Score
Gameplay:	6
Graphics:	6
Sound:	6
FunFactor:	5
PlasmaFactor:	7
Overall:	6

Emergency Mayhem Review
May 23, 2008 by Jereme Puik

Taking place in the core of Crisis City, Emergency Mayhem tasks players with the job of saving the city from absolute peril. There are many jobs that must be performed as the police force, fire department and paramedics. With different and unique mini-games, Emergency Mayhem brings together the life lessons of saving the day one catastrophe after another. It’s up to you using the power of the Wii remote to complete the various tasks to help save the city in under different environments.

Gameplay

Browsing through the in-game menu, you first select your precinct and the service in which you will play, whether it is the paramedics, fire department or police. Emergency Mayhem has a cartoony feel to it that lets you know that all realism is thrown out of the window. Aside from reading the manual, you aren’t given any real direction to what sort of movements and direction you should expect from the different mini-games you will encounter.

There are four different precincts in the city that gamers will find themselves running around in. Within two minutes players are expected to save as many people as possible. As you fly through the streets in what seems like a weightless car, there are various stops you must make that are designated by a logo with people in need. These could range from using CPR on a citizen on the ground to connecting wires in a stop light to get traffic moving again. Of course, the people don't seemed to be bothered at all by what is going on. Traffic just seemed to drive right through the lights anyway. There are various pick-ups placed throughout the city that give you time extensions and help you drop down the mayhem meter. There are also various donuts and other kinds of refreshments for the different services that help extend your health if you find yourself bumping into a lot of cars and people.

Other tasks include defusing bombs and catching robbers escaping from a crime that you never actually notice. That is, of course, until they are in the get-away car and you must ram them into submission. You might find yourself getting frustrated at a few of these missions mostly because some of them are quite difficult no matter what difficulty you set the game on. For example, if you’re playing as the ambulance, there is a mini-game that has players fishing out a fly from a man’s body. If the fly touches the edge of the body, you fail. Players are then forced then to do the game again. These tasks waste more time on the clock that can keep players from completing other tasks.

Driving around is laughable here. The vehicles are practically weightless and the slightest bit of hitting an edge on the railing or curve, if you’re going at high speeds, will send you flying into the air possibly doing a barrel roll. Lights on the vehicle only last for a few seconds and sometimes are broken when performing the mundane task of transporting goods to the other side of the city. The lights only give you a spare few seconds to move traffic over. After these few seconds are over, driving around is much like playing bumper cars.

The controls can be rather unresponsive and difficult at times. There are moment that players will be left scratching their heads wondering exactly why a mission failed. Throughout the different precincts there are repetitive missions and it doesn’t get any better past that. If you’ve seen one garbage fire, you’ve seen them all. Now, while more of the same isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it wouldn’t be too much to ask if there was some variety besides some of the standard tasks you see.

Although it comes with a party mode, Emergency Mayhem doesn't provide the feel of actually having a party with friends. The multiplayer turns into a tournament where you and your friend just complete random mini-games without having to drive to the specific destination. Players with the highest score are the victors and it continually plays until someone eventually gives up and drops out. There is not much variety here and with no online mode it makes the experience even less fulfilling. Emergency Mayhem had the potential, if it had an online component that would let you view at least high scores and player ranks.

Does it at least Look Good?

Visually, Emergency Mayhem gets the job done with creating a detailed city to move around in and enjoy. As mentioned earlier, it is in cartoon form and you’ll find yourself thinking more about the visuals and sounds than the actual gameplay. The various department cars are nicely detailed and traffic seems to be nice and varied. Although, there are some repeating vehicles that have the same look, but with a different skin color. The only true variety of vehicles come in the form of the department cars, which the developers seemed to have focused on.

How’s it Sound?

Emergency Mayhem seems to get everything right as far as sound goes. During missions, there are moments where there are two voices playing at the same time. One voice comes from the Wiimote and the other from the TV. It would’ve been nice if there were an option to turn off the sound from your TV, so that only the sounds from the Wiimote were played or vice versa. The Wiimote is supposed to act as a two-way radio, but this effect is ruined if heard through more then one speaker.

The PlasmaFactor

Emergency Mayhem has a few hiccups here and there and doesn’t exactly give you the most fulfilling experience when it comes to saving day in Crisis City. If you can get past the repetition of the mini-games and uninspired party mode, than more power to you. Emergency Mayhem doesn’t exactly take full advantage of the power the Wiimote holds and gives you the blandest experience you can possibly imagine.

Conclusion

Although this game totes itself as being a full game, it's hard to get past the fact that it is just a simple mini-game collection that we’ve already come to know from certain Wii titles thus. There is only so much you can do to make a title like this worthwhile. There are a few missing pieces here and some tweaks could have easily made this game more enjoyable. The glaring problems make it almost impossible to keep a smooth calm attitude while playing.