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IGN Review of Jake Power: Policeman
Career Day must have been confusing for Jake Power. He's the newest video game hero to come to Nintendo's DS courtesy of Ubisoft, but it seems he just can't decide what job he wants to have when he grows up -- so, to compromise, he's just going to try them all. Up first? Two traditional selections for young boys looking to their futures -- being a police officer, and being a firefighter.
Jake Power: Policeman has shipped to stores alongside separate product Jake Power: Fireman, and this edition focuses on our hero's exploits in investigating crimes, driving bright blue police cruisers and rescuing the populace from a band of 40,000 thieves. The game design is essentially a mini-game collection, containing brief activities representing those, and other, peacekeeping tasks, and tying them all together with a mission structure and ongoing storyline.
It's an engaging and energetic design right from the start, as Jake's police station chief gives him the dispatch for the latest emergency situation and he bursts out of the garage right away, behind the wheel of his police car. This racing mini-game kicks off every mission, as Jake rushes through the streets of the city dodging traffic, weaving from lane to lane to hit speed-boosting arrow strips on the pavement and sounding his siren to get citizens to swerve their cars out of his way.
On arrival at the source of the current distress call, Jake's lizard-like sidekick Dino assesses the situation and then displays what other mini-games you're going to have to play, and in what order. There are several different ones, most of which employ the touch screen in some way. There's ladder-climbing, which involves tapping and dragging hand icons on the screen. There's opening locked safes, which involves spinning the stylus in fast circles. And there's shining the light on criminals lurking in the shadows, which involves tapping on thieves as soon as they appear on screen to "catch" them with Jake's flashlight.
It's a good mix of different styles. And, on top of all that, there's a reward structure put in place for superior performance -- if you manage to complete any individual task fast enough, you earn a star. And if you earn a star on every phase of a single mission, a new vehicle upgrade is unlocked back at the police station garage -- you can trick out your ride with better sirens, flashier flashing lights, stronger bumpers, better wheels and more. You can even unlock completely different vehicles, as you'll start out with just a small car but can ultimately earn access to a huge, muscular squad car that'll make anyone else on the road think twice about staying in your lane as you race to your next mission.
Overall, Jake Power: Policeman offers a solid crimefighting adventure. But this package isn't without its drawbacks, as there are a few elements included here that could cause frustration for younger gamers.
The first is the challenge factor. Jake's tasks start out simply, with the first two or three missions being pretty easy to clear without much trouble. Later levels, though, can be particularly difficult -- as you're given less time to complete each phase of a mission, and even the slightest misstep (or mistouch with the stylus) is enough to ruin your chances at earning a star.
The second is the length. Jake Power only gets about a dozen missions as police officer before it's the end of the road in that job, and though you can go back to replay completed missions as often as you want, it's still a fairly abrupt end to the overall narrative. It would have been nice to see a greater number of missions, or a second chapter's worth of plot. Or even just a menu to be able to select the individual mini-games on their own, instead of always having to be inside a mission to play some of them.
And, finally, is the extreme similarity of this release to its counterpart, Jake Power: Fireman. The two games are identical in many aspects, really only about as different from one another as Pokemon Diamond is from Pokemon Pearl -- they're just two different coats of paint on the same product. (So much so that you'll find this same review applied to it as well.) So if you or the young gamer you'd be buying this for has already played the Fireman version through to completion, he might be disappointed to find that there isn't much new content to discover even when Jake's wearing officer blue instead of firefighter red.
©2009-03-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Jake Power: Policeman has shipped to stores alongside separate product Jake Power: Fireman, and this edition focuses on our hero's exploits in investigating crimes, driving bright blue police cruisers and rescuing the populace from a band of 40,000 thieves. The game design is essentially a mini-game collection, containing brief activities representing those, and other, peacekeeping tasks, and tying them all together with a mission structure and ongoing storyline.
It's an engaging and energetic design right from the start, as Jake's police station chief gives him the dispatch for the latest emergency situation and he bursts out of the garage right away, behind the wheel of his police car. This racing mini-game kicks off every mission, as Jake rushes through the streets of the city dodging traffic, weaving from lane to lane to hit speed-boosting arrow strips on the pavement and sounding his siren to get citizens to swerve their cars out of his way.
On arrival at the source of the current distress call, Jake's lizard-like sidekick Dino assesses the situation and then displays what other mini-games you're going to have to play, and in what order. There are several different ones, most of which employ the touch screen in some way. There's ladder-climbing, which involves tapping and dragging hand icons on the screen. There's opening locked safes, which involves spinning the stylus in fast circles. And there's shining the light on criminals lurking in the shadows, which involves tapping on thieves as soon as they appear on screen to "catch" them with Jake's flashlight.
It's a good mix of different styles. And, on top of all that, there's a reward structure put in place for superior performance -- if you manage to complete any individual task fast enough, you earn a star. And if you earn a star on every phase of a single mission, a new vehicle upgrade is unlocked back at the police station garage -- you can trick out your ride with better sirens, flashier flashing lights, stronger bumpers, better wheels and more. You can even unlock completely different vehicles, as you'll start out with just a small car but can ultimately earn access to a huge, muscular squad car that'll make anyone else on the road think twice about staying in your lane as you race to your next mission.
Overall, Jake Power: Policeman offers a solid crimefighting adventure. But this package isn't without its drawbacks, as there are a few elements included here that could cause frustration for younger gamers.
The first is the challenge factor. Jake's tasks start out simply, with the first two or three missions being pretty easy to clear without much trouble. Later levels, though, can be particularly difficult -- as you're given less time to complete each phase of a mission, and even the slightest misstep (or mistouch with the stylus) is enough to ruin your chances at earning a star.
The second is the length. Jake Power only gets about a dozen missions as police officer before it's the end of the road in that job, and though you can go back to replay completed missions as often as you want, it's still a fairly abrupt end to the overall narrative. It would have been nice to see a greater number of missions, or a second chapter's worth of plot. Or even just a menu to be able to select the individual mini-games on their own, instead of always having to be inside a mission to play some of them.
And, finally, is the extreme similarity of this release to its counterpart, Jake Power: Fireman. The two games are identical in many aspects, really only about as different from one another as Pokemon Diamond is from Pokemon Pearl -- they're just two different coats of paint on the same product. (So much so that you'll find this same review applied to it as well.) So if you or the young gamer you'd be buying this for has already played the Fireman version through to completion, he might be disappointed to find that there isn't much new content to discover even when Jake's wearing officer blue instead of firefighter red.
©2009-03-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved