A few weeks ago I reviewed another game from Metgan games for the Atari VCS. That game was Doodle Taxi, and I was instantly intrigued by it as it seemed like an interesting Crazy Taxi style game with an impressive art direction. So, just a short while later when I saw there was another new car based game from the same developer on the Atari VCS I figured I’d be in for some more fun and games.
Whilst I thought Doodle Taxi showed promise as a Crazy Taxi style game, and I had a good time playing it, I can’t say that I had a good time with Metgan’s Traffic Mission. To be honest I’m shocked at how bad this game is. I’m most shocked because the game didn’t need to be bad at all.
I was pleased to see this game was only £2.49 on the VCS store, but to be honest, even though that’s very cheap for a video game, I don’t think this gives value for money.
In Metgan’s Traffic Mission you drive a car along a street until you reach a goal. There are other cars on the road and if you crash into them you have to restart the current level. The art style looks very similar to the assets used in Doodle Taxi, but it’s in full colour without any of that game’s fancy sepia tone where things become more colourful the better you play.
Now I know I’m doing much of this review in reference to Doodle Taxi, but that’s partly because it has released so soon after Doodle Taxi, and because I think this whole game should just have been an extra mode on that earlier game.
When I first saw it and watched a trailer for it I expected that the game would play like one of the bonus levels from Crazy Taxi where you’d have to drive closely past traffic without hitting it and the more you do, the higher your score. Now, this may sound like how I described the game a moment ago, but the fundamental difference here is that you basically don’t control your car at all!
I can’t believe this design choice.
When you start a level it tells you to hold down the right trigger to start the level and accelerate. This feels logical and normal for a racing game, but a moment later you realise that the only other control in the game is to press the A button to change lanes. You don’t use the control stick to manoeuvre your car at all.
This is insane.
Literally the game could have had the same controls as Doodle Taxi and just had the goal of weaving in and out of traffic to reach an end goal or rack up the high score and it would have been fine. Simple, but enjoyable. Instead, you don’t use the control stick or D-Pad at all.
And if you think that sounds bad, it gets worse.
The game has three lanes of traffic, but you can’t even choose which lane you change into. I figured that even if I wasn’t controlling the fine movements of the car that this would be like in the 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games where Sonic is grinding on some rails and you’d use the control stick to lean towards a different rail and the A button would hop you in that direction.
Nope. It’s literally just the A button to change lanes, and you can only change to whatever lane an arrow indicates you can move into…even if moving into that lane makes no sense.
This game can be played with either the modern style controller or the classic Atari style controller, and can be played with one hand…leaving your other hand free for anything else that may make the experience of playing Traffic Mission more enjoyable…
At the time of writing this review I was at the very top of the high score leaderboard for the game, and Woohoo for me. I played the game through over 100 levels and have then kinda given up.
Every level is exactly the same. It may be the case that the first few levels are shorter in how far you need to drive to reach the exit, but I may be wrong about this. Certainly after a few levels it seemed that I had seen everything the game had to offer and it never had anything new come up or different depending on what level you were on.
Well…almost.
The only variations of the levels come in the form on a few power ups you can come by, and that the other cars on the road seem to randomly be generated.
The power ups are as follows. You can drive near some police cars and then gain a siren which will last for a few seconds. If you have this the other cars on the road will clear to the side to clear a path for you. Then there is a rocket that will chase along the road in front of you. If you collect this you will be propelled down the road for a few seconds and even smash through any traffic. Lastly, you sometimes see a ramp, which if you drive up and off of it will also speed you along and smash through other cars.
That other cars on the road appear to be random is just annoying. It means that you often find that there is a complete traffic jam and you will either crash into traffic or have to let go of the accelerator and hope you slow down to a crawl as not to crash into the cars.
I put the game to the test, and found that you can complete any level by just occasionally tapping the accelerator and slowly grinding through a stage with never dodging another car. This will enable you to complete any level, but there is a bad side to this.
The quicker you get through a stage, or perhaps the more cars you overtake, the more money you earn. This can then be used to unlock various other cars just as you could on Doodle Taxi.
Unlocking other cars is the only incentive to ever drive faster to complete a stage as it’s not required for actually getting through the levels.
Also just to jump back to the presentation a moment, the soundtrack is fast and furious which is a lot better for a fast paced car game than the mystical fairytale music used on Doodle Taxi. The problem is that other than this and the sound of the polic siren, the game doesn’t seem to have any other sound. No car noise, or anything.
The game is also always set in the rain, and this can be distracting to the point that the rain may make you miss a car you need to overtake. Also, the arrows showing you that you can change lanes is right over a car ahead, and this is annoying as it means you can’t actually see the car you’re about to bump into.
The biggest issue with this game is that you don’t directly control the movement of your car, which is actually crazy. But a close second in terms of problems is that much like Doodle Taxi, the game rewards you for driving at a snails pace. It shouldn’t take you too long to unlock all the cars on offer, and after that unless you’re aiming for a high score on the leader boards you may as well just drive slowly to get through any or every stage.
Unless Metgan Games are really keen on promoting sensible driving the attitude of slow and steady wins the race doesn’t make for a fun video game experience.
It’s such a shame as the game could be easily fixed. Let players directly control their cars first and foremost. Then maybe scrap the idea that bumping into another car ends a stage. Just have it so you build up a combo for the longer you avoid clashing with other vehicles. Having to restart for any bump? Not fun as it just means you drive super slow to be sure and this eliminates any fun.
This game should have just been a bonus challenge on Doodle Taxi. If the developer of the game reads or watches this review, I’d love to see some of this feedback taken on board as I think it’d make a better game, but this isn’t something I can recommend. I bought this one on the strength of how promising Doodle Taxi was. This game may make me hesitate to jump straight into the next release.
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