State Of Emergency Review

With GTA3 Rockstar Games raised the bar of acceptable violence and adult
themed video game content, their latest game State of Emergency takes that bar
and bludgeons it across gamerâs heads. SoE plays like an old-school beat-em-up
ala Streets of Rage and Final Fight, a genre that has had a hard time adjusting
to the demands of the next generation. SoE takes this genre and expands upon it
to create perhaps the first acceptable beat-em-up weâve seen in years.

State of Emergency pits you as a fighter in the Freedom Movement, a group
opposed to the way the world is controlled by The Corporation's authoritarian
regime. Selecting from a variety of different characters you progress through a
variety of different missions, whilst causing as much havoc as possible.

SoE is divided into two main parts; Revolution and Chaos. Revolution follows
a story and pits you with a variety of different missions, ranging from
straightforward attacks to escorting important people. Starting off in the
Capitol City Mall, new locations such as ChinaTown, Eastside, and Corporation
Central will open up as you progress through the game.

Unfortunately Revolution soon becomes tiring, as you plod through repetitive
mission after mission, the game becomes frustrating in that âdie quick and
have to repeatâ old-school way. The story is nowhere near as well scripted as
that in GTA3, so the urge to progress eventually dwindles as the novelty of
smashing shop windows and spraying an uzi clip into a crowd declines. As youâd
expect the gameplay is simple, a number of moves are accessible from two buttons
whilst another performs a 360 move, ideal for when youâre getting pummelled by
a group of militant soldiers.

There is a wide selection of guns to pick up which helps to add some variety,
expect to see the likes of swords, pistols, Uziâs, AK 47 Kalashnikov,
shotguns, M16 Assault Rifles, mini-Guns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers,
tear gas launchers, flame-throwers, grenades, Molotov Cocktails, tazerâs and
pepper sprays. These weapons are in limited supply so when youâve run out you
can always pick up the occasional bit of street furniture to wrap around someoneâs
head, speaking of heads disembodied limbs act as weapons as well! If the games
premise alone didnât warrant the adult rating, this feature must have sent the
ratings board into a fit, SoE is definitely an adult game and one your granma
wouldnât be too impressed to seeing you playingâ¦

Fortunately the games saving grace is in the Chaos mode, a Crazy Taxi styled
mode where the objective is to score as many points in a limited time. Whilst
playing the narrator will set different tasks for you to perform and score big
points, such as âsmash windows for multiplyersâ, these will boost your score
however youâll have to watch out for innocent civilians as killing these
deducts points from your score.

The Chaos mode is addictive in the way that Crazy Taxi is and other score
based games are, itâs chaotic as youâre running around trying to beat the
top scores, open up the new locations and causing as much havoc as possible.

SoE has been developed for the PS2 from the ground-up, using a proprietary
graphics engine that makes excellent use of the PS2âs powerful Vector Unit to
throw around as many as 250 characters on-screen at once! In this aspect nothing has ever been done like this before, players will truly
feel that they are taking place in a huge and chaotic riot. This and the games
Chaos mode are what helps to lift this stale genre into the next generation.
Every character responds to different AI paths, so youâll see them breaking
into shops or quaking in fear as you launch a missile into their vicinity.

Unfortunately this aspect is wasted, originally SoE was going to be heavily
tactical as you built up a mob that followed you and caused chaos alongside you.
That whole element has been removed, leaving the characters as simple mindless
cannon-fodder with no real need for their complicated AI routines. Itâs a
shame that the tactical/strategy side was dropped as it would have added some
much needed depth to the gameplay, especially as most of the work seemed to have
been done.

Visually the game takes on a rather humorous appearance; the style is very
much caricatured with a comic-book appearance. Textures are simply detailed but
in the context of things work well, the sense is that everything gels together
and creates a believable and chaotic game world.