TGS 2001 Fall: Maximum Chase

Maximum Chase takes all the things that make car chases great--reckless driving and gunplay--and puts them into one Xbox game. The game, developed by Genki and scheduled to be published by Microsoft in Japan next year, seems like it has the ability to pull off both quite well.

The driving portion of the game has you in one of over 20 licensed cars, attempting to dodge both regular traffic as well as opposing vehicles that are constantly trying to ram you out of commission. For the most part, the game controls quite well, though for such a fast-paced game, the cars certainly don't seem to turn very well at this stage in the game's development. Some exaggerated arcade-style powerslides would definitely help this game in a big way.

The game's shooting levels take place from a looking out the back of the car vantage point, and you must fend off incoming police cars before they can gain ground on you and swing out to the side so that they can fire at you from their passenger window. The idea is to shoot out the cops' tires, making them crash. But you can also fire at barrels that occasionally pop-up alongside the road, which explode and wreck cop cars rather quickly. The shooting section of the game works like a light-gun game, complete with a reload button. The game works, however, with the standard Xbox controller. Your targetting reticule moves quickly, but tends to lock-on to cop tires when they get close enough, preventing aiming from ever becoming a chore.

The version shown here at TGS was limited to only a few vehicles, such as a Camaro, a Corvette, and a Lexus. Maximum Chase is scheduled to hit shelves sometime next year.