Jereme Puik from GamePlasma writes:
"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."
Emergency Mayhem is a fast and frantic take on the arcade racing genre that is unfortunately let down by too much repetition, rushed design and great ideas that don't seem to have been fully explored. Inspired by the classic Crazy Taxi formula of racing fares across the city against the clock, Emergency Mayhem changes the player's role from that of taxi driver to an emergency services worker racing to save Crisis City from complete chaos. Emergency themed mini-games break up the driving action and add something a little different to the mix, but overall there are too many flaws and unrealised opportunities to make Emergency Mayhem stand out in the crowded Wii market.
PALGN writes: "Emergency Mayhem is a game that has had quite a turbulent development history. The game was originally announced for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox at E3, 2004 and was to be published and developed by Acclaim. Unfortunately, Acclaim filed for bankruptcy in Sepember 2006 and the chances of Emergency Mayhem being released seemed slim. However, in May 2007 Warner Bros. purchased the rights to publisher the game, with Codemasters developing the game. Then finally, in December 2007 Codemasters announced that they would be publishing the game, while Supersonic Software would develop the game. So, now Emergency Mayhem is finally here, in budget form in Australia, so is the game worth the wait?
Emergency Mayhem is best described as Crazy Taxi with ambulances, fire trucks and police cars; or at least that's what we think the original plan for the game was. The game is set in Crisis City and players take control of either an ambulance, fire truck or police car and drive to destinations, completing mini games and helping out the citizens of Crisis City. Whether the player chooses an ambulance, fire truck or police car is irrelevant, the objective is the same; get to the destination and complete a mini game."
Worthplaying reports:
''The year was 2000, and the Sega Dreamcast was still living large, innovating within the home console market and really shaking things up with titles like Soul Calibur and Jet Grind Radio. The racing game genre had been well and truly plumbed, with two camps generally making up the bulk of the audience; there were the specialists who wanted to tweak every little thing and gravitated toward Gran Turismo, and there were the people who just wanted to get out there and gravitated toward Ridge Racer.
Suddenly, along comes a title where crashing had no actual consequences; you could hit as many people, cars and objects as you wanted, if you didn't mind a bit of a slowdown, and this was principally because, whereas other titles had been linear and pitted you against other vehicles, the new Crazy Taxi was an exemplary example of what a free-roaming title could be. With an exceptional soundtrack and adrenaline-pumping, physics-defying maneuvers, players could suddenly become invincible tanks that took the taxicab business to a whole new level. It is a true shame that the title never really hit its stride in terms of game sales, but this hasn't stopped a few other companies from trying to follow the example that was set forth and attempt an open-world gameplay style. To date, no company has managed to assemble an offering with quite the panache of the original title, and Emergency Mayhem for the Wii is a perfect example of a valiant attempt gone horribly, horribly wrong.''
