Playing State of Emergency, a game that now retails for less than ten dollars preowned at your local video game store, is a lot like eating a pigeon. There’s not a whole lot of it, but what’s there is pretty good and when finished, you feel like you‘ve fulfilled some primal urge. The game, unlike anything else on the market, is in essence a riot simulator (albeit an unrealistic one) and each level is filled with hordes of civilians looting, screaming, and running every which way. The premise is that due to an economic depression and the collapse of the Federal government, an evil corporation has taken control and it’s up to you, as any of the five characters in the game, to fight back. You’ll take to the streets in four districts of what I imagine is one city during each of the game’s two modes of play. Yes, there are only two modes in State of Emergency: Chaos and Revolution.
Revolution mode takes the player through State of Emergency’s story. The game begins during a riot at the mall where you meet an operative from the group Freedom, whose purpose is to make life a living hell for the Corporation. You’ll move throughout the environment and accept missions from Freedom operatives, but the mission structure is actually quite linear. The second location in the game allows you to accept missions from four different operatives at one time, but you’re still forced to complete all the missions to progress. There are plenty of missions in the game, but they all boil down to the same thing, mowing down waves of Corporation security forces. This mode quickly becomes stale after a few hours and many of the missions are absolutely brutal in difficulty meaning you’ll be replaying them over and over until you finally get it right.
Chaos mode is not unlike what you might find in an arcade game. Your objective is to cause as much mayhem as possible be it by smashing windows or blowing up cars within the allotted time limit. Each act of destruction you commit will add points to your tally. There are five variations to this mode, three of which are unlocked from the start. To be described in a few words, Chaos mode is all about the fast paced chaos and destruction that defines the game. Odds are you’ll spend most of your time with State of Emergency playing Chaos mode which offers plenty of thrills for a short, 10-15 minute gaming session.
The gameplay in State of Emergency is on the most basic level. You're character has the ability to punch, kick, and pick up weapons from the environment. Although your physical abilities are limited and you cannot jump, weapons are in abundance and there are plenty of benches, trash cans, and boxes to be thrown. Just like the rest of the game though, it's too simplistic to sustain any kind of lasting fun so once you've gotten over the ‘wow I just killed three hundred people with the minigun’ phase, you'll most likely lose interest.
The camera control really brings State of Emergency to its knees. There are way too many times where you'll end up shooting blindly because the camera is facing toward you rather than resting over your shoulder. It requires constant readjustment throughout the game and this means taking your fingers off the buttons so crucial for fighting. There are also some serious problems with the strafe function in the game considering it works 8% of the time and even then you'll end up shooting a few feet off the target because the camera doesn't line up directly behind you. The camera system is just total garbage.
The A.I. throughout State of Emergency is just a bit above par. Every character in the game acts the part, Corporation security chase you relentlessly and beat you into the ground, civilians flee from certain doom, and gang members are wary of intruders on their turf. On occasion you'll even see things like rival gangs fighting each other or the police. There’s nothing amazing about the A.I., but it’s nice to see a game go for functionality instead of overly complex and subsequently buggy "intelligence".
Screenshots really don't do State of Emergency justice. To fully appreciate how technically impressive the game is you have to see it in motion. At any point in the game there are no less than twenty characters onscreen at once plus explosions, gunfire, breaking glass, etc. With all the action going on the frame rate never misses a beat. On the PlayStation 2 I've seen far too many games suffer because of poor frame rates including those that don't even appear to be pushing the system. Sure the character models and environments aren’t very detailed and many of the civilians look similar, but the fact that the game is able to keep up with all the mayhem is downright commendable.
State of Emergency has a cartoony appearance and the color palette is made up of mostly vibrant hues. The fact that the art style is so over-the-top is what makes me wonder why every store I go into has a big red “Check ID” sticker on copies of the game. I’m not saying that State of Emergency isn’t violent which it is, considering people bleed when shot or punched and you can beat people with severed heads, but the action seems way too zany to be considered wholly disturbing in my view. I realize that when the game came out three years ago things were a little different, but I just can’t see what all the fuss was about after games like Manhunt and Postal 2. On a side note, the gore in the game can be toggled on and off from the options menu which makes the game accessible for even the squeamish among us.
The sound in State of Emergency is strictly average. There’s very little spoken dialogue in the game and the mission briefings are strictly text based (they remind me of GTA II for some reason). The game does a decent job of conveying it’s riot setting through the ambient audio. You’ll hear shattering glass, gun blasts, and an overall roar from the crowds of people storming about. The only music comes in the form of techno beats that don’t necessarily detract or add anything to the game. Audio is just another simplistic yet functional aspect of State of Emergency.
For a game that’s three years old, State of Emergency has aged rather well. It wasn’t very good when it first came out and it’s not very good now. The gameplay, although amusing at first, is far too shallow to be interesting in the long run and you’ll end up feeling cheated even if you rent the game. However those among us looking for a chance to play urban Rambo or for riot officers in training State of Emergency is certainly the only game of it’s kind I’ve ever come across.
