Will the world ever see another good Namco developed game that isn't named Katamari something or other? Undaunted by the utter failure that was Death by Degrees, their solution was to create brand new characters for use in a brand new 3D brawler. Obviously the Namco guys figured that the real reason nobody liked Death by Degrees was that Nina Williams was unfit to carry a 3D brawler. News flash, Namco, NEITHER ARE YOU.
Story
You're a Brad Pitt wannabe named Brad Hawk. You're hired by some scantily clad woman in Chinatown to go and take out every street gang in the city, and their leaders. Apparently, during one sleepless night, she bolted awake in bed, and realized that the solution to the city's gang problem was obvious. She would hire one man, and he would proceed to beat up all the city's gangster denizens one small group at a time, eventually getting some of the best fighters to join his cause by constantly beating them up. It was all so simple. She immediately started clearing space on her mantle for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Gameplay
The single thing Namco appears to have learned from Death by Degrees was to never use a two analog control setup for a 3D brawler. This is good. At least there was some progress made. Your triangle button grabs enemies, your O button attacks, and Square is your dodge. X is to run...because Namco couldn't just use it for dash or sidestep or something useful.
You've got three damage zones on your character: head, torso, and legs. This is only useful to know when you're trying to decide how to dole up defense upgrades. On the enemy, you'll never really utilize any of the hit areas, unless it’s artificially mandated by the mission. For you, the player, however, it's just another little wrinkle the computer can use to cheapshot you. Good times.
After you finish the first 30 of 100 missions, you'll gain the use of a partner. I don't know if you're able to have a friend help at that point of the game, because my friend got bored of the game by Mission 9. He decided that letting me go at it by myself, and then popping in a different game would be a more enjoyable proposition. I had to review the game, so, unfortunately for me, I can't always take the intelligent way out.
Gripes
Ok, normally this section of my reviews finds a place after the graphics and audio subsections. However, this game is so extraordinarily bad, this section is going to far more relevant to a purchase decision than the visuals or sounds put together, and thus, I figured it should take prominence.
I don't mind difficult games. Einhander, R-Type Final, and DoDonPachi aren't exactly cakewalks. Def Jam: Fight For New York was challenging, and at times cheap. This game isn't challenging. It goes from cakewalk to cheesefest in back-to-back missions. There wasn't a single mission that I beat where I thought, “Man, I'm sure glad my superior skills carried the day.” The tough fights were always, “Man, I was glad I kicked the crap out of that last guy before the computer pulled some more WTF Powder out of its ass.”
The absolute worst games are ones that seem to actively hate the player for continuing to play the game. This feeling is usually manifested by the game designer and game balance team putting the game so badly that they don't realize that the player is given a set of rules and the computer AI is bound by none of said rules. Here are a few examples of what I encountered during gameplay:
Dizzied computer opponent grapples player on an attempted grapple attempt.
Dizzied computer opponent recovers much faster than a human character.
Computer starts out with a full Special Gauge.
Computer enemies outside your field of vision will slide attack you from off-screen.
Computer can “re-dizzy” human character.
Computer can throw human out of an attack.
Computer can throw human in Dodge animation.
Other computer opponents are free to damage human character while the player is being thrown.
Computer can hit player out of a Special Attack, player cannot do the same.
I can go on and on and on. When my editor asked what I thought of the game, I replied that this was the first review I was actually considering cursing in. I fought with the game through 46 of the 100 missions, and then I realized, “What the hell am I doing this for? This game isn't going to magically turn non-crappy for the last 10 missions!” and I cast it aside, never to be played again. Even if it did defy the odds and find a way to not suck for the last half of the, that would just piss me off more. Why put a game together that's absolute crap for the first half, and then decent for the second part? That's like allowing yourself you get repeatedly punched in the face just to have the endorphins kick in. Sure I could have gone all the way through it, but why bother? I had actual fun games I wanted to get back to playing.
Story Mode is the only mode that's unlocked at the beginning. I guess after you beat all 100 missions you unlock other modes of the game. I honestly can't envision anyone who isn't a reviewer thinking this game is worth going through the trouble. The game's missions, locales, and enemies repeat so quickly, I think the Story Mode of Tekken offers more story and variety. Urban Reign feels exactly like Namco took the Tekken engine, and created 100 fights with it. That's how much value is packed into this game.
The friendly AI is dumber than rock in a Special Ed class for rocks. I've had fights where I'm taking on 2 peons and a boss, while my teammate takes on a single peon, only to have the peon kill my ally without my ally taking off a quarter bar of his health. Oh, don't mind me. I like fighting 4 on 1.
Graphics
The game looks decent when you see it once, and unfortunately it looks bad by the time you get to 25 times and by 50 it’s just boring, boring, boring. By mission 30, I think I had kicked the crap out of every guy I'd seen in those missions at least 7 or 8 times...even people whose legs I had supposedly broken to “send a message”. I'd seen a total of, I believe, 6 locales by the 30th mission. Games simply don't get more assembly-line than this nowadays.
Audio
This is the game's lone bright spot. While they couldn't just reuse the models and levels from Tekken, the one thing they could re-use were the sound effects. They sound perfectly fine. The background music is kind of weak, though the voices fit sort of well.
Overall
Urban Reign is one of the worst games you could buy this year. Imagine someone took the Mission Mode out of Soul Calibur II, and sold it as a separate game for $50. That's Urban Reign. From the company who took a tech demo and charged $40 for it. I don't understand how a company that's shrewd enough to sell the brilliant Katamari Damacy for $20, and We Love Katamari for $30 is stupid enough to think that anyone would enjoy paying $50 for a waste of time like this or $40 on Pac-Pix.
