Urban Reign
Stay away. Stay far, far away.
Published: September 23, 2005
What the hell happened to you, my precious beat-em-up genre? You were so damned good in the 2D days, from Streets of Rage to Final Fight to more heady arcade attempts like D&D: Shadow Over Mystara that in my opinion marked the single best beat-em-up experience there was before the advent of 3D destroyed my hopes for a solid brawler.
Okay, so technically the Tobal games were pretty awesome, and worked in 3D most of the time, but successive attempts - even by the same freakin' team - have turned out beyond poorly. Perhaps the most overhyped and disappointing of them all was The Bouncer, a game that I didn't think was that bad, but it symbolized everything that was wrong with the modern brawler; it was pretty, but vapid as all hell, and never felt as simple and solid as the 2D days.
But the genre has seen a bit of a resurgence as of late. The results haven't been especially promising (Beat Down comes to mind), but that doesn't mean we can't see some developers with more fighting chops attempting something, right? You'd think with the kind of pedigree that Namco has among fighting game fans, the combined might of the Soul Calibur III and Tekken development teams contributing, the game would be nothing short of awesome.
Instead, the experience is beyond crappy. Urban Reign plays like a $40 version of the Tekken Force Modes from earlier Tekken entries - or, perhaps more accurately, like a prettier (but just as vapid) version of the Jin: Devil Within segment from Tekken 5. All of the work that went into the combat engine is utterly wasted by ridiculously bad see-saw difficulty and enemies that can and will air juggle you death in seconds.
The game starts off promising, in a cheesy sort of classic beat-'em-up way. Brad Hawk, professional tough guy and neckless sack of punching and kicking beefcake struts into Green Harbor, a city rife with gang warfare. Striking up a deal with the mysterious Shun Ying Lee to help clean up the streets of riff-raff and smooth out the rough spots between gangs (Lee herself is the leader of a Chinatown Triad) in an effort to quell all the useless fighting, Brad happily charges off into the fray.
Okay, so technically the Tobal games were pretty awesome, and worked in 3D most of the time, but successive attempts - even by the same freakin' team - have turned out beyond poorly. Perhaps the most overhyped and disappointing of them all was The Bouncer, a game that I didn't think was that bad, but it symbolized everything that was wrong with the modern brawler; it was pretty, but vapid as all hell, and never felt as simple and solid as the 2D days.
But the genre has seen a bit of a resurgence as of late. The results haven't been especially promising (Beat Down comes to mind), but that doesn't mean we can't see some developers with more fighting chops attempting something, right? You'd think with the kind of pedigree that Namco has among fighting game fans, the combined might of the Soul Calibur III and Tekken development teams contributing, the game would be nothing short of awesome.
Instead, the experience is beyond crappy. Urban Reign plays like a $40 version of the Tekken Force Modes from earlier Tekken entries - or, perhaps more accurately, like a prettier (but just as vapid) version of the Jin: Devil Within segment from Tekken 5. All of the work that went into the combat engine is utterly wasted by ridiculously bad see-saw difficulty and enemies that can and will air juggle you death in seconds.
The game starts off promising, in a cheesy sort of classic beat-'em-up way. Brad Hawk, professional tough guy and neckless sack of punching and kicking beefcake struts into Green Harbor, a city rife with gang warfare. Striking up a deal with the mysterious Shun Ying Lee to help clean up the streets of riff-raff and smooth out the rough spots between gangs (Lee herself is the leader of a Chinatown Triad) in an effort to quell all the useless fighting, Brad happily charges off into the fray.
