State of Emergency
Vis and Rockstar's riot game is out of control, and not in that fun way.
Published: March 22, 2002
Ever since Grand Theft Auto 3 was released, the name Rockstar has become gold to gamers. They can do no wrong and everything released by them is the most amazing thing ever – or at least that's the general consensus from the dozens of kids I talked to at a couple different videogames retailers as I was thinking up the review for State of Emergency. The game is selling like mad right alongside Rockstar's other two most recent PS2 releases, Max Payne and the godly GTA3, but the problem is, it really shouldn't.
State of Emergency is as repetitive and thin a game as I've seen on the PS2, and the first 10 minutes of gameplay that are fresh quickly get swallowed up by the game's mind-numbing similarities. It's not that the game is particularly horrible, it's just ridiculously redundant, especially in Revolution mode where you literally run mission after mission that's EXACTLY the same as the one you just completed a few missions back. A game this wafer-thin on gameplay just shouldn't be doing as well as it is.
State of Emergency gained notoriety because it happened to slip into the press limelight right around the time of the Seattle WTO riots, and the game was eerily similar to some people. Screenshots and movies showed a ridiculous number of people on screen at once, and there was ample blood thrown about as a lone gunman raging against the machine finally let loose on the rampaging mob. The final version of SoE still has all this, but that's literally almost all there is. The game is a beat-em-up in the classic vein of Final Fight or Double Dragon, but just as those games were pulled along purely by their action without so much as more than a few lines of story, so too does SoE lean heavily on the combat to keep the player pinned to the screen. The problem is, gamers' tastes have changed and endless seas of people to beat up just don't have the same hook after playing games as immersive as GTA3 where there's something else to do when you tire of button mashing. The two games aren't really related, but just about everything you can do in SoE, you can do better in GTA3, and there's a definite narrative tying everything together in DMA's mobster hit.
SoE is split into two different major modes, Chaos and Revolution. Chaos is more of a free-for-all where points are the main goal with fixed- or unlimited-time variants to keep things more competitive. The regular and timed versions of Last Clone Standing charge you with the task of taking out hundreds of clones as quickly as possible. There are random missions tossed in during Chaos mode's Kaos game (confused yet?), but they're essentially the same thing as what you'll find in Revolution mode, but lacking the "story" linking them together. Revolution mode has 185 missions consisting of essentially one of five types:
-1- "Go here, get this, take it here."
-2- "Protect/Escort this person or place"
-3- "Kill this person or blow up this place"
-4- "Fetch something from a person or place you've destroyed and take it elsewhere"
-5- "Lead a group of people in an effort to accomplish one of these goals"
These missions are cycled over and over again with different targets and locales, while a "story" is supposedly unfolded. The problem is, when you repeat each objective dozens of times in an hour, it all blurs together. After doing the same type of mission 20 times, you could care less if a scientist is doing research on people because you never see it, you just find the scientist/doctor/whatever or his place of work and blow them up. There's nothing wrong with mindless violence, but it should at least keep your interest for more than ten minutes. You can kiss any motivation goodbye after running the EXACT same mission with a different target in a different part of the level for the billionth time.
SoE does offer plenty of variety in the ways you can send people to their maker, with weapons ranging from melee (billy clubs, swords, chairs, benches, signs, etc.) to projectile (uzis, assault rifles, shotguns) to explosives (grenades and grenade launchers, molotov cocktails, rocket launchers), and all of them do a fantastic job of sating that need for a little carnage, with most impacts kicking up a good spray of blood. The three unlockable characters; tubby Hispanic ex-gangbanger Spanky, 1337 and pencil-thing hacker Freak and ex-football walking tank Bull round out an aesthetically diverse cast of brawlers (along with the instantly selectable Hawaiian shirt-clad ex cop Mack or stiletto heeled Libra), though they don't really play very differently.
It's admittedly impressive to see hundreds of people running around randomly, going about looting or just generally adding to the mob's massive numbers, but after a while, the novelty gets old. The characters themselves are understandably low-poly and don't' boast staggering animations, though perfectly rendered models aren't really all that important a requirement in a game like this; you'd never really get to appreciate them with all the action going on on-screen. The levels are large, but don't offer much in the way of interesting details, since most of the storefronts feel pretty much the same. The environments are slightly destructible, reflecting structural changes on some buildings when you lob a grenade or shoot a rocket into them, but bodies you shoot up don't stick around all over the level.
The music is incredibly tame, and often goes unnoticed, which may be a good thing considering most of it is made up of forgettable drum loops and random guitar chords. The characters themselves don't speak other than when you first pick them, but reactions from the crowd after you spray bullets into them or the cries from soldiers moving in to take you out are well-done. The news reports that serve as intros for the characters and levels show great production value and add the tiniest bit of depth to the world.
