus, so a bit more contrast on selections would have helped. The main case mode is divided into three difficulty levels — Easy, Medium or Hard — with achievements unlocked at each, and the higher the level, the more points awarded for solving particular cases.

The action is the game’s strongest asset. It’s never going to win any beauty contests and at times feels distinctly last-gen, but the engine does a top-notch job of delivering a driving experience as fast and smooth as Burnout Revenge — closer, in fact, to the very first Burnout, from back when that series was more concerned with speed and crashing than sandbox antics.

The first mission involves chasing down a speeding motorist who streaks past Semir and Chris at blistering speed, with the job being to pull over and apprehend the speeder in an unmarked squad car. The handling feels a lot like Test Drive Unlimited: fast, responsive and unapologetically arcade-based. The game was tested with an MS Force Feedback wheel, though a standard joypad proved considerably easier to use, even if it’s nice to see wheel support included.

Crashing at any point triggers a satisfyingly crunch-laden clip of the collision, a nice touch that plays quickly enough not to break up the action too much. The radar system is a particular highlight: a top-down scrolling mini-map shows the player’s position, the intended route and the pursued vehicle, but also every other bit of traffic on the road — including trams and trains in some urban levels — giving a good heads-up on what’s coming and allowing risky overtakes to be weighed against playing it safe.

The car models, loosely based on vehicles found on German roads, are nicely done, and while some story missions favor similar-looking, slightly sterile Autobahn locations, most of the challenge is staying on the road and avoiding civilians rather than sightseeing. Things improve once the game moves into its urban areas, which are very nicely modeled.

With 70 missions in story mode, there are standout entries — the off-road sections in particular — that should please just about everyone. Outside of story mode, players can set up a quick single-player race across any of the 30 circuits.

The voice acting deserves a mention: the dialogue is delivered about as cheesily as a low-budget cop show could manage, and yet that’s strangely part of the game’s appeal. It shows that even small studios can take a well-worn genre and turn out a playable, enjoyable and even addictive game for PC and Xbox 360 without the pretension carried by many bigger-budget titles.

On the difficulty front, even the easiest setting has missions that feel a little unforgiving, and frustration can set in when a mission has to be repeated. One drawback is that story progress only saves in chunks, so a mission that branches across several cases and is quit before finishing drops the player back at an earlier point, since the game doesn’t autosave after every success — a minor niggle that could have used some tweaking.

Crash Time doesn’t offer cop-chase action online via Xbox Live, but it does support split-screen multiplayer in a format similar to the single-race mode: one player sets the race parameters and everyone competes to cross the line first, using any of the 30 unlocked vehicles, from sleek sports saloons to massive six-wheeled armored personnel carriers.

Crash Time sits somewhere between so bad it’s brilliant and so brilliant it has to be bad, and stands as something of a sleeper hit — one that might easily be missed without the Xbox Live Marketplace demo, but that deserves more recognition than it got. Fans of Burnout, Test Drive Unlimited or the Need for Speed Hot Pursuit games looking for low-budget arcade action should find a lot to like here.

Rating: 7/10