Police Drive

A driving game from the police side of a pursuit, which is a different problem from the one chase games usually pose. You are dispatched to a location, you have to get there through traffic, and then you have to catch something that is actively trying not to be caught — so the driving is about interception rather than outright speed. That makes route knowledge the main skill. Chasing directly behind a fleeing car is the slowest way to catch it; cutting across the block it is heading toward is the fast way, and doing that requires knowing the city well enough to predict where a road leads. Traffic is a constant obstacle for both sides and the game does not clear it for you, which keeps the pursuits messy in a way that feels right. The handling is arcade with enough weight to make collisions cost something, and the city is large and varied enough to support the routing the game asks for. Missions are a few minutes each with a progression of vehicles and call types behind them. It plays with a keyboard or on-screen controls and needs a moderately capable machine for a smooth frame rate.