State of Emergency is the quintessential rental. It's good, mindless fun for a few minutes, but the impression you get about a half hour into the game will carry through no matter how many hours you pour into the game beyond that. Do yourself a favor and round up a couple friends, grab some beers (if you're of age, kids), and enjoy SoE for the brief period it stays fresh. After that, there's no reason to hang onto it.
State of Emergency is as repetitive and thin a game as I've seen on the PS2, and the first 10 minutes of gameplay that are fresh quickly get swallowed up by the game's mind-numbing similarities. It's not that the game is particularly horrible, it's just ridiculously redundant, especially in Revolution mode where you literally run mission after mission that's EXACTLY the same as the one you just completed a few missions back. A game this wafer-thin on gameplay just shouldn't be doing as well as it is.
State of Emergency gained notoriety because it happened to slip into the press limelight right around the time of the Seattle WTO riots, and the game was eerily similar to some people. Screenshots and movies showed a ridiculous number of people on screen at once, and there was ample blood thrown about as a lone gunman raging against the machine finally let loose on the rampaging mob. The final version of SoE still has all this, but that's literally almost all there is. The game is a beat-em-up in the classic vein of Final Fight or Double Dragon, but just as those games were pulled along purely by their action without so much as more than a few lines of story, so too does SoE lean heavily on the combat to keep the player pinned to the screen. The problem is, gamers' tastes have changed and endless seas of people to beat up just don't have the same hook after playing games as immersive as GTA3 where there's something else to do when you tire of button mashing. The two games aren't really related, but just about everything you can do in SoE, you can do better in GTA3, and there's a definite narrative tying everything together in DMA's mobster hit.
SoE is split into two different major modes, Chaos and Revolution. Chaos is more of a free-for-all where points are the main goal with fixed- or unlimited-time variants to keep things more competitive. The regular and timed versions of Last Clone Standing charge you with the task of taking out hundreds of clones as quickly as possible. There are random missions tossed in during Chaos mode's Kaos game (confused yet?), but they're essentially the same thing as what you'll find in Revolution mode, but lacking the "story" linking them together. Revolution mode has 185 missions consisting of essentially one of five types:
-1- "Go here, get this, take it here."
-2- "Protect/Escort this person or place"
-3- "Kill this person or blow up this place"
-4- "Fetch something from a person or place you've destroyed and take it elsewhere"
-5- "Lead a group of people in an effort to accomplish one of these goals"
These missions are cycled over and over again with different targets and locales, while a "story" is supposedly unfolded. The problem is, when you repeat each objective dozens of times in an hour, it all blurs together. After doing the same type of mission 20 times, you could care less if a scientist is doing research on people because you never see it, you just find the scientist/doctor/whatever or his place of work and blow them up. There's nothing wrong with mindless violence, but it should at least keep your interest for more than ten minutes. You can kiss any motivation goodbye after running the EXACT same mission with a different target in a different part of the level for the billionth time.
SoE does offer plenty of variety in the ways you can send people to their maker, with weapons ranging from melee (billy clubs, swords, chairs, benches, signs, etc.) to projectile (uzis, assault rifles, shotguns) to explosives (grenades and grenade launchers, molotov cocktails, rocket launchers), and all of them do a fantastic job of sating that need for a little carnage, with most impacts kicking up a good spray of blood. The three unlockable characters; tubby Hispanic ex-gangbanger Spanky, 1337 and pencil-thing hacker Freak and ex-football walking tank Bull round out an aesthetically diverse cast of brawlers (along with the instantly selectable Hawaiian shirt-clad ex cop Mack or stiletto heeled Libra), though they don't really play very differently.
It's admittedly impressive to see hundreds of people running around randomly, going about looting or just generally adding to the mob's massive numbers, but after a while, the novelty gets old. The characters themselves are understandably low-poly and don't' boast staggering animations, though perfectly rendered models aren't really all that important a requirement in a game like this; you'd never really get to appreciate them with all the action going on on-screen. The levels are large, but don't offer much in the way of interesting details, since most of the storefronts feel pretty much the same. The environments are slightly destructible, reflecting structural changes on some buildings when you lob a grenade or shoot a rocket into them, but bodies you shoot up don't stick around all over the level.
The music is incredibly tame, and often goes unnoticed, which may be a good thing considering most of it is made up of forgettable drum loops and random guitar chords. The characters themselves don't speak other than when you first pick them, but reactions from the crowd after you spray bullets into them or the cries from soldiers moving in to take you out are well-done. The news reports that serve as intros for the characters and levels show great production value and add the tiniest bit of depth to the world.
State of Emergency is the quintessential rental. It's good, mindless fun for a few minutes, but the impression you get about a half hour into the game will carry through no matter how many hours you pour into the game beyond that. Do yourself a favor and round up a couple friends, grab some beers (if you're of age, kids), and enjoy SoE for the brief period it stays fresh. After that, there's no reason to hang onto it.